Models for Hire in Kenya: A Guide for Brands

Decide these six things before you brief anyone

A model cannot quote for a job that has not been described, and the commonest reason a good enquiry gets no reply is that it asked “are you available?” and nothing else. Availability is not a brief. Settle these six first, and you can approach models for hire in Kenya with something they can say yes to in one reading.

1. Your dates, including the fitting. Not “sometime in November”. A specific day, or a specific window, plus the separate appointment for wardrobe if anything has to be fitted. The fitting is the constraint people forget, and it is the one that makes a booking impossible at short notice.
2. The location, and who is getting there how. A studio in Nairobi, a shop floor in Mombasa and a location two hours out of town are three different jobs. If it is outside the city, say so in the first message and say who is covering transport — it changes whether she can take it at all.
3. What you are producing. Stills, video, or both. How many looks. How many finished assets you need. “A few photos” and “forty e-commerce frames across eight garments” are the same shoot day to you and two very different days to her.
4. Where it will appear. Organic social only? Paid social? Billboards? Packaging? In-store? This is usage, it is the part almost everyone skips, and it has its own section below because it is worth more money than any other line in your brief.
5. For how long, and where. Three months of Kenyan social media is a different licence from two years across East Africa, and both are different from “forever, everywhere”. Decide the shortest honest answer before you ask for a price.
6. Your budget for the whole package. Time plus usage plus extras, not the day alone. A budget that only covers the day will be blown the moment the campaign runs longer than you told her it would.

Write those six into one paragraph and you have a brief. Everything else in this guide is about getting them right.

Commercial, editorial, runway, promo: the brief sets the rate

“Model” is not one job and it is not one price. These categories ask different things of the person you book, produce different assets, and carry different usage expectations — which is why a single “what do you charge?” rarely gets a straight answer. Name the category in your brief and the quote comes back sharper.

Commercial and brand

Commercial modelling in Kenya is the broadest category of paid work and almost certainly the one you are booking: a face that an audience is meant to recognise itself in, photographed for an ad, a landing page, a poster or a paid social campaign. The casting criteria are warmth, expression and the ability to take direction quickly rather than height or sample size. The rate is usually modest relative to the usage, because the usage is the point — a commercial image is bought to be published widely, and that is what you are really paying for.

Editorial

Magazine and publication work, where the image serves a story rather than a product. Editorial has traditionally paid least and bought credits, tear sheets and prestige instead. It is worth knowing that convention exists, because a model who quotes you an editorial-style figure has probably assumed an editorial-style licence: printed once, in one publication. If you then run the image as an advertisement, you have used a licence you did not buy.

Runway and fashion

A show, a presentation or a retail activation where the garment is the subject. You are booking a walk and a fitting, usually for a fixed call window on a fixed day. Physical conventions bite hardest here because sample garments are cut to a standard, so measurements matter more than they do anywhere else — and the fitting is not optional. If you intend to photograph or film the show and use the footage in advertising later, that is usage, and it is separate from the show fee.

E-commerce and catalogue

Volume work: many garments, many frames, a long day, a fixed fee. It is the most predictable category to buy and the easiest to under-scope. Count the garments before you book, not on the day, and agree what happens when the rail is longer than you said it would be.

Promotional and activation

Expos, launches, brand-ambassador shifts, ushering at an event. You are booking presence, stamina and reliability across a shift rather than a portfolio. Rates here are usually quoted per shift or per day, and the thing to specify is the hours, the uniform or dress code, whether there is a break, and who is feeding people.

Content and UGC

Vertical video shot the way audiences already watch — often filmed by the model herself. This is the fastest-growing brief in the market and the one where usage confusion is worst, because the output looks casual and the distribution is anything but. A creator video you intend to run as a paid ad is an advertisement, and it should be licensed as one.

Usage rights and buyout, explained properly

This is the section worth the whole page. Get it right and everything else is logistics. Get it wrong and you either overpay by licensing rights you will never exercise, or — far more common among Kenyan businesses booking a model for the first time — you publish a campaign on a licence you never bought.

