Deal Scenarios

What it is

A deal scenario is the kind of deal being made. It decides what the talent gives, who publishes the result, which terms matter, and how the money moves.

There are seven:

Each one was built by reading between 37 and 116 real agreements, templates and guides for that kind of work (55 for sync licensing). The first six are used everywhere else in Zooly: a brief is matched to one, a suggested price is worked out for one, and a deal room runs on one. See Offer pricing.

Each one is mirrored

Every deal type carries the same sections for both sides, in the same order: what is asked once and saved, what is asked on every deal, what is asked only when something triggers it, the traps, the defaults, and the deal mechanics. The brand's agent and the talent's agent read the same playbook, each from its own side. Nothing assumes the brand goes first. A brand can open a deal with a brief, a talent can ask Z to find brands, and Zooly can propose a deal itself, in which case both sides are asked before anyone is introduced.

What is asked once and saved

Some answers belong to the person, not to the deal. They are asked once, saved on the profile, and reused:

• Talent: standing rates by deliverable, the categories they refuse, their standing red lines, current exclusivities, how much they want to approve, and what AI may and may not do with their face and voice.
• Brand: who signs and pays, the legal entity that signs, where notices go, which brands or affiliates are covered, and the law and venue their legal team needs.

A saved answer is not asked again; if a deal needs a fact the profile does not hold, it is asked then and saved. Talent also pick an approval level once: approve every asset, let their own screen check it against their red lines and only see what fails, or skip approval while the platform's baseline screen still runs.

What is asked on every deal

Each side gets at most ten questions, the ones that matter most for this deal type and size, most common first. They cover the work itself:

• how many deliverables, on which platforms, in what format and how long
• the fee, when it goes live, and how long it stays up
• for a podcast: how many episodes, where in the episode the read sits, how long the read is, and whether the read is baked into the file

The brand's brief chat is shorter. It asks at most nine questions: what is being promoted, who they want to work with, when it should run, the budget, and up to five more about the work. Legal and payment details are left to the agents in the deal room rather than put to the brand in chat.

What is asked only when it is triggered

Other terms are asked only if the deal actually raises them:

• exclusivity, and for how long
• reposting the talent's post on the brand's own channels
• raw footage the brand wants to recut
• paid usage or whitelisting with a large ad budget
• a promo code, a physical product to ship, or insurance for a large deal
• a minor, a student athlete, or a union member

Traps, raised to the side they hurt

A trap is a term that looks standard and quietly moves money or rights. Z raises it to the side it hurts, in plain words, with the reason it matters in this deal. Each agent raises at most eight, most common first. Examples:

• Perpetual usage hidden in a small-fee template: hurts the talent.
• Work made for hire or a full assignment: hands the talent's future rights to the brand.
• A broad right to edit and create derivative works: lets the brand recut the talent saying things they never said.
• Allowlisting that lets the brand write ads in the talent's voice the talent never saw.
• Approval by silence: a missed email counts as a yes, so a deadline decides for whoever did not answer. Raised to both sides, because either can lose by it.
• Music from a trending-sound library used in a sponsored video: those licences are personal, not commercial, and paid usage changes what has to be cleared. Hurts both.
• An editorial photo of a famous person reused in an ad without a commercial licence and the person's consent. Hurts the brand.

Defaults, and what is settled for both

Defaults are pre-filled into the deal and shown in the summary, and either side can change them. They are the market's usual answer, not Zooly's opinion. For a sponsored post that means one or two revision rounds, a posting window, a minimum stay-up period, a kill fee that steps up as the work progresses, and a limited licence with the talent keeping copyright.

A few things are never asked and never discussed, because the market or the law already settles them: paid-partnership disclosure spoken and on screen rather than buried in a caption, honest opinion and no invented testimonials, and the brand's claims being its own to substantiate. Each appears in the agreement as a settled term, not as a question.

How the money moves

Every deal type carries a short menu of mechanics, the most common one first, each with what real agreements do in their own numbers:

• Payment schedule: how much up front, how much on delivery, or installments.
• Payment trigger: what releases payment, approval, publication, the air date.
• Proof: the evidence required before money moves, a live link, screenshots, an aircheck, a report.
• Pricing model: flat fee, CPM, commission or a hybrid.
• Kill fee: what is owed if the deal is cancelled at each stage.
• Performance bonus: extra pay when results beat a target.
• Paid usage or whitelisting: priced as its own line, not folded into the fee.
• Makegoods: a free extra delivery when a guarantee is missed.
• Renewals: holding fees, and what it costs to extend the usage window.
• Late payment and rights on payment: interest for a late payer, the right to pause work, and rights that pass only when the money is paid in full.

Four rules sit above all of them, whatever the research says, and both sides see every mechanic in plain words, including what the other side gives up:

• Zooly never fronts money. A deal is real only when the brand pays.
• Any money promised up front is funded by the brand into escrow at signing, and the talent starts work only after the funding is confirmed.
• Money leaves escrow only against the proof the agreement names.
• Earned fees stay earned. A later dispute can only touch money that has not been earned yet.

