Harney & Sons, creator engine

Ten creators, one cup at a time

A first roster of ten creators for Harney & Sons: tea people who show the tin, the sachet and the cup, seven videos a week each.

creators live by week six: 10
creator videos a month at the full roster: 303
weeks from the first creator to the full roster: 5

Holiday Duo Gift, unboxed

A creator opens the classic red logo box, brews one sachet of White Christmas into one 12 oz. cup, and says which tin she reaches for first.

Illustrative post

Part 1 of 15

The short version

Creator engine summary
Roster	Ten creators, two added a week	Six weeks from zero live to a full roster of ten. Tea people first, creators second.
Who	Tea drinkers who already brew at home	Six personas, from gift givers to matcha beginners, each matched to one Harney & Sons product.
Production	Seven videos per creator per week	At ten creators that is 303 videos a month, cut from five formats.
Pay	Starter $300, Standard $500, Premium $800 base	Caps are $600, $1,000 and $1,500. The cap is the most a creator earns in a month.
Bonus	$50 flat past 100,000 views	One per creator per month, organic views only. At the cap: $300, $500 or $700 by band.
Compliance	Claims sheet and category rule on every video	Creators quote literal lines, such as: Each sachet brews one 12 oz. cup of tea. Nothing else about the tea.
Rule for the category	No health claims, ever	Wellness Brews and The Hemp Division need written brand sign-off before any creator touches them.
Goal	$1 per 1,000 views	The one number to protect. The simulator starts at $5.74, so the gap is on screen from day one.
Report	Every Monday	Cost per 1,000 views, results by format, losers killed, winners sent to paid.
Decision	A yes on the claims sheet and a $15,000 ceiling	Plus one brand-side lead who answers in the workspace. I run the rest.

Part 1 of 15, continued

The program in numbers

Creators live at full roster: 10; Proposed
Videos per creator per week: 7; Proposed
Creator videos a month: 303; Calculated
Base pay per creator: $1,000; Proposed
Bonus past 100,000 views: $50; Proposed
Bonus at the top cap of the highest band: $700; Calculated
Program cost a month, bonuses included: $10,050; Calculated
Views a month at the assumptions: 1.8M; Calculated
Cost per 1,000 views: $5.74; Calculated
Target cost per 1,000 views: $1; Proposed

Part 2 of 15

Why I can run this

Former COO of Tabs. I built its creator program to 100M monthly social impressions, and the paid ad engine alongside it. The numbers below come from videos that program produced.

At Tabs I built the creator program to 100M monthly social impressions, with the paid ad engine alongside it. Same playbook here: a small paid roster, tight briefs, losers killed early, winners turned into ads. The category is different. I have not run tea or beverages before, so the claims sheet and category rules carry what my experience cannot.

monthly social impressions at Tabs: 100M+
views on one reel: 17.7M
views on one video: 8M
views on one video: 6.5M

Part 3 of 15

Why now

over 300
A wide menu to match creators to
The home page says over 300 tea blends. That is room to give each creator one blend and one angle, instead of ten people reading the same script.
Published
14058
Reviews already on the page
A count of 14058 reviews shows on a page I read. People are already talking about the tea; creators put a face and a cup next to it.
Published
87
Holiday Duo Gift: 4.85 from 87 reviews
Two tins, 30 sachets each, in the classic red logo box. A gift with a rating that high is an easy unboxing for a creator to open.
Published
$59+
Free shipping gives the offer line
Free Shipping on Orders $59+ is a clean line for a creator to end on. A Holiday Duo Gift at $33.95 plus one more tin crosses it.
Published

Part 4 of 15

Principles and work channel

One variable per test
Each week, one thing changes: the hook, the product, or the opening shot. Tin or cup first on the Holiday Duo Gift? We find out by changing only that.
One number to protect
Cost per 1,000 views, target $1. The simulator opens at $5.74, so I show the gap and shrink it with hooks, not with higher pay.
Losers killed early
Ten creators at seven videos a week gives 303 videos a month. Weak hooks go in the first week. The hook library keeps every one that worked.
One workspace, five channels
Briefs, claims questions, drafts, reports and winners live in one place. A creator never has to guess whether a line is allowed.

