UGC Video: What It Is, Examples and How to Make One

What is a UGC video?

Strictly speaking, a UGC video is one a customer made on their own, unpaid: a TikTok review, an unboxing, a "look what I found" clip. In marketing today, the term usually covers any video made in that style for a brand, often by a paid creator. People call those UGC-style videos.

UGC video meaning: three kinds

• Organic UGC. Real customers posting about you because they want to. It's the most trusted kind, but you can't schedule it, and you need the creator's permission to reuse it.
• Creator UGC. Paid UGC creators film videos for your brand to post on your own accounts or run as UGC video ads. They often never post them on their own profile. When a creator does post about you, the FTC's influencer guidance says they need to disclose the paid relationship in the video itself.
• AI UGC. The same style, with an AI-made person on screen instead of a hired creator. We cover it in depth in our guide to AI UGC.

What makes a video UGC-style

• Vertical 9:16, filmed or framed like a phone video.
• One person, talking or acting, in an everyday place.
• First-person, everyday language. No voice-of-god narrator.
• Captions or on-screen text that carry the message with the sound off.
• One problem or one moment per video.
• A hook in the first few seconds, and branding that comes later.

Why UGC-style videos often beat polished ads

On short-form platforms, people are scrolling through videos from other people. A polished ad stands out in the wrong way. TikTok's own creative guide tells advertisers to make authentic content that fits the community and sums it up as "Don't make ads. Make TikToks." A UGC video does that by default.

• It looks like the feed. Viewers give it the same few seconds they give any post, rather than skipping it on sight.
• It shows the problem from the user's side. A person stuck in a familiar moment is more convincing than a list of features.
• It's cheap enough to test. You can afford many versions of one idea and keep the hooks that work.
• It works with the sound off. Captions and on-screen text carry the story for people watching on mute.

When polished still wins

UGC style isn't always right. Premium and luxury brands often need the polish. Big launches, TV and connected-TV ads, and anything where visuals are the product (a game trailer, a hotel) usually look better shot properly. And a UGC video with a weak hook fails just as fast as a weak ad. The style helps; the idea still has to be good.

12 UGC video examples, broken down

These are the 12 UGC formats you'll see most. Where a hook is in quotes with an app name, it's a real post Feedrick made for one of the sample apps we set up to show the range: Supperly (meal planning), BudgetBird (budgeting for freelancers), DeepNook (focus), TinyLoop (habits), StrideBack (running) and LingoDrop (languages). The others are patterns to adapt.

Breakdown: a problem/solution silent story

Supperly's silent story with Hannah has no talking, just a short scene, music and on-screen text. The text runs: "Stop doing the shop from four different phone notes. No order. You walk past the eggs twice. Supperly: week planned in five minutes, list sorted by aisle." The hook is a command that names the habit. Two short beats make the problem physical. The product only appears at the end, with one concrete benefit.

Breakdown: a POV video

DeepNook's silent story with Daniel opens on "POV: YouTube is one click away and nobody is watching you." Then: "Deepnook hides it. Your one paid task stays. Six o'clock: a list of billable work, done." The POV line puts the viewer at their own desk. The payoff is a time of day and a result, not a feature name.

Breakdown: a twist on the familiar

Supperly's silent story with Elena starts with a double take: "Wait. This is Monday's chicken?" The answer: "Yes. It's Wednesday's tacos now. Planned leftovers. Not the same plate twice." A question as the hook makes people stay for the answer, and the answer is the product's main idea in four words.

Anatomy of a UGC video: hook, problem, demo, CTA

Almost every UGC video that works has the same four parts. The timings below suit a 15 to 30 second video. TikTok's creative best practices recommend getting your core idea across in the first 3 seconds and the hook in the first 6, so the opening matters most.

Production checklist

• Shoot or export in vertical 9:16, at least 720p, which is TikTok's stated minimum for ads.
• Open on a face or a moment, not a logo.
• Add captions or on-screen text, and keep it clear of the edges where the app's buttons sit.
• Use natural light and a real place: a kitchen, a desk, a car.
• Keep it to one idea. If you have two, make two videos.
• End with a soft call to action, such as the name and what it does, not "BUY NOW".

3 ways to get UGC videos: DIY, creators or AI

1. Make them yourself

Film yourself, a co-founder or your team on a phone. It costs nothing but time, and a founder talking about their own product is about as authentic as it gets. The catch is volume and comfort on camera: most people can't film, edit and post every day for months.

2. Hire UGC creators

UGC creators film videos for your brand for a fee. Billo's 2026 rate guide puts most short-form videos around $200, with entry-level creators at $50 to $100 and established creators at $500 or more, before usage rights for ads, which can double or triple the price. You can find creators on marketplaces such as TikTok's TikTok One Creator Marketplace. Creators bring real experience and real faces, but each video takes days and each new hook usually means another fee. Our guide to UGC marketing covers sourcing, briefs and costs.

3. Use AI UGC

AI tools make UGC-style videos with AI-made people in minutes. They're the cheapest way to test many hooks and post every day. The trade-off is that the person isn't real, so the videos can't be genuine reviews, and platforms ask you to label realistic AI content. We compare the options in the best AI UGC video generators.

A sensible mix: AI UGC to find the angles that work, creators to film the proven ones, and the founder for the story only they can tell.

How to make a UGC video with AI in minutes

Here's how it works in Feedrick, an AI social media agent that makes UGC videos, memes and carousels from your website:

1. Paste your website or app link. Feedrick reads your pages in about a minute: what you sell, who it's for, what they're tired of and what you can prove.
2. Ask for videos. Choose a silent story (a scene with text on screen and music), a talking video (one line to camera with captions) or a reaction + demo (an AI influencer reacts, then it cuts to your own 9:16 product demo, which you upload). They're ready in minutes.
3. Pick the face. Every video stars one of about 30 AI influencers. Choose one as your brand's face or let Feedrick cast each post. No real people's faces are used. You can see them all here.
4. Keep or skip. Videos land in a review queue. Every choice teaches the next batch.
5. Let them post. Kept videos fill a calendar at good times and publish themselves to the accounts you connect: TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, X and Threads, depending on your plan.

A video costs 2 credits. The Free plan gives you 12 credits to start (six videos) and 5 a month after that, posting to TikTok with a watermark. Starter is $29 a month for 100 credits, enough for 50 videos, and posts to all seven platforms. See pricing for the Growth plan and yearly savings.

Whichever way you make them, the rules from this guide still apply: one idea per video, a hook in the first seconds, and an AI label on any realistic AI-made video.

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