Influencer Advertising and marketing Hub, in partnership with NeoReach, brings you this in‑depth 2025 Creator Earnings Report—uncovering how at the moment’s creators are constructing revenue, affect, and affect.
Since 2020, the worldwide influencer market has surged. What started as a rising development is now a $250 billion business, up from $210 billion in 2024.
But behind these headlines and progress of the creator economic system, one crucial query stays:
Are creators truly incomes extra?
In at the moment’s economic system, creators are the thought leaders constructing audiences, setting cultural agendas, and rewriting the foundations of engagement.
This report dives into the state of the Creator Financial system, backed straight by enter from creators themselves. NeoReach is a longtime catalyst of innovation and creation within the influencer area. We’re right here to uncover the newest traits, analyze, and amplify the unfiltered opinions of the very folks shaping the way forward for advertising: The creators themselves.
Let’s get into it.
Methodology
NeoReach carried out a time-sensitive survey exploring every part from monetization traits, the TikTok ban, creator economics, creator values, and the way creators actually really feel about producing revenue in at the moment’s digital panorama.
3,000+ Creators Surveyed
1.1B+ Whole Followers
Survey Attain
We heard from over 3,000 creators, spanning each nook of the web. Whether or not it’s part-time content material makers simply beginning their journey or full-time veterans who’ve turned their platforms into companies, we heard from all of them. Whereas this report doesn’t seize each monetization technique on the market, it displays a variety of actual creator experiences throughout niches, follower counts, and revenue ranges.
Why It Issues
Because the creator economic system continues to evolve at fast speeds, our purpose is to higher perceive how creators are navigating this shifting terrain, and extra importantly, how they’re getting paid doing it.
Actual Voices, Actual Information
You’ll see quotes all through the report pulled straight from nameless creators who generously shared their unfiltered ideas and lived experiences. Their voices provide one thing information alone can’t: perspective.
An enormous thank-you to the unimaginable creators who took half on this survey. Your insights are shaping the longer term
At a Look
Earlier than we dive in, let’s spotlight some statistics that shall be coated deeper within the report.
The creator economic system has grown by 19.05% since 2024.
This explosive progress has introduced thousands and thousands of recent creators into the area, making it one of the crucial dynamic and culturally influential industries on the planet. However with that progress comes elevated competitors, and revenue hasn’t saved tempo. Whereas the variety of creators has skyrocketed, greater than half nonetheless earn beneath $15,000 a yr, highlighting the widening hole between prime earners and people making an attempt to interrupt by way of. Later on this report, we’ll dig into the explanations behind this shift, from revenue distribution and platform traits to full-time creator progress.
Creator Earnings Evaluation
What’s Up Subsequent
Understanding which age teams are most energetic, and the place they spend their time to empower entrepreneurs to craft sharper methods, extra related content material, and stronger collaborations that really resonate. Our 2025 survey provides a transparent lens into the evolving creator economic system, serving to the business higher perceive, help, and elevate at the moment’s creators.
The upcoming sections dive deep into the wealthy information collected from our expansive survey of creators. Our purpose? To supply a granular understanding of the multifaceted points of creator earnings.
Here is what you possibly can anticipate:
Content material Creator Demographics
Who’re the creators shaping the creator economic system in 2025? We discover demographic insights reminiscent of gender, platform, schooling, and creator values to make clear the components influencing monetary outcomes.
Earnings Evaluation
Every demographic element is paired with corresponding earnings information to assist illustrate how identification, background, and platform selection affect revenue ranges inside the creator panorama.
Financial Viability
Can creators earn a livable wage in 2025? This part addresses the monetary sustainability of content material creation as a career and whether or not the economics help full-time careers.
The Monetization Barrier
After years of surveying and analyzing the creator economic system, we suggest a brand new idea: many creators are hitting a monetization ceiling. Right here, we discover the structural and behavioral components which will forestall creators from breaking by way of key revenue thresholds.
Creator Earnings
In relation to earnings, there’s no one-size-fits-all components.
A creator’s revenue is formed by a mixture of variables: every part from their area of interest and gender, to what number of hours they pour into content material creation, what platforms they prioritize, and which income streams they faucet into.