Part 4 of 15, continued

One channel for everything

#briefs

Briefs, drafts, reviews and the weekly numbers

Illustrative

PriyaMon 8:30 AM
This week: Holiday Duo Gift. Open the red logo box, brew one sachet of White Christmas, say which tin you reach for first. One hook per video, three hooks in all.
JordanTue 10:15 AM
Can I say the Chamomile Trio helps me sleep? A lot of my followers ask.
No. Stay on the sheet: each sachet brews one 12 oz. cup of tea. Show the ritual and leave the outcome out.
Weekly botAppMon 9:00 AM
Report is ready: ten creators live, seven videos each, cost per 1,000 views against the $1 target. Losers listed first, winners flagged for paid.
PriyaWed 2:40 PM
Draft sent back: the tin shows up too late. Open on the tin, then pour. Reshoot only the first beat and keep the rest.
MarcusFri 6:05 PM
The Pumpkin Spice bag clip just passed 100,000 views. All organic.
Flagged for the $50 flat bonus. One per creator per month, so this is yours. Sending it to paid review.
Check botAppThu 11:20 AM
Claims check on the draft: lines match the sheet, no health wording found, category rule passed. Cleared to post.

The messages illustrate the working channel, with invented people: briefs go out on Monday, claims questions get an answer the same day, and nothing posts without the check.

Part 5 of 15

Five formats

Brief 01
Bag of 50 tear-open
“This is the bag of 50 that gets me through fall.”
Overhead on a table. Tear the top, count sachets aloud, brew one in a 12 oz. cup. One take, natural light.
Brief 02
Morning cup
“My whole morning is one sachet and one cup.”
Kitchen counter, kettle in frame. English Breakfast steeps while the creator talks through the routine, cup in hand at the end.
Brief 03
Stock-up shelf
“Three bags of 50 sachets and I'm set for the cold months.”
Line the three bags on a shelf, pick one, brew one. End on the full shelf and the free shipping line.
Brief 04
Iced and ready
“Iced tea, straight from the bottle. No brewing.”
Outdoor or porch shot. Pour over ice, pause on the label, one sip to camera. Keep the label readable.
Brief 05
Jasmine pour
“Jasmine in a bag of 50. Watch the cup fill.”
Close on the cup, sachet dropping in, steam rising. Slow macro, no talking for the first beat, voiceover after.

Every product line in a video comes off the claims sheet word for word, for example “Each sachet brews one 12 oz. cup of tea.”, “Every tin is refillable from our Bags of 50”, “Free Shipping on Orders $59+”. Product names are said as printed.

Part 6 of 15

Recruiting

Four sources in

Tea people already on social
Creators who already post a morning cup, a gift unboxing or a tea shelf. They know the product, so the briefing is short.
Gift-season creators
Holiday Duo Gift sits at $33.95 with a rating of 4.85. Gift-guide and hosting creators are the first people to pitch it to.
Customers who already review
The site shows large review counts. Reviewers who also post video are warm candidates, asked once and never pushed.
Affiliate or ambassador page
I did not find an affiliate or ambassador page on the site. There is no ready list, so recruiting starts from scratch.

Five filters, fewer each step

1Drinks tea on camera
Shows real cups in earlier posts, not a one-off product plug.
2Hook discipline
Opens with the thing in the first beat, before the intro.
3Clean audio and light
Phone footage is fine. Muffled sound or a dark kitchen is not.
4No health-claim history
Earlier posts do not promise outcomes from what they drink.
5Takes a claims sheet
Works inside literal lines and accepts a draft sent back.