Two charges, not one

When you book a model you are buying two separate things, and it helps to write them as two lines on the same purchase order:

• The fee for her time. The day rate, the half day, the shift. It pays for her to be on set, prepared, for the agreed hours. It buys you nothing about the resulting pictures.
• The usage, or buyout. The licence to publish those pictures. This is a separate charge, and on a campaign of any size it is usually the larger of the two.

If a quote does not distinguish them, ask which one it is. A day rate offered with “unlimited usage” attached is almost always an underpriced buyout that somebody will feel bad about later.

A licence has exactly three dimensions

Every usage agreement, however it is worded, is answering three questions. Write yours as three lines and you will never have an ambiguous one:

• Media — where it appears. Organic social, paid social, your own website, email, print, out-of-home and billboards, in-store point-of-sale, packaging, TV, cinema, radio stills, third-party press. These are not interchangeable. “Digital” is not a medium; it is four of them in a coat.
• Territory — where in the world. Kenya. East Africa. Pan-African. Worldwide. A Kenyan campaign that never leaves Kenya should not be paying for worldwide rights, and a regional rollout planned for next year should be licensed now rather than renegotiated then.
• Duration — for how long. Three months, six months, one year, two years, in perpetuity. The clock should start on first publication, not on the shoot date, and you should say which in writing — that single sentence prevents the most common licensing argument there is.

The words that cost the most money

Three terms get used loosely in briefs and each of them is expensive:

• “Buyout.” In most of the industry this means a lump sum that covers a defined package of media, territory and duration — not “we own it forever”. If you mean perpetual worldwide rights, write those words. If the model means the narrower thing and you mean the wider one, you have agreed on nothing.
• “In perpetuity.” Forever. It is the single most expensive clause you can ask for, it is almost never what a campaign actually needs, and asking for it as a default is how a straightforward booking becomes unaffordable. Two years usually outlives the campaign.
• “Exclusivity.” A separate thing again. It restricts whom else she may work for, and for how long — typically competitors in your category. It costs money because it costs her work. If you do not need it, do not ask for it; if you do, name the category and the period precisely rather than writing “she may not work for competitors”.

Extensions and re-licensing

Campaigns outlive their licences all the time, and that is fine as long as you notice. Put a reminder in your own calendar for a month before the duration ends, and agree in the original brief how an extension is priced — even a sentence like “an extension will be agreed in writing before the licence ends” is enough to stop the awkward version of this conversation. Continuing to run an asset past its end date is not a technicality; it is publishing someone’s face without permission.

What we deliberately are not telling you

You will find pages quoting usage as a multiple of the day rate. We are not going to print one, because we do not have evidence for what that multiple is in this market and a number invented to look authoritative is worse than no number. What we can say with confidence is structural: the licence is a real, separately priced asset; it is defined by media, territory and duration; and a brief that names all three gets a usable quote back where a brief that names none gets silence.

What actually moves the fee

Rates vary enormously between models and between jobs, and that variation is not arbitrary — it is driven by a short list of things you control. If a quote comes back higher than you expected, one of these is usually why.

• The length of the licence. Covered above. This is the biggest lever you have, and the easiest to pull in the direction of your budget: ask for what the campaign actually needs.
• The size of the media buy. A billboard on Mombasa Road is not a carousel post. Models price what the exposure is worth, the same way every other supplier in the chain does.
• Hours and overtime. A day has an agreed length. Say what it is — eight hours plus a break is a common shape — and agree the overtime rate before the day rather than at 7pm when everybody is tired and nobody wants to have the conversation.
• Travel and time lost to it. A location two hours outside the city can consume a second day. Whether you are paying for that day, and who books the transport, belongs in the first message.
• What she has to supply. If she brings her own wardrobe, shoes, or her own hair and make-up, that is her cost and her preparation time. If you are supplying all of it, say so — it makes your job cheaper and more attractive.
• Exclusivity. It blocks her from other income. Price it as such or drop it.
• Notice. A shoot booked for Thursday on Wednesday afternoon is a favour, not a booking. Give people a week where you can.

There is one thing that should not move the fee, and it is worth saying plainly: the rate is not a reflection of how much someone wants the job. Treating it as an opening position to be talked down is how a first-time client becomes a client nobody on a board answers twice.

