A paid post, a gifted product, an affiliate link, a free trip: under United States law each of these is an endorsement, and the Federal Trade Commission has rules about how it must be disclosed. The rules go back to 2009. The 2023 rewrite of the Endorsement Guides spelled them out for social media, and a 2024 rule made fake reviews and testimonials a violation the FTC can fine directly. What has changed recently is not the rules. It is who gets named. The FTC now puts the brand and the creator in the same complaint, and the penalty it can seek per violation is inflation-adjusted every year. In 2025 it was $53,088. One undisclosed post is one violation.
This is written for small brands running their first creator campaigns and for creators who want to protect themselves. It is not legal advice. It is what the FTC's own guidance says, in plain terms, ending with seven lines you can paste into a brief.
Who is on the hook
Both sides. The brand is responsible for what its endorsers say and whether they disclose, so pointing at the creator does not work. The creator is responsible for their own post. Recent FTC actions have named companies, agencies and individual creators together. The practical consequence: the disclosure requirement belongs in the brief and the contract, and someone at the brand should look at the post before it goes live.
What triggers a disclosure
- Money, in any amount, for a post or a mention.
- Free or discounted product, even when there is no obligation to post.
- Affiliate or referral links that pay the creator on purchases.
- Trips, event tickets, early access, or anything else of value.
- Working for the brand, or being related to someone who does.
The test the FTC uses: would a reader weigh the recommendation differently if they knew about the relationship? If yes, disclose it.
What counts as clear and conspicuous
One standard: hard to miss. Same place as the endorsement, same format, readable without effort.
- Where. In the first line of the caption, before any "more" cut. Not after a wall of hashtags.
- Which words. "Ad", "Sponsored", "Paid partnership with [brand]" and "[Brand] sent me this for free" are all fine. "#sp", "#collab", "#ambassador" and "thanks [brand]" are not; the FTC has said so by name.
- Video. Say it and show it, early, for long enough to read. A line in the description box does not cover a video most people watch without opening the description.
- Live streams. Repeat it. People join in the middle.
- Stories and short clips. An overlay that stays up for the whole clip, large enough to read on a phone.
- Platform labels. Instagram's paid-partnership label and TikTok's disclosure toggle help, but the FTC has said a platform's built-in tool may not be enough on its own if it is easy to overlook. Use the label and put the words in the caption.
The claim has to be true as well
Disclosure covers the relationship. The claim itself still has to be honest. A creator cannot say a supplement cured something, call a product "the best" with nothing behind it, or recommend something they have never used. A brand cannot hand over a script with claims it could not make in its own advertising. Results that are not typical need a line saying what is typical. The 2024 rule adds that buying reviews, faking them, suppressing negative ones, or having employees review products without saying so are each violations.
Seven lines for every brief
These take under a minute to add and they are what an investigator looks for first.
- Say what the relationship is in plain words: "This is a paid partnership" or "You received the product for free."
- The disclosure goes in the first line of the caption. For video, it is spoken and on screen in the first few seconds.
- Use the platform's paid-partnership label as well as the caption.
- List the claims the creator may make and the ones they may not. Include any "results vary" wording the product needs.
- The creator must have actually used the product before posting about it.
- The brand may review the post before it goes live and may ask for a correction after.
- Keep the brief, the agreement and the final post together. If anyone ever asks, that record is the answer.
How this works on covari
On covari the brand writes the brief, the creator accepts or declines it, and the agreed deliverables live inside the deal with payment held until the brand approves the work. If the disclosure requirement and the allowed claims are in the brief, every creator sees them before accepting, and the record stays attached to the deal. For most small campaigns that is the entire compliance job: say what the relationship is, say it where people will see it, and keep the paper trail.