AI-made, human-made, or both

Every deal states, for each deliverable, whether it is shot by the talent, generated with AI, or a mix of both. That changes several terms, so the playbook carries a note on each one:

• Hybrid content has to say which parts may be AI (background, product shots, captions, translation) and which may not be (face, voice) without a separate yes.
• A talent never approves an AI output of their face or voice by silence, and a replica's conduct is not the talent's own.
• Human content is never used to train or clone. AI content may only use the replica the talent approved, for the deliverables agreed.

When nobody has said how the content is made, both sets of terms stay in rather than guessing.

Deal size

Terms are raised only when they matter at that size:

• Small: under about $2,000, one deliverable.
• Mid: about $2,000 to $25,000, several deliverables or paid usage.
• Large: a celebrity, TV or broadcast, several months, exclusivity, or $25,000 and up.

A small deal is not asked about insurance or holding fees. A large one is. When the size is not known, the middle band is used.

How a brief becomes a deal type

Two questions, in order: what is the talent giving (a read inside their own show, a still image, moving image with or without sound, or voice only), and who publishes it (the talent's own accounts, the brand's channels, or both). Then whether it is AI or real.

Overlap is one deal, never two. A video that also needs stills is the video type with stills added. A brand that also reuses the talent's post is the talent-post type with brand usage added. A produced audio spot with a podcast host's voice, placed on other shows or radio, is the voice type, even though it came up inside a podcast conversation. So is any AI version of a host's voice, even inside their own show. A brand that only wants a quote or an endorsement line becomes a name-only asset flagged for review.

If the signals point to two types, the rule is to ask exactly one question that separates them. If that still does not settle it, the broader type is chosen and the extra terms are collected, so a right is never missed by guessing narrow.

In the deal room

When a brief opens a deal, the room is stamped with its deal type and each side's agent reads the playbook for its own side: the brand's agent one way, the talent's agent the other, same sections. The brand's words are the first message, so the talent's agent answers the brief directly. One deal record is opened for the room, so the price path and every step are recorded from the first exchange. See Deal record.

Sync licensing

In a sync deal the talent side is not one person. It is every rights holder in the song: the label or artist that owns the master (the recording), and every publisher and writer that owns a share of the composition. Either side can open it: a brand with a brief such as "EA Music needs 'SONG' for the main menu of a new sports game, worldwide, in perpetuity, in-game plus trailers and streamer clearance, all-in budget $60,000", or a label, publisher or writer pitching a song.

Z recognizes it from words like sync, sync license, license this song, master use, needle drop, "we need this song", or a Spotify or YouTube link next to a use (a game, trailer, ad or event). Its neighbors go elsewhere:

• A clone of the singer's voice is a voice deal.
• The artist on camera is a video deal.
• A newly commissioned original score is not a deal type yet.
• An AI-generated soundalike of a real song or artist is held for review and never priced.

How the deal works:

• Two licenses, one deal: a master use license from the recording owner and a sync license from the composition owners.
• Most favored nations (MFN): the master and the publishing side are paid on equal terms. If one side gets more, the other is raised to match.
• Split by share: the publishing fee is divided by each publisher's share of the composition.
• Everyone must accept: the song is cleared only when 100% of the master and 100% of the composition say yes to the same terms. One no means a different song.
• Performance royalties stay separate. The sync fee never replaces what writers earn through ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or PRS.

Trailers, streamer and creator clearance, DLC and sequels, edits, and a soundtrack release are add-ons to the same deal, never a second one. Rights holders are asked once about the shares they control, their rate card, their MFN policy, writer and artist approvals, uses they refuse, and their AI policy. Brands are asked once about their standard media, territory and term, streamer policy, and who files cue sheets.

Adding or changing the seven in admin

The Scenarios page in admin lists every deal type with a status: draft, active or disabled. + Add research-built scenarios (drafts) adds all seven as drafts, after a confirmation that says nothing goes live until someone publishes each one.

• Publishing a draft makes it active. The version that was active becomes disabled but stays readable.
• A published version is never edited. To change a live deal type, copy it, edit the copy, and publish that.
• Disabling a type stops it being chosen for new deals. Deals already running on it still load it.
• Pressing add twice does not pile up drafts. A deal type that already has a library draft waiting is skipped.

What it does not do yet

• Appearances and merch are not deal types. A brief that asks for one is set aside rather than given terms Zooly has not researched.
• Mixed briefs are not asked the separating question in the app yet. The rule exists and is checked against sample briefs, but the live brief reader picks the type it judges closest without stopping to ask.
• The talent's questions are asked in the deal room, not before it. Only the brand runs a question-led chat; the talent's agent puts the questions in the room itself.

Related Documentation

• Deal seeding, how Zooly proposes a deal from the first six
• Offer pricing, the suggested price for each deal type
• Deal record, the story of each deal
• Matching, how the talent for a deal is found