How to read a comp card

A comp card — composite card, sometimes “zed card” — is the one-page summary the modelling industry has used for decades to make forty models comparable at a glance. Traditionally it is a printed card: the strongest image on the front, four or five varied images on the back, and a block of statistics. Online it is a profile page laid out the same way. Either way, it exists so a casting can be decided on evidence rather than on atmosphere.

What is on it, and what each part is for

• A clean headshot. Direct eye contact, minimal styling. You are looking at the face you will actually photograph, not at a retoucher’s work.
• A full-length frame. Proportions, posture and how she carries clothes. This is the frame that tells you whether the wardrobe you have will work.
• A profile or side view. Unglamorous and essential — it is the angle a beauty or product shot will actually use.
• Measurements. Height, bust or chest, waist, hips, shoe, and dress or jacket size. These are for your stylist, not for you, and their only virtue is accuracy.
• Location and the work she takes. Which cities she works in and which job types she accepts. A perfect card for the wrong city is a wasted enquiry for both of you.

How to actually use one

Read it against your brief, in this order: does she take this kind of work; does she work in this city; do the measurements fit the wardrobe; does the published rate sit inside the budget; and only then, is the look right. Doing it the other way round — falling for a face and then discovering she does not do e-commerce days in Nakuru — is how shortlists dissolve. That order is also the honest answer to “who are the top models in Kenya”: the top model for your shoot is the one whose card matches your brief on all five, and there is no league table that can know that.

The model release, and why yours has to be signed

A model release is the model’s written permission for you to use her likeness in the ways you agreed. It is not the same document as your usage agreement, though the two must say the same thing, and it is not a formality you can add afterwards. It is the piece of paper your client, your agency, your ad platform or your broadcaster will ask to see the first time anyone complains — and if you cannot produce it, the campaign comes down.

What a release should cover

• Who is being photographed or filmed, and who is permitted to use the material.
• The shoot: the date, and what it was for.
• The permitted media, territory and duration — in the same words as your usage agreement, so the two documents cannot be read against each other.
• Whether the material may be edited, cropped, retouched or used alongside other imagery.
• Whether it may be sub-licensed to a third party, such as a retailer or a partner.
• The date it was signed, and by whom.

Three rules that save trouble later

1. Sign before the shoot, not after. A release chased after the images exist is a negotiation with all the leverage on the wrong side, and a release nobody ever returns is a campaign you cannot run.
2. If the model is under 18, a parent or guardian signs. Without exception, and they should be present on the day.
3. Keep it with the files. The release, the usage agreement and the assets belong in one folder with the end date written on it. The person who needs it in two years will not be you.

One caveat, and it is a real one: the wording of your release is a legal document and this is not legal advice. Have your own advocate draft it for Kenyan use. This section describes what the document is for and what it has to cover so that you can brief them properly — it deliberately does not supply the sentences, because invented legal copy is worse than none.

How booking models for hire works on Siriverse

If you have been searching for a model company in Kenya, it is worth being precise about what this is, because it is deliberately not an agency. Siriverse does not set or negotiate rates, does not write your contract, does not invoice on a model’s behalf and takes no commission on what you pay her. What it does is publish a board of models who chose to be listed, each with the rate she set herself, and carry one written brief from you to the one you picked. She answers it. After that you are dealing with her directly.

1. Browse the board — no account, no charge

The Models for Hire board is public. You can filter by the kind of work — Promo, Usher, Event, E-commerce, Editorial, Runway, UGC — and by city, with Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, Eldoret and Diani as the chips on the board, plus bands for day rate and height. Those filters live in the URL, so a shortlist you have built is a link you can send to a colleague. Anything marked featured is a disclosed paid placement, not a ranking; treat it as an advertisement, because that is what it is.

2. Read her comp card

Each listed model has her own page: the front, side and full-body panels, her measurements, the job types she takes, the cities she works in and her day rate. Contact details are never shown anywhere on the board, on her page, or in any notification — that is the central design decision of the whole product, and it is why models are willing to be listed at all.

3. Create a business account

Browsing is open to everyone; sending an enquiry is not, so that a model knows who is asking before she answers. You sign in with the ordinary site login and add your business details — company name, the contact person, an email address and a phone number — at your business account page. Your email address has to be verified before you can send. There is no separate client login to remember.