Within the pages forward, we’ll break down the platforms which can be placing probably the most cash in creators’ pockets, and the place that cash’s coming from.
We’ll additionally spotlight key stats that assist us spot what’s subsequent for the business. Whether or not you’re a model, a creator, or someplace in between, these insights are your roadmap to understanding (and thriving in) the way forward for the creator economic system.
Annual Revenue
What’s Driving This Pattern?
Regardless of most of our creators being content material creation veterans with years of expertise, extra creators are producing lower than $15,000 yearly than in earlier years.
The variety of creators making lower than $15,000 yearly has grown by 2% greater than in 2023, through which 48% of creators had been making lower than $15,000 yearly. A shocking determine as a result of quantity of veteran creators (4+ years of content material creation) surveyed.
What are the causes behind this revenue distribution? There’s a large number of causes reflecting these averages, such because the monetizability of various content material platforms, extra illustration from lower-earning niches, in addition to part-time vs full-time creators.
Distribution by Follower Depend
To make sure a good and unbiased survey, we distributed our outreach to many alternative sizings of creators. Right here’s who we heard from.
For the creators who participated in our survey, 43.8% had beneath 100K followers throughout their accounts.
Whereas we obtained strong responses from all follower tiers, response charges naturally declined as follower rely elevated, a standard development when surveying bigger creators.
Nonetheless, the dataset provides a powerful cross-sectional snapshot of the creator economic system at various ranges of attain.
We’ll have a look into revenue by follower rely additional into the report.
The Monetization Barrier
Analyzing years of creator revenue information has led us to establish a constant sample we name “The Monetization Barrier.” This threshold, set at roughly $15,000 in annual income, separates creators struggling to monetize from these positioned to scale efficiently.
The Monetization Barrier – As soon as annual earnings exceed $15,000, creators exhibit an acceleration in revenue progress. Crossing this threshold signifies a turning level for creators with elevated entry to model partnerships, enhanced platform visibility, and fast viewers enlargement. Creators who fail to surpass this benchmark typically battle to scale their revenue and can plateau round that time. Not from a scarcity of expertise or attain, however as a result of they probably aren’t structured for monetization. And not using a technique for changing affect into revenue, their income stays disconnected from their progress, successfully capping their potential beneath $15k yearly.
A number of components contribute to this barrier:
Platform Monetization Limits
Some creators produce high-quality content material that doesn’t align with monetization applications, both as a result of content material class, model security pointers, video size, or platform preferences
Format Constraints:
As an example, creators making brief, sub-15-second TikToks might not qualify for applications just like the TikTok Creativity Program Beta, which has pushed a shift towards longer-form content material as a pathway to income.
Strategically aligning content material with monetization methods is usually what separates prime earners from the remaining.
The Monetization Barrier
Closing the Hole
With the monetization barrier clearly outlined, the info reveals a stark actuality: many creators won’t earn greater than $15K yearly from content material creation in the event that they preserve their present technique. However what does this imply for these wanting into the creator economic system from the skin?
This under-monetized center tier of creators represents a blind spot within the ecosystem. The creators are influential to be ignored, but, they fall between the cracks of how different creators are monetizing, whether or not its proudly owning a model or getting model offers.
A Second for Intervention
This hole presents an inflection level. For platforms, it is an opportunity to construct smarter monetization instruments. For manufacturers and businesses, it is a chance to rethink how they uncover and help scalable expertise. For creators, it’s a name to discover new income methods.
At NeoReach, we consider the subsequent chapter of the creator economic system shall be formed by the options that rise to satisfy this second. That’s why we’re introducing Influencers.com, a creator-first platform constructed to assist creators flip affect into revenue, backed by the instruments, methods, and the help they should scale.
Study extra about creator-focused instruments at Influencers.com.
Financial Viability
The annual “dwelling wage” in the US is $44,000.
But, practically 57% of surveyed full-time creators earn lower than the dwelling wage from content material creation alone.
This consists of not solely inexperienced persons, but in addition a shocking share of seasoned full-time creators who’ve been energetic for a number of years.
Within the sections forward, we study the structural and platform-based challenges that make monetary sustainability tough. from inconsistent model offers and monetization restrictions to the problem of scaling a solo operation.
