What Is a Step Deal in Screenwriting?

A step deal is not one paycheck. It is a series of small paychecks, each tied to a piece of writing, with an off ramp built in for the buyer at every stop. Most writers hear "I got the job" and picture a lump sum landing in the bank. That is almost never how commissioned screenwriting works. You get paid in steps, and the person who hired you can end the deal after any step and walk away.

Understand that structure and you stop getting surprised. You know when the money comes, how much control the producer keeps, and where your leverage actually lives. This guide covers the steps, the cut-off right, the Writers Guild minimums that took effect on May 2, 2026, and the contract points worth fighting for.

What a step deal actually is

A step deal is a writing contract broken into stages, or "steps." Each step is a defined piece of work with its own fee. You deliver the step, you get paid for that step, and then the buyer decides whether to trigger the next one.

The typical steps on a feature look like this:

• Story or treatment. A prose outline of the movie, sometimes short, sometimes 20 plus pages.
• First draft. The full screenplay, first pass.
• Rewrite. Changes to story, structure, and dialogue. A real overhaul, not tweaks.
• Polish. The small pass. Dialogue, scene shading, a few fixes. Not structural.

Not every deal has all four. A lot of modern deals start at first draft and skip the standalone story step, or fold it in. The point is the same: the total price gets split across the work, and each chunk is a gate.

The guild uses the word installments for the same idea. Its schedule breaks an original screenplay deal into delivery of the treatment, delivery of the first draft, and delivery of the second draft, each with its own minimum.

There are two kinds of steps in any deal. Guaranteed steps are ones the buyer commits to pay for no matter what. Optional steps are ones the buyer can choose to trigger or skip. That single distinction drives most of the negotiation.

Step deal minimums under the 2026 WGA agreement

The WGA sets minimums ("scale") for covered work, and those minimums changed this year. The 2023 agreement expired on May 1, 2026. Its successor, the 2026 Theatrical and Television Basic Agreement, runs from May 2, 2026 through May 1, 2030, with minimums rising 1.5 percent in the first year and 3 percent in each of the following three.

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For a high budget feature (the guild draws the line at a budget of $5 million or more), the 2026 Schedule of Minimums sets these floors for the period from May 2, 2026 to May 1, 2027:

• Original screenplay including treatment: $173,215 total, paid as $69,228 on delivery of the treatment, $69,228 on the first draft, and $34,759 on the second draft.
• Original screenplay excluding treatment: $126,899, split $92,305 for the first draft and $34,594 for the second.
• Story or treatment on its own: $46,152.
• Rewrite: $46,152.
• Polish: $23,077.
• Page-one rewrite: $57,500, a category new to the 2026 agreement.

Low budget features (under $5 million) run lower. There, an original screenplay including treatment carries a floor of $92,268, a rewrite $30,273, and a polish $15,148. Every figure rises again on May 2, 2027, and television has its own separate tables in the same schedule.

Keep those numbers in their lane. They are floors for commissioned writing, which is a different animal from buying a finished spec. If you want to compare them with what completed feature scripts actually trade for, see this breakdown of how much screenplays sell for.

Established writers work well above scale. A step fee is often negotiated as a multiple of minimum, and "double scale" is common shorthand. New writers frequently work at or near scale on their first commissioned jobs. Where you land depends on credits, heat, and how badly the buyer wants you specifically. On small independent deals that are not guild covered at all, a step can be worth a few thousand dollars, or less. The gap is enormous.

The cut-off right, and why it exists

Here is the part that stings if nobody warns you. After a guaranteed step is done, the producer usually holds a cut-off right. They can read your draft, decide it is not working or the project has changed, and stop. No further steps. No further fees. You keep what you were paid for completed steps, and you move on.

This is not producers being cruel. It is risk management. Development is a graveyard. Most projects that get a writer attached never get made. The buyer does not want to be locked into paying for a rewrite and a polish on a script they have already decided to shelve. The step structure lets them spend in increments and bail when the math stops working.

Cut-offs are rarely about the writing alone. A new executive arrives, a competing project gets greenlit, a star drops out, the budget moves. Any of those can end a step deal on a draft that was genuinely good.

For you, the writer, the steps cut the other way too. You are not promising to rewrite a movie ten times for one flat fee. Each step is scoped and paid. If they want more, they pay more, or they trigger an optional step. Steps protect both sides from an open ended obligation.

One thing the cut-off does not do is claw money back. Under the guild's payment rules, payment for a delivered step cannot be contingent on the company accepting or approving the material, or on the project finding financing. The producer can stop buying new steps. They cannot refuse to pay for the one you delivered because they did not like it.

