Paid partnerships

Paid partnerships are the highest-leverage channel in Hermes and the easiest to run badly. The difference is whether each deal moves through a defined lifecycle with money tied to delivery and revenue tied back to the post. Hermes runs every partnership as a tracked workflow, from the first creator you shortlist to the blended ROAS you report at the end of the quarter.

The partnership lifecycle#

Every paid deal follows the same five stages. Each stage produces a record, so a partnership is never a Slack thread and a spreadsheet that disagree. You always know which creators are briefed, contracted, posted, and paid.

1. 01

   Discover

   Search the creator graph by audience, niche, geography, and historical performance. Shortlist directly into a campaign instead of exporting lists.

2. 02

   Outreach

   Reach out at scale with sequences personalised to each creator. Replies pull them out of the sequence and into your inbox, so no one is chased twice.

3. 03

   Brief

   Send a structured brief with deliverables, usage rights, timing, and creative guardrails. Creators accept or counter inside the platform.

4. 04

   Contract

   Generate a contract from the agreed terms. Rate, deliverables, and exclusivity windows are locked before any product or money moves.

5. 05

   Pay

   Schedule payment against the contract. Funds release automatically on verified post, so creators are paid on delivery and you never pay for content that never shipped.

6. 06

   Measure

   Attribute orders to the post through tracked codes and links, then roll the spend and revenue into blended ROAS across the channel.

Payment released on post#

The payment step is where most teams lose money. Hermes holds scheduled payment against the contract and releases it only when the deliverable is verified live. You commit budget with confidence, creators get a clear payout trigger, and finance gets a clean record of what was earned for what was paid.

What good looks like#

Run paid partnerships as a managed channel and the numbers stop being anecdotes. Spend, posts, and attributed revenue sit in one ledger, which means you can compare a partnership against your paid social line item with the same rigor.