Understanding why so many creators stay beneath this threshold is important to addressing long-term sustainability within the creator economic system.
Content material Creator Demographics
Nearly all of surveyed creators are between 18 and 34, with Millennials and Gen Z accounting for over 90% of responses. As content material creation continues to evolve, we anticipate a major rise of Gen Alpha survey respondents in coming years.
Annual Revenue
By Gender
When breaking down earnings by gender, a lot of the upper common amongst males comes from a smaller group of outliers reporting earnings within the thousands and thousands. Whereas many components affect revenue, this development means that the highest-earning creators in our survey have been predominantly male, which continues a bigger sample seen throughout the digital and leisure industries, in addition to our previous surveys.
What Finest Describes Your Area of interest?
In relation to the leisure business, it’s no shocker that way of life and leisure make up the most well-liked niches within the creator economic system.
Creators chosen which area of interest greatest represented themselves, and practically 30% of them recognized with way of life and leisure.
Life-style and leisure provide umbrella-style classes for style, magnificence, household, journey, gaming, and are constantly intertwined with each other.
When excluding way of life and leisure, the highest recognized niches are gaming and style.
Now that we’ve in contrast the expansion on to final yr’s report construction, let’s look into the info with a wider lens, permitting us to view a wider vary of information.
Main Social Channels Utilized by Creators
(2023 VS 2025)
How does our roster of surveyed creators line up with 2023’s creators? This yr, we had a major lower in responses from creators on Instagram, making up 62.68% of final yr’s respondents. Solely 27.55% of creators reported TikTok as their fundamental platform, with the remaining 9.59% being on YouTube. This yr, they’ve flipped the script, with a major improve in responses from the creators on TikTok and YouTube.
Instagram presently leads in common annual revenue, bolstered by a handful of top-earning creators that considerably elevate the platform’s earnings. TikTok, regardless of its massive respondent base, has the heaviest focus of decrease revenue brackets, highlighting ongoing monetization challenges for a large portion of its creator base.
Our information additionally reveals higher-earning creators are extra distinguished and responsive on YouTube and Instagram, whereas TikTok responses are skewed towards smaller creators, indicating it might function a extra accessible entry level into the creator economic system and beginning content material creation.
Content material Creator Demographics
Nearly all of creators surveyed are usually not newcomers.
Almost all have been creating content material for greater than a yr, with most falling into the 1 to 4-year vary. This offers us a snapshot that the financial information we’ve collected is considerably from creators who’ve already weathered the preliminary studying curve and have discovered the ins and outs.
Greater than half of those creators deal with content material creation as their full-time job, whereas the remaining steadiness it with different duties and never as their sole supply of revenue.
Notably, only one in 4 creators reported being beneath formal administration. The remaining three-quarters function independently, suggesting that even amongst seasoned creators, many are nonetheless navigating model offers, negotiations, and technique on their very own.
These distinctions between full-time and part-time creators, in addition to managed and unbiased ones, affect not solely how creators work but in addition their earnings, progress, and long-term sustainability. We’ll discover these dynamics within the sections forward.
Annual Revenue (Half Time vs. Full Time)
Influence of sponsored posts, Revenue by time as a creator, and by video content material
We requested creators to share two key particulars about their content material workflow, the share of their content material that’s video-based, and the variety of hours they dedicate every week to content material creation.
These insights give us a clearer view into the effort and time behind every put up particularly as video content material, which frequently requires extra modifying, planning, and manufacturing, has grow to be the dominant format throughout platforms.
The variety of hours spent creating every week additionally provides a window into the distinction between hobbyists and career-focused creators.
When analyzing earnings, a transparent development emerges. Those that make the most of a mix of video and static content material have been the very best earners. Using each kinds signifies that the creator is unfold throughout a number of platforms reminiscent of Instagram and TikTok and isn’t siloed into one spot.
Income Supply
Over 49% of surveyed creators earn most of their income from model offers.
This can be a 10% lower from final yr with a notable shift in the direction of advert income and self-owned companies.
