Live media kitvs PDF.

Most creator media kits are PDFs. Usually built in Canva, usually from a template, usually exported once and sent for the next year.

The PDF is not a bad format. It is a bad fit for the thing it is holding. Here is the difference that actually matters, and when a PDF is still fine.

The core problem: a media kit is mostly numbers

Look at what is in one. Follower counts, average reach, engagement rate, recent campaign results. Every one of those is a number that moves.

A PDF freezes them on export day. That is the whole issue. Not the design, not the file size, not how it looks on a phone. The numbers stop being true the moment you hit export, and they keep getting less true every week you send it.

What this costs you, in practice

You undersell yourself. If you grew since you exported, you are pitching with your old numbers. Creators routinely pitch on reach figures well below where they have actually landed, because updating the file is a chore nobody does monthly.

You look inattentive. A brand who checks your profile and sees a different number than your kit now has a small doubt about everything else on the page.

It becomes a task you avoid. Reopening the template, pulling fresh screenshots, re-exporting, re-uploading, resending the link. Most creators do it once or twice and then stop.

It cannot be updated after you send it. This is the one people miss. Once the file is in someone's inbox, it is gone. If a brand forwards it internally three weeks later, they are circulating your old numbers and you cannot touch it.

What a live kit does differently

A live media kit is a web page on your own domain instead of a file. The practical differences:

The numbers update themselves. Your insights pull in automatically. The page is current whether or not you have thought about it.

One link, forever. Send it once. It is still right the fifth time someone opens it. When it gets forwarded internally, the version they see is today's.

It is a real address. yourname.com reads differently in an email than a Drive link or a 14MB attachment.

Attachments get filtered, links do not. Some corporate mail systems strip or quarantine attachments from unknown senders. A link lands.

It can hold a gated rate card. A password-protected section means a brand can see your price without you sending it, and you still control who gets in. Not possible in a file. On our own kits that section also records when it was opened, so you know a brand has seen your rates before you follow up. That part comes with THE LIVE RATE CARD rather than the base kit.

When a PDF is genuinely fine

Honest answer, because it sometimes is:

• A brand explicitly asked for an attachment for their procurement system
• A one-off application to something with a file upload field
• You are a week into creating and have nothing to report yet

If you are actively pitching, though, you will be rebuilding that file constantly. That is the trade.

The template problem, separately

Most PDF kits come from the same handful of free templates. Marketing managers see dozens of these a month and they recognise them instantly.

It does not disqualify you. But it does put your kit in the pile of things that look identical, and a media kit's whole job is making you the one they remember.

Side by side

What we build

Barkhouse Creative Co. builds one thing: a live media kit, custom designed from your intake. Insights update on their own, so there is nothing for you to maintain. We buy and register the domain and manage it for you, which means no setup and no renewal to remember. It carries your name, and it is yours to take at any time at no charge.

$347 CAD to build, then $22 CAD a month. Choose THE LIVE RATE CARD and a password-protected rate card sits at the bottom of your page, priced from your live numbers, at $37 CAD a month all in.

The clearest way to understand it is to open one.

See a live media kit  ·  See the media kit options