How to Make a Media Kit for Brand Deals (2026 Guide)
Cabana Studio Team · Creator-economy research at Cabana Studio
· July 13, 2026 · 6 min read
A media kit is the one-pager brands ask for before they book you - your reach, your best work, and your rates in a single place. Done right it closes deals; done wrong it's a stale PDF that undersells you. Here's how to make a media kit that actually works in 2026.
What a media kit needs to include
- Who you are and your niche - one or two lines, not a biography.
- Your audience: follower counts and, more importantly, engagement rate, across each platform.
- Three to six pieces of your strongest work - lead with the work, not the numbers.
- Brands you've worked with, plus a testimonial or two if you have them.
- Your rates or packages, and how to get in touch.
The PDF trap
The classic media kit is a Canva PDF you update once and email forever. By the time a brand opens it, your numbers are months stale and you look smaller than you are. The fix is a media kit that lives on a link and can use the latest data from successful account syncs.
Step by step
- Start from your creator page, not a blank document - your portfolio already has your best work in it.
- Connect your socials so successful syncs can refresh reach and engagement.
- Add your rates as packages - a single number is easy to negotiate down; a package holds its value.
- Publish it to a shareable link and send that link instead of an attachment.
- Make variants by niche if you work across categories, so a beauty brand sees beauty work and a food brand sees food work.
On Cabana, the media kit is built from your portfolio and the latest successfully synced analytics available. You still control the work and rates you publish, while the connected numbers can refresh without rebuilding a document.
Send it like a pro
When a brand asks for your kit, reply with the link and one line about why you're a fit for their specific campaign. A live link also tells you it was opened - useful signal for your follow-up. Pair it with a tracked deal so the conversation doesn't evaporate.
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