The lower in model offers being the highest incomes portion of income for creators could also be a consequence from model deal saturation, a scarcity of name offers, in addition to different income sources turning into extra viable over the previous few years.Apparently, when requested what creators would favor to take advantage of income from, over 64% need to make the vast majority of their income from model offers, indicating model offers might have grow to be much less helpful or much less accessible for creators than they beforehand have been. If model offers grow to be scarce, secondary measures reminiscent of advert income and constructing their very own model takes precedence.
Creator Owned Manufacturers – Branding Is Every little thing
Some of the vital points for creators is their potential to model themselves. Many creators have begun taking this to the subsequent stage by constructing their very own manufacturers as properly. The outcomes are an astounding sure, through which practically 45% of creators personal some type of enterprise or model along with their commonplace content material creation.
Creators Are Turning into Entrepreneurs
Annual Revenue by Enterprise Possession
Almost 45% of full-time creators personal a model, and so they earn near $100K yearly by doing so.
Proudly owning a model is one clearest markers for monetary success within the creator economic system.
Creators which can be able to earn a model earn more money than those that don’t presently personal one, indicating that proudly owning a model or being place to have one is a key facet of breaking previous the monetization barrier.
Those that don’t have a model or aren’t seeking to have one, probably don’t earn sufficient to start out one or have the kind of content material {that a} model may be revolved round. Because the Creator Financial system continues to shift, we will anticipate extra creators to adapt to having a model sooner or later.
What Impressed You To Turn into a Creator?
Why do creators begin creating? We requested this to uncover the driving power behind at the moment’s most influential voices. Most respondents say they’re motivated by ardour or a need for artistic expression. The least cited motive? Creating purely for monetary achieve.
Annual Revenue (by Creator Strategy)
Creators who prioritize earning profits earn greater than twice as a lot as their friends.
Our information reveals a major divide in earnings based mostly on creator intent. Amongst all motivations surveyed, monetary achieve was the least generally chosen motive for turning into a creator, but it yielded the very best revenue by a major margin.
Creators who chosen “Making Cash From My Content material” reported a mean annual revenue of over $132k, greater than double that of these targeted on creating high quality content material, connecting with their viewers, or constructing a private model. This information is probably going skewed from the few who chosen this as their possibility being vital incomes makers within the creator economic system.
Whereas ardour and audience-building stay key drivers for creators, those that actively deal with their content material like a enterprise are positioned for long-term success.
Sponsored Posts
In 2025, over 53% of surveyed creators created between 0 and 10 sponsored posts, whereas 23.9% created 10-20, and 10.7% created 20-30 sponsored posts.
In comparison with our information from last year, the typical max pay of a sponsored put up has risen by $1,150, whereas the typical median pay of a sponsored put up has risen by $1,000. This means that the charges for creator content material have considerably risen and can probably proceed to take action as each inflation and the worth of influencer content material will increase.
Annual Revenue (by Sponsored Posts)
The quantity of sponsored posts is straight correlated to the quantity of sponsored posts.
Our information reveals a major divide in earnings based mostly on creator intent. Amongst all motivations surveyed, monetary achieve was the least generally chosen motive for turning into a creator, but it yielded the very best revenue by a major margin.
Creators who chosen “Making Cash From My Content material” reported a mean annual revenue of over $132k, greater than double that of these targeted on creating high quality content material, connecting with their viewers, or constructing a private model. This information is probably going skewed from the few who chosen this as their possibility being vital incomes makers within the creator economic system.
Whereas ardour and audience-building stay key drivers for creators, those that actively deal with their content material like a enterprise are positioned for long-term success.
The Influence of Larger Training on Content material Creation
Over 77% of the creators surveyed attended increased schooling, the vast majority of whom pursued a 4-year diploma.
Most creators financed their schooling by way of both working, their household’s help, or taking up scholar loans. Solely a fraction of creators have dropped out to pursue content material creation as a substitute of upper schooling.
Training (2023 vs 2025)
For the reason that 2023 Creator Earnings Report, we’ve found that 7.7% extra creators didn’t attend increased schooling than in 2023. This means that content material creation has grow to be extra accessible, and the variety of content material creators attending increased schooling will probably proceed to lower, particularly as extra youth decide up content material creation earlier than they attain school.
