The online creator economy began with the rise of social media platforms. This led to the phenomenon of everyday people gaining followers and influencer status, allowing them to make a living online.
Since then, the creator economy has only grown. Today the creator economy has grown to include 50 million creators, hundreds of platforms, and a market size of over $100 billion.
If you’re interested in the creator economy, here are 25 must-know creator economy statistics and trends for 2024, covering market size, popular platforms, creator earnings, and emerging trends.
The number of social media users has swelled to 4.2 billion people, and today, they support a creator economy worth $104.2 billion.
The staggering growth of users and revenue is set to continue. In fact, a report from Talenthouse states that the creator economy is expected to grow at a CAGR of 35% through 2024.
Size of the Creator Economy
In 2021, the total amount invested in the creator economy hit $5 billion, far exceeding the total investments made in previous years. Of the $5 billion raised, most of the capital funded creator platforms.
Some platforms that received funding in 2021 included Kajabi, MasterClass, Cameo, and Patreon. These companies received over $100 million in investment last year and have valuations greater than $1 billion.
Creator economy platform investments in 2021
There are over 4.62 billion social media users, and they’re estimated to spend over two hours a day on social media platforms, equating to over 4 trillion hours spent on these platforms each year.
TikTok and YouTube ranked first and second on the list of most-used platforms, each receiving over 45 minutes of daily consumer time.
Amount of time spent on social media platforms (Source: Statista)
Additionally, the fight for consumer attention has seen large brands relocate advertising budgets from traditional print and television advertising to paying individual influencers to market products.
There are now 50 million individuals that use their influence, creativity, or skills to monetize their audience. The most popular platforms for online creators are Instagram, Youtube, and TikTok.
With such a high number of creators spread across many platforms, the competition to gain influence is fierce. Out of the 50 million creators, around 2 million are professional creators who make content full-time.
Number of creators (Source: Signalfire)
Influencers are most likely to be young and female. In fact, 63% are Gen Z, and 48% of all creators are women. With widespread access to smartphones and the internet, becoming a creator has never been easier. This availability has empowered many young women to build and monetize an audience.
Most influencers are amateur creators, with 66% considering themselves part-time creators. Therefore, audience monetization isn’t their primary source of income. To supplement their full-time salary, many creators spend a few hours each week producing and publishing content.
With new social platforms emerging and millions of new users joining them each year, participating in the creator economy is becoming a viable side-hustle.
Turning your passion into a living wage is extremely difficult. Only 12% of full-time creators earn more than $50k annually, and 46% of full-time creators make less than $1,000.
A report found that 13% of full-time creators find the job “extremely stressful.” Due to extreme stress and job difficulty, most creators find it hard to turn their hobby into a full-time job.
Building an audience and learning how to best monetize it takes a lot of time. The average content entrepreneur waits 18 months to begin outsourcing tasks and 26 months before being able to afford to hire someone full-time.
Hiring journey for online creators (Source: The Tilt)
Although content entrepreneurs take a long time to hire full-time, their path to profitability is quicker than most small businesses, making it an extremely attractive business model.
In fact, 75% of content entrepreneurs bootstrap their business: they do not take out loans, nor do they have credit card debt or receive outside funding.
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Instagram is the most popular platform through which creators monetize their audience, with 72% of creators’ primary monetization coming from the platform. The most common way to monetize Instagram is through influencer marketing, including sponsored brand deals and product placements.
Creators’ Primary Platform (Source: Influencer Marketing Hub)
Although Youtube is third on the list—with only 9.36% of creators using it as their primary monetization method—the platform’s share of full-time creators greatly outperforms its rivals.
According to a Signal Fire report, 50% of full-time creators earn their living through Youtube. They do this in several ways, including in-video ads, affiliate marketing, and promoting their physical product or service.
Influencer marketing is a popular method to monetize an audience where creators would post a product image or review for a payment.
For instance, a 2021 report from NeoReach found that 94% of all influencers made at least one sponsored post last year.
Instead, 10% of the highest-earning influencers—those with an annual income greater than $1 million—were found to post sponsored content at least once a month.
There are hundreds of ways online influencers can monetize their audience. However, the most popular way by far is to sell physical products, and this method is used by 46% of niche creators.
Many Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok creators make more money from their physical product businesses than through advertising and sponsorships.
Aside from selling physical products, content creators can sell online courses, downloadable resources, and membership sites.
Channels earning creators revenue
A recent trend suggests that online creators are increasingly moving towards the patronage model of monetization.
The patronage model sees followers subscribing or donating money to be a part of a community and to view exclusive content. The most popular patronage platforms are Patreon and Substack.
Total creator earnings, facilitated by Stripe payment methods, will soon exceed $10 billion. Platforms contributing to Stripe’s total revenue include Teachable, Interval, and Luma.
The increase in aggregate earnings has enabled many influencers to become full-time creators. In 2021, the number of creators earning a living wage grew by 41%.
The study conducted by Stripe predicted a further increase in this number. This growth is predicted to be driven by more creators joining, more platforms being created, more audience monetization methods, and more geographies having access to Stripe.
The company, which supports payments for creators and companies in 54 countries, reported that the fastest-growing geographies were countries they had just expanded to, suggesting potentially large amounts of untapped growth.
Currently, Instagram has over 1 billion users, and 500,000 accounts have gained over 100,000 followers.
Instagram follower size (Source: Mention)
To be a full-time creator, the minimum required follower count is 100k, putting you in the top 4% of the most followed accounts. Accounts of this size are expected to charge around $1,000 per post.
For reference, Sam Ushiro, a full-time creator, reportedly charged $1,500 per post when she had 283k followers.
There are over 51 million channels on the platform, of which more than 29,000 have over 1 million subscribers, and 306,000 have over 100k subscribers.
When influencers cross the 100,000 subscribers mark, they will likely generate enough revenue to create full-time content.
Youtube channels with 100,000 subscribers that publish two weekly videos can expect to generate between $2,400 and $4,000 in ad revenue, according to CreditDonkey.
When an influencer gains a large number of subscribers, they tend to look for other monetization methods to increase their income. The most popular ways to monetize a Youtube channel include affiliate marketing, brand deals, and selling their own digital or physical products.
Mr Beast is a trailblazer on the platform, consistently producing viral content that has earned him 96.9 million subscribers.
In the past ten years, Mr Beast has uploaded 722 videos. The content included cash giveaways, eating gold pizza, and spending 50 hours in solitary confinement.
Aside from the typical monetization methods that Youtube offers, he also started several businesses that leverage his audience.
In 2020, he opened Mr Beast Burger. This restaurant is only available through delivery apps, and it has quickly grown to over 1,000 kitchens in three countries.
In 2021, TikTok’s five highest-paid influencers generated $55.5 million in combined earnings. The number one content creator by earnings was Charlie D’Amelio, who earned an estimated $17.5 million.
The most popular methods for creators to monetize their audience are brand deals, sponsored content