How the money gets split inside a step deal

Total deal value gets allocated across the steps, and how it gets allocated matters more than the headline number.

Good representation pushes most of the money onto the writing steps rather than an option fee or a small upfront. Why? Because your step fees, especially your first draft number, become your quote. Your quote is the figure your next employer starts from. A big option fee looks nice once. A strong first draft fee follows you into every future negotiation. Agents know this and structure accordingly.

Within a single step, payment itself is split. The 2026 schedule spells it out for a writer on a flat deal at twice minimum or less: at least 50 percent of the agreed fee for a step on commencement, another 25 percent on invoice if you have not delivered within nine weeks of starting, and the final 25 percent on delivery. So even one step is not one check. Budget your life around delivery, not commencement.

Delivery money has a clock on it too. The company must make its best efforts to pay within 48 hours of delivery, and in no event more than seven days after, with interest accruing at 1.5 percent a month on late payment. The guild also requires timely delivery of a contract or deal memo, generally within 10 to 12 days of agreeing the major deal points.

Two more numbers shape what you actually take home. Initial compensation for writing services is generally subject to a 10 percent agent commission, and managers and lawyers often take their own share. On the other side, the employer pays pension and health contributions on top of your fee (11.25 percent to the pension plan and 16.25 percent to the health fund under the 2026 agreement), so that money never comes out of your step.

None of this is exotic. It is the default machinery of a covered deal, and a buyer who treats any of it as a favor is telling you something about how the rest of the project will go.

The WGA rules that protect writers on steps

The guild has spent years fighting "free work," where writers get squeezed into extra passes with no pay. The 2026 agreement pushed three protections further.

First, the guaranteed second step. When a company hires a writer for a first draft screenplay, with or without a treatment, at 225 percent of the applicable minimum or less, it must also employ that writer for a rewrite at no less than the rewrite minimum. Under the 2023 agreement the threshold was 200 percent. Raising it means more mid level writers get a built in second bite instead of one shot and a cut-off. The rule also covers screenplay purchases from a professional writer at that pay level.

Second, a page-one rewrite minimum. When the contract says a writer is hired to replace all or substantially all of an existing screenplay, the floor is now $57,500 on a high budget feature and $31,500 on a low budget one, for contracts entered into on or after May 2, 2026. The label only applies if it is written into the contract, which is one more reason to pin scope down on paper.

Third, who can ask for work. Studios must now instruct producers on covered theatrical projects that only the named individual in the writer's contract can request rewrites or accept delivery. That targets a familiar leak, where several producers each ask for "a quick pass" and delivery keeps slipping because nobody with authority will accept it.

Paid steps must also be real steps. A rewrite is a rewrite and a polish is a polish. Producers are not supposed to disguise a full rewrite as a cheap "polish" or ask for structural surgery under a dialogue pass.

You do not have to be in the guild for a deal to be structured in steps, but the WGA framework is where these protections live. On a non-union deal, every one of them exists only if your contract says so.

A step deal versus a spec sale

A step deal is how you get paid to write something that does not exist yet. A spec sale is how you get paid for something you already wrote. The difference shapes everything about the money.

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When a company buys a finished original screenplay from a professional writer, the 2026 schedule treats it under the same line as an original screenplay excluding treatment: a high budget minimum of $126,899 and a low budget minimum of $61,990 in the current period. You did the work on your own time, so there are no steps to trigger and no cut-off after the treatment. The risk sat with you, and the payment reflects the finished asset.

What often follows a sale, though, is a step deal. The buyer may hire you for a rewrite and a polish, each paid as its own step, or bring in another writer to do them. If the purchase price was at 225 percent of minimum or less, the guaranteed second step rule applies there too, so the company has to employ you for a paid rewrite.

Options sit in between. Under the MBA, a company can option a professional writer's material for up to 18 months for at least 10 percent of minimum, with each renewal of up to 18 months costing at least another 10 percent. An option buys time to find financing. It does not buy the script, and it does not pay for new writing.

A step deal worked through with real numbers

Here is how the money moves in a simple case. Say you are hired at exact scale this summer to write an original high budget feature from your own treatment.

The treatment step is worth $69,228. At least half of it, $34,614, lands on commencement, and the balance on delivery. The producer reads the treatment, likes it, and triggers the first draft: another $69,228, again split between commencement and delivery. The first draft comes in, and the studio's priorities have shifted. Under older, weaker terms, this is where a cut-off could end your involvement.