Part 7 of 15

Who we hire, who we never hire

Holiday gift giver
Builds gift guides and hosts. Opens a red logo box on camera and talks through who it is for.
Likely product: Holiday Duo Gift
Matcha beginner
Learning to whisk and happy to show the first messy attempts. Teaches while the viewer follows.
Likely product: Organic Ceremonial Grade Matcha Starter Kit
Evening ritual maker
Winds down with a cup and shows the routine only. No outcome promised, no claims.
Likely product: Chamomile Trio – 3 Bags of 50 Sachets
Seasonal flavor fan
Posts autumn rituals and bakes. Pumpkin Spice sits next to the oven in every clip.
Likely product: Pumpkin Spice, Bag of 50 Sachets
Tea-curious coffee drinker
Moves from coffee to tea and tries a green, a sencha and a jasmine on video.
Likely product: The Green Tea Trio
Variety explorer
Tastes through nine blends and rates each one. Lots of cut-ins for different hooks.
Likely product: Heirloom Tea Chest Featuring Nine Teas – Teabags

Left off, every time

Always out: minors, anyone who makes health claims about tea, accounts with bought followers, and any creator who wants to post about The Hemp Division or Wellness Brews without written brand sign-off.

Part 8 of 15

The first twenty

Home brewers who post their morning cup
Holiday gift-box unboxers
Matcha beginners learning to whisk
Iced tea people who batch-brew
Cozy-night bakers who pair tea with dessert
Office tea-desk regulars
Loose leaf hobbyists who compare steeps
Herbal tea drinkers building an evening ritual
Tin collectors who reuse and refill
Hosts who set a tea table
Book club and reading-nook creators
Cottagecore and slow-living accounts
Gift-guide curators for seasonal lists
Students with a desk-and-mug routine
Pantry-organization creators
Coffee drinkers trying tea
Pumpkin-spice season fans
British-tea nostalgia accounts
Small-apartment kitchen creators
Dinner-party and host-gift reviewers

Part 9 of 15

Claims sheet

Approved, word for word

Quoted exactly as the brand publishes it.

“Each sachet brews one 12 oz. cup of tea.”
Any sachet product: tins, bags, trios
“Be sure to recycle your tin, or reuse it and refill it with one of our Bags of 50!”
Holiday and Candy Cane tins, the stock-up format
“Each bag contains 50 tea sachets.”
Pumpkin Spice, Bag of 50 Sachets
“Every tin is refillable from our Bags of 50”
The Full Classic Collection and the stock-up format
“Free Shipping on Orders $59+”
Closing line of any video that points to the shop
“Premium Loose Leaf Teas”
Intro or caption for the brand itself
“Each teabag brews one 6-8 oz. cup of tea.”
Holiday Tea, Box of 20 Premium Teabags only

Never said

Each one with the reason it stays out.

This tea helps you sleep
Health outcome. No claim of this kind appears in what was read.
It detoxes your body
Health outcome and not a brand line.
Burns fat and cuts cravings
Health outcome. Never allowed for any product.
Healthier than coffee
A comparison the brand never makes.
Free shipping on every order
The offer is free shipping on orders of $59+, not every order.
The best tea in the world
Unprovable superlative; the brand wording is Premium Loose Leaf Teas.
Hemp tea works for anxiety
Health outcome on a product line that needs sign-off first.

To confirm with the brand

Held until someone on the brand side signs off.

Any wording about The Hemp Division
No product wording was read, so nothing is cleared. Needs the brand's own lines.
Organic on any product
Organic Supreme Green is on the site; each product needs its own confirmation.
Anything about Tea for Kids
No wording was read. Written sign-off before any creator posts it.

Part 10 of 15

Pay and bonus

Starter
$300–600
a month, by band
Starter: a creator's first weeks, one blend at a time, with a low cap while the hooks are tested.
Bonus at the cap: $300
Standard
$500–1,000
a month, by band
Standard: a steady creator who turns in seven videos a week and passes the claims check first time.
Bonus at the cap: $500
Premium
$800–1,500
a month, by band
Premium: the creators whose clips win in paid, with the highest base and the highest cap.
Bonus at the cap: $700

Under 100,000 views
$0
The base pay covers the work.
100,000 views
+$50 flat
Whatever the band.
1,000,000 views
Top-up to your cap
Bonus = band cap − base pay.

One bonus per creator per month, paid once, even if several videos pass 100,000 views.
The bonus is per video: a single video has to pass 100,000 views on its own.
Organic views only. Views bought with ad spend never count toward the $50.
No bonus on a video that broke the claims sheet or the category rule, even if it took off.

