A brand deal spreadsheet. Or something better?
A spreadsheet is where most creators start tracking brand deals — and for a while, it's exactly the right tool. Here's how to build a good one, and how to know when you've outgrown it.
Grab a free template to start today, and see what a purpose-built tracker adds when a spreadsheet stops keeping up.
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What should a brand deal spreadsheet track?
A good brand deal spreadsheet tracks the brand and contact, the deal, the deliverables, the fee and usage rights, the status, the content and payment due dates, and whether you've been paid. Those columns answer the questions that actually matter: what you owe, what's due, and what's still unpaid.
The columns a good tracker has
Want this ready-made? The free brand deal tracker template has these columns set up for you.
Why the spreadsheet works — at first
There's a reason nearly every creator starts here. A spreadsheet is free, it's instant, and it bends to whatever shape you need. You can add a column in seconds, sort by whatever you like, and see all your deals on one screen. For your first handful of partnerships, that's genuinely all you need — and reaching for heavier software too early is its own kind of overhead.
So if you're tracking a few deals a year, a spreadsheet isn't a compromise. It's the right call. The question is only what happens as the volume grows.
The point a spreadsheet quietly starts costing you
A spreadsheet is passive. It shows you exactly what you last typed into it, and nothing more. That's fine until you're relying on it to remind you of things — and it can't. It won't tell you an approval has been waiting a week, won't flag that an invoice is now overdue, and won't stop you re-quoting a repeat brand below last time's rate.
It also doesn't hold the work. Your draft content, the brand's feedback, the signed-off version — those live somewhere else, and the spreadsheet just points at them, if you remembered to paste the link. As deals overlap, the gap between "what the sheet says" and "what's actually happening" widens, and that gap is where deadlines and payments slip.
None of this means the spreadsheet failed. It means you've outgrown what a spreadsheet can do — which is a good problem, and a straightforward one to solve.
Moving on without losing your structure
The move off a spreadsheet is easier than it sounds, because the columns you already track map almost directly onto a purpose-built tracker. The brand, the deal, the deliverables, the fee, the status, the dates — they all have a home, and the system adds the active work the spreadsheet couldn't: surfacing deadlines, holding content and approvals, and turning a completed deal into an invoice automatically.
That's exactly what Poppi's brand deal tracker is — the structure of your spreadsheet, plus everything a spreadsheet can't do. If you want the side-by-side, see the spreadsheet alternative.
Related on Poppi
Brand deal spreadsheets, answered
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