Extra Creators Are Dropping Out for Content material
In 2025, 15.9% of content material creators dropped out or postponed their increased schooling for content material creation. Almost twice as many creators have dropped out of school in comparison with 2023’s 8.6%.This means that turning into a creator, particularly in a market favoring influencers, has grow to be extra viable than the usual 9-5 work schedule.
Surprisingly, creators who had no increased schooling had increased annual revenue than those that did. It’s probably that youthful full-time creators entered the area early, monetized quicker, and forgoed conventional schooling.
Diploma Relevancy to Content material Creation
When requested on a scale of 1 to five how related their diploma is to their content material creation, they responded with solely a 2.66 common.
Solely 36% of creators which have levels discover it related to their content material creation.
Financial Conclusions
The Creator Financial system Is Skewed Towards Low-Revenue Earners
By way of our information, we’ve discovered that almost all of the creator economic system is closely skewed in the direction of low-income earners, with many creators struggling to interrupt the monetization barrier.
What Does This Inform Us?
Most creators within the creator economic system aren’t incomes substantial revenue, the bulk make lower than $15,000 yearly. However for individuals who surpass that threshold, earnings are likely to speed up.
It’s vital to notice that whereas many creators battle with monetization, many earn an important deal. The creator economic system is rising and economically viable, however for a lot of, breaking by way of the $15,000 threshold stays a tough climb.
Creator Values
How do you measure your success as a creator?
The creators surveyed considerably leaned towards engagement as their metric of private success.
2023 VS 2025
By way of our information, we’ve discovered that engagement as a measurement of success has stayed practically similar from 2023. Engagement greatest encapsulates the worth of the content material and its potential to attach with their neighborhood, permitting them to draw manufacturers, obtain sponsorships, and generate revenue.
We’ve discovered that creators at the moment are barely much less targeted on revenue and have shifted their focus to follower rely. Whereas revenue as a hit measurement continues to reign supreme, there’s a noticeable shift in the direction of neighborhood progress as a substitute of financial efficiency as progress results in elevated financial efficiency.
Greatest Challenges for Creators
Let’s get on a private stage with the creators, we requested them to provide us extra element:
“My largest problem is constantly enhancing my content material to be extra artistic, standing out in my style whereas staying forward of the curve, evolving traits and balancing creativity with viewers’s pursuits.”
“I don’t actually know how you can attain out to manufacturers and even the place to begin to construct connections that would flip right into a long run partnership. Each sponsor I’ve performed has approached me. I’m selective however I would like to achieve out to manufacturers and be taken severely.
“I don’t actually know how you can attain out to manufacturers and even the place to begin to construct connections that would flip right into a long run partnership. Each sponsor I’ve performed has approached me. I’m selective however I would like to achieve out to manufacturers and be taken severely.
Greatest Challenges for Creators
Right here’s another feedback from the creators:
“I don’t actually know how you can attain out to manufacturers and even the place to begin to construct connections that would flip right into a long run partnership. Each sponsor I’ve performed has approached me. I’m selective however I would like to achieve out to manufacturers and be taken severely.
“Discovery is first, work/life steadiness is second. I don’t make sufficient to maintain my household in content material alone. I began my journey late so content material is my second full time job.”
Creator Companies
The Rise Of CapCut
Useful and accessible modifying applications, reminiscent of CapCut, Canva, and Adobe Suite, are a number of the closely most popular instruments for creators. These platforms and applications provide the creators picture and video modifying capabilities whereas retaining value effectivity.
Since 2023, there was an enormous improve in using CapCut because it dominates the creator companies market, practically doubling in utilization from final yr. In response to Statista, Capcut had a total of over 410 million downloads in 2024, being the seventh most downloaded app in 2024.
Capcut’s prominence has proven itself each on the creator stage and in our survey. Different notable mentions included an increase in Adobe Suite and Canva’s utilization, whereas a major lower occurred for InShot, dropping right down to 4.1%.
The TikTok Ban
An Endangered Hub of the Creator Financial system
A Platform Creators Rely On
Nearly all of our surveyed viewers are TikTok customers (44%), a lot of which being social media veterans with 4+ years of being a creator.