Under the 2026 rules it does not end yet. You were hired at 225 percent of minimum or less, so the company must employ you for a rewrite at no less than $46,152. Only after that paid pass is the cut-off back on the table. Your guaranteed earnings come to roughly $184,600 at minimum, before a 10 percent agent commission takes about $18,500 and before managers, lawyers, and taxes.

Now run the same story at a low budget company. The treatment and first draft installments are $41,806 and $36,333, and the guaranteed rewrite floor is $30,273. Same work, same writer, same months, and the minimum comes to about $108,400. Budget tier is a bigger lever than most writers realize, and the project sets it, not you.

Notice what the example leaves out. There is no polish, no production bonus, and no backend. All of those are negotiable extras, and the guild guarantees none of them.

That is usually the moment a writer starts wondering what their own pages are worth to a buyer. Score your own logline or opening page for free and see where your script stands before anyone puts a number on it.

A score will not set your fee, and nobody hires on a number. What it gives you is a cold outside read of whether the pages that get you into the room look like the work of someone a buyer would trust with a paid step.

What a step deal contract should spell out

By the time the deal memo lands, the headline number is usually settled. The details that decide whether the deal works for you are further down the page. Read for these:

• Every step, named and priced. Treatment, first draft, rewrite, polish, each with its own fee, rather than a single total with loosely described stages.
• Which steps are guaranteed. The memo should say plainly which steps the company commits to and which are optional.
• Reading periods. How long the buyer has after each delivery to decide whether to trigger the next step. Without a limit, an optional step can hang for months.
• Writing periods. How long you have to deliver each step. Short windows on rewrites are common, so make sure the calendar is one you can actually hit.
• The payment schedule. Commencement and delivery amounts for each step, in dollars.
• Bonuses. Many deals add money if the film is produced and you earn screen credit. Get the amounts and the credit conditions in writing.
• The named individual. Who on the buyer's side can request rewrites and accept delivery.

A missing item is not always a trap, but it is always a conversation. Raise it before you start writing, when you have the most leverage, not after delivery, when you have the least.

If you have no agent, an entertainment lawyer can review the deal memo before you sign. Their fee is almost always smaller than the cost of a step you assumed was guaranteed and was not.

The levers you can actually pull

You will not win every point. Focus on the ones that move real value.

• Fight for guaranteed over optional. A guaranteed rewrite is money you will be paid. An optional rewrite is money you might be paid. Converting one optional step to guaranteed is often worth more than a bump on the headline number.
• Push value onto the first draft. It sets your quote. Protect it.
• Negotiate the commencement split above twice scale. The guild's 50 percent rule only applies automatically on flat deals at twice minimum or less. Above that line, more money at commencement is something you ask for, and it means less risk if the project dies mid step.
• Get the page-one label when it fits. If you are replacing all or most of an existing script, ask for the contract to say page-one rewrite. Without those words, the higher minimum does not apply.
• Ask what budget tier the project is. The same draft can carry a high or low budget minimum depending on whether the film costs $5 million or more, and that line moves your floor by tens of thousands of dollars.

What does not work

A few beliefs will cost you.

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"They hired me, so the whole fee is coming." No. Only guaranteed steps are coming. Everything else is optional and the cut-off is real.

"I will do a quick free pass to keep them happy." That is exactly what the free work rules exist to stop. Every pass has a name and a fee. Doing structural work under a "polish" label trains buyers to underpay you.

"A huge option fee means a great deal." An option is rent, not purchase, and it does little for your quote. Money on the writing steps is the asset.

"The guild minimum is the going rate." It is the floor. Writers with credits negotiate multiples of it, and a first timer who accepts scale on a high budget studio project is still being paid under the same rules that protect a veteran.

"Step deals only apply to features." The step logic shows up in television development too, with its own set of minimums in the same guild schedule. Whether you write commissioned work or specs at all is its own decision.

Before your first paid step

A step deal rewards writers who can deliver a clean, working draft on the first paid pass, because that is the step that sets your reputation and your quote. Nobody hands out a treatment step on faith. The writing sample that got you the meeting did that work, and the first paid draft has to read at the same level or better.

It helps to study what market ready pages look like before you start the clock on a paid step. Look at how a finished script opens, how fast it tells you the genre, and how little it explains.

Then turn the same eye on your own work before you deliver. Every structural problem you catch yourself is one you fix for free, instead of spending a paid step, and your credibility with the buyer, on notes you could have seen coming. Read the contract twice, read the draft three times, and deliver on the date you promised.

If you are still working toward your first commissioned job, the same logic applies to your samples. They are auditions for a step deal. Write every one as if a buyer will read it with the cut-off right in hand, because eventually one will.