Starter: $600 cap − $300 fee = $300 bonus; Standard: $1,000 cap − $500 fee = $500 bonus; Premium: $1,500 cap − $800 fee = $700 bonus.

The bonus pays for reach after the work is done, never instead of it. One bonus per creator per calendar month keeps it an incentive and keeps the program cost predictable.

Part 11 of 15

Simulator

Today's inputs give $5.74 per 1,000 views against the $1 target. To get there, 4.2% of videos go viral or the median video reaches 21,711 views.

Program facts

Harney & Sons creator engine, per month

Monthly cost: $10,050
Base pay: $10,000
Est. bonuses: $50
Videos / month: 303
Est. views / month: 1.8M
Cost per 1,000 views: $5.74

Above the $1 target at these inputs.

To hit $1, the roster needs about 10.1M views a month. That means about 4.2% of videos going viral, or a median near 22K views per video. That is why the day-90 gate exists: keep the accounts that clear it, replace the rest.

Proposed, not measured. Views = videos × median, breakouts at 10× the median, viral at 750K. Bonus: +$50 for a viral video, one per creator per month.

Part 11 of 15, continued

What moves the result

Cost per 1,000 views by median views per video
If the median is	Views / month	Monthly cost	Cost / 1K	Hits target
750	1.4M	$10,050	$6.96	No
1,500	1.8M	$10,050	$5.74	No
3,000	2.4M	$10,050	$4.24	No

Cost per 1,000 views by share of viral videos
If the viral share is	Views / month	Monthly cost	Cost / 1K	Hits target
0.3%	1.2M	$10,000	$8.44	No
0.5%	1.8M	$10,050	$5.74	No
1%	2.9M	$10,150	$3.52	No

The math. Videos a month = 10 creators × 7 a week × 52 ÷ 12 = 303. Views per video = (1 − 4% − 0.5%) × 1,500 + 4% × 10 × 1,500 + 0.5% × 750,000 = 5,782.5; 303 videos × 5,782.5 = 1.8M views a month. Cost = 10 × $1,000 = $10,000 base + 1 bonus × $50 = $10,050. Cost per 1,000 views = $10,050 ÷ 1.8M × 1,000 = $5.74 against a $1.00 target. To hit the target, either 4.2% of videos go viral or the median video reaches 21,711 views, other inputs held.

Move the sliders and the label recalculates. The result is only as good as the guesses behind it, so the median views, the share of breakouts and the share of viral videos are marked as Assumptions until the first month of posts replaces them.

Part 12 of 15

Phases

Creators live by week (proposed): 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10

0Wk 1
2Wk 2
4Wk 3
6Wk 4
8Wk 5
10Wk 6

Creator ramp by week
Item	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4	Wk 5	Wk 6
Creators live	0	2	4	6	8	10
Videos a week	0	14	28	42	56	70
Base pay a month	$0	$2,000	$4,000	$6,000	$8,000	$10,000

Warm-up
Ramp: two creators a week
Zero live at Week 1, then two more every week until ten are live in six weeks. Each gets the claims sheet and one briefing.
Month 1
Five formats, one variable each
All five formats run. Hooks change one at a time and losers are killed early. Cost per 1,000 views starts near $5.74.
Month 2
Pay follows the evidence
Creators move between Starter, Standard and Premium by results. The first bonus is $50 for a clip past 100,000 views.
Month 3
Winners go to paid
The top clips are moved into the saida steps: organic first, paid second. The hook library is the brand's to keep.
Day 90
One decision
Cost per 1,000 views against $1, volume against 303 videos a month, and a yes or no on the next ten creators.
Ceiling
$15,000 a month at most
All ten creators at the top cap, bonuses excluded. That is the most the program can cost, and the number to hold me to.

$15,000 Monthly ceiling, all 10 creators at the top cap, bonuses excluded Proposed

The roster grows by two creators a week, so hook performance can be read week over week instead of by anecdote.

Part 13 of 15

Weekly report

Every Monday: cost per 1,000 views against $1, results by format, losers killed, winners sent to paid. No chasing, no asking.