We Requested Creators: What Occurs If It’s Banned?
With the TikTok ban looming, these creators’ consolation, viewers, and way of life are presently in danger.
We determined to ask them their ideas and plan if the TikTok ban have been to happen.
TikTok – An Endangered Hub of the Creator Financial system
Almost all surveyed TikTok creators have a plan to pivot if TikTok have been to grow to be banned in the US. Most of which have Instagram as a prepared backup, which is smart as TikTok’s short-form video content material Integrates most simply to Instagram Reels, after which subsequently YouTube Shorts.
What do you are feeling will occur to the Creator Financial system if the TikTok ban have been to take impact?
As anticipated, creators are closely in opposition to the TikTok ban. However there was a mix of opinions; some creators have been very hopeful, considering of the TikTok ban as a problem and alternative to develop on new platforms and change issues up. However total, creators are resoundingly in opposition to the TikTok ban.
The TikTok Ban
We invited creators to weigh in on the potential TikTok ban. Their responses provide a candid take a look at how the platform’s future impacts the individuals who depend on it most.
“TikTok is not the primary social platform to go away. Discovery shall be more difficult for these with low effort content material. Some creators we’ll by no means hear from once more. Others will discover a new area of interest. We simply want to seek out the subsequent platform.”
“(It) will certainly shift so much. TikTok was large for creators as a result of it’s a neighborhood based mostly platform, which means it’s simpler to share ideas, merchandise, and many others with their viewers and have a much bigger affect. Different platforms aren’t as sturdy for this”
“I believe it could result in total mistrust of our authorities as a result of if it could occur to tiktok it could occur to any platform. Additionally, it reveals that it’s best to by no means depend on just one platform whenever you’re a creator.”
“It could plummet, all of the entrepreneurs I personally know and creators too, have been in a position to rework TikTok as a fundamental supply of revenue for themselves and households. Personally, TikTok has taken my enterprise to a complete new stage and has opened the doorways for me to have the ability to economically assist different ladies from my neighborhood.”
“I believe the vast majority of folks utilizing tiktok will shift over to different platforms. TikTok was the large, and taking it down will disrupt a LOT of creators. As a creator myself we’ve to study and adapt. There must be no motive any creator on tiktok shouldn’t be on different platforms as properly. Creators must be specializing in bringing their tiktok following to different platforms in wake of the ban on the horizon.”
“If TikTok have been banned, I believe the creator economic system would shift, but it surely wouldn’t collapse. Creators would transfer to different platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and rising apps. Manufacturers would possibly adapt too, shifting their advert {dollars} to those platforms. It may imply extra competitors, but in addition new alternatives for creators to face out and diversify their income streams. The important thing shall be adaptability and constructing sturdy relationships with followers throughout a number of
channels.”
Future Predictions
Quotes throughout the corporate on our predictions:
Regardless of the creator economic system’s fast progress, monetization stays the largest hurdle. Too many creators stall at $15K a yr—not from lack of expertise, however as a result of platforms weren’t constructed to assist them scale. At NeoReach, we’re targeted on breaking that barrier and serving to creators flip affect into lasting revenue.
-James Michalak
CEO
The way forward for the creator economic system is within the lengthy tail. Sub-100k creators are driving actual engagement and types are lastly catching on. At NeoReach, we’re driving partnership alternatives and constructing the instruments/infrastructure to assist these creators scale. The subsequent wave isn’t concerning the 1%, it’s concerning the 99% shaping tradition from the bottom up.
-Brendon McNerney
CRO
Right here at NeoReach, we’re actively constructing instruments and sources to assist creators develop and spend extra time doing what they love– creating content material. The much less time they’ve to fret about admin duties, the extra they’ll fear about rising their account, creating content material, and bypassing the monetization barrier.
-Steph Payas
CMO
Concerning the Writer
Author
Nadica Naceva writes, edits, and wrangles content material at Influencer Advertising and marketing Hub, the place she retains the wheels turning behind the scenes. She’s reviewed extra articles than she will rely, ensuring they don’t exit sounding like AI wrote them in a rush. When she’s not knee-deep in drafts, she’s coaching others to identify fluff from miles away (so she doesn’t must).