4. Send one enquiry

The enquiry is a form, not a chat. You give the start and end dates, the job type, the location, your budget in KES and the brief itself, plus one more answer: how long you will keep her contact details once she has released them to you. It is one message and there is no reply box — she answers yes or no.

Which is exactly why the six things in the first section matter here. In particular: there is no usage field on the form, so usage belongs in the message. Write the media, the territory and the duration into the brief in one sentence — “paid social and in-store, Kenya only, six months from first publication” — and you will get an answer you can act on. Leave it out and the quote you get back is priced for a guess.

5. She accepts, declines, or it expires

She is notified on the channels she already uses, never by a web inbox she will not open, and the notification contains no contact detail of yours. If she accepts, contact details are exchanged both ways: she is given your name, your company and your phone number, and you are given hers. If she declines, nothing is exchanged. If nobody answers within 48 hours the enquiry closes itself, nothing is exchanged, and you are told.

6. You take it from there

The introduction is the product. The fee, the contract, the release, the call sheet and the payment are between you and her, which is the honest description of what a listing is — and the reason the board says plainly, on every page of it, that a listing is not a guarantee of work.

Shoot day: call times, fittings, weather and overtime

The booking is agreed. What follows is the part that decides whether the model you liked works with you again — and in a market this size, whether the next person you write to has heard of you.

The call sheet

Send one, the day before, however small the job. It needs the address with a pin rather than a description, the call time, the expected wrap time, the name and number of the person meeting her, what to bring, what to wear to arrive in, and whether there is parking. A model who cannot find your studio is late through your omission, not her fault.

The fitting

If wardrobe has to fit, book the fitting as its own appointment with its own call time, and treat it as part of the job rather than a free favour. Send the measurements from her card to whoever is sourcing garments as soon as she is booked — that is the whole reason the numbers are published.

Wardrobe, hair and make-up: say who supplies what

Write it down, because both parties assume the other has it. If you want her to bring options — nude heels, plain black, her own base make-up — ask in the brief, not on the morning. If you are supplying a stylist and an artist, say so; it is a genuine selling point for your job and it saves her two hours of preparation.

Hours and overtime

Agree the length of the day when you book, and agree what happens past it. Shoots overrun, and the overrun is not the problem — the unpriced overrun is. A single line in the original message, stating the day length and the hourly rate beyond it, removes the entire argument.

Weather and outdoor shoots

If you are shooting outdoors in Nairobi, in Diani or anywhere on the coast, decide the weather rule in advance: who calls it, by what time, and what is paid if the day is called off. A holding fee for a cancelled weather day is normal practice and much cheaper than losing someone’s goodwill. Book a contingency date at the same time as the first one, while both diaries are open.

On the day

• Have somebody meet her. Not a security desk and a phone number.
• Water, somewhere to sit, somewhere private to change, and a break. None of it is generous; all of it is assumed.
• Brief the photographer and the client on what was actually booked, so nobody asks for a look, a garment or a usage that was never agreed.
• Do not ask for “a few extra shots for social” at wrap. That is additional usage, asked for at the moment it is hardest to refuse.
• Pay when you said you would. In this market, reliability about payment is the single strongest reason a good model takes your next booking.

The pre-booking checklist

Everything above, compressed into the list to run before you send a brief. If you can answer all of it, your enquiry is in the top few percent of what models receive.

1. Shoot dates confirmed, and a fitting date if anything is being fitted.
2. Location, with the address and who is covering travel.
3. The category — commercial, editorial, runway, e-commerce, promo, content.
4. Deliverables: stills or video, number of looks, number of finished assets.
5. Day length, and the overtime rate beyond it.
6. Usage: media, territory, duration. Written as three explicit clauses, with the duration starting from first publication.
7. Exclusivity: needed or not, and if so the category and the period.
8. Who supplies wardrobe, hair and make-up.
9. Budget for the whole package, not the day alone.
10. Payment terms — how much, by when, to whom, and by what method.
11. A release drafted by your own advocate, ready to sign before the shoot.
12. A weather rule and a contingency date, if any of it is outdoors.

Frequently asked questions