Creator engine, last 4 weeks

Target $1 per 1,000 organic views Illustrative

Creators reporting: 5
Posts last week: 32
Avg cost per 1,000 views: $8.94
Bonuses owed: $0
Keep / Watch / Replace: 1 / 1 / 3

Per-creator results, last four weeks, sorted by cost per 1,000 views
Creator	Band	Format	Posts	Median	Best	Cost / 1K	Bonus	Flags	Call
Creator A	Starter	Bag of 50 tear-open	7	2.1K	25K	$3.37	$0	None	Keep
Creator B	Standard	Morning cup	7	1.4K	8.4K	$9.83	$0	Claim check	Replace
Creator C	Premium	Stock-up shelf	6	1.8K	54K	$7.94	$0	None	Watch
Creator D	Starter	Iced and ready	5	900	3.6K	$12.99	$0	Over cap?	Replace
Creator E	Standard	Jasmine pour	7	1.2K	11K	$10.59	$0	Release missing	Replace
All creators	not applicable	not applicable	32	1.5K	54K	$8.94	$0	not applicable	not applicable

Illustrative rows with invented creators, coherent with the pay bands above. Keep means the cost per 1,000 views is at or under the program average, Watch is up to half again over it, and Replace is anything higher.

Part 14 of 15

Organic to paid

From organic to paid

Flag the winner
A clip passes 100,000 views organically and gets the flat bonus. It goes to the shortlist.
Clear the claims
Re-check the video against the claims sheet. If a line is off, we reshoot before any spend.
Test the hook in paid
Same video, one variable changed, small budget. The hook library notes which opening won.
Scale or kill
If cost per 1,000 views holds near the $1 target, we scale. If not, the clip is killed and the next one steps up.

From the video to the checkout

Best Sellers: for clips on the tin and the bag of 50
Shop Matcha: for the Starter Kit and beginner clips
Your Perfect Tea Quiz: for the tea-curious coffee drinker
Gift Cards: for gift-season clips
Free Shipping on Orders $59+ as the closing line on every shop link

Part 15 of 15

Category rules

Beverages: tea rules for every creator

Tea is food and drink, so wording matters more than reach. Six rules apply to every video.

No health outcomes
Never say tea helps, fixes or protects anything. Show the cup and the ritual. Wellness Brews and The Hemp Division get the same rule plus written sign-off.
Quote the sheet
Product facts come from the claims sheet, word for word. One sachet brews one 12 oz. cup of tea. Anything else goes through #claims-check first.
No comparisons
Do not say tea is healthier than coffee or better than another brand. Say what the blend tastes like in your own words.
Name the right product
Say the exact product on screen: tin, bag of 50, trio or box of 20 teabags. A bag of 50 is not a tin of 30 sachets.
Offer wording stays exact
Free shipping is on orders of $59+. Never promise it on every order, and never invent a discount.
Kids and minors stay out
No minors on camera for brand content. Tea for Kids is not a creator topic without written brand sign-off.

The brand’s legal team sets the final rules. This is the operating floor I’d start from, not legal advice.

Want to see the first briefs?

Grab a time here

A wide menu to match creators to

Reviews already on the page

Holiday Duo Gift: 4.85 from 87 reviews

Free shipping gives the offer line

One variable per test

One number to protect

Losers killed early

One workspace, five channels

Bag of 50 tear-open

Morning cup

Stock-up shelf

Iced and ready

Jasmine pour

Four sources in

Five filters, fewer each step

Holiday gift giver

Matcha beginner

Evening ritual maker

Seasonal flavor fan

Tea-curious coffee drinker

Variety explorer

Left off, every time

Approved, word for word

Never said

To confirm with the brand

Starter

Standard

Premium

Ramp: two creators a week

Five formats, one variable each

Pay follows the evidence

Winners go to paid

One decision

$15,000 a month at most

From organic to paid

From the video to the checkout

Beverages: tea rules for every creator

No health outcomes

Quote the sheet

No comparisons

Name the right product

Offer wording stays exact

Kids and minors stay out

Want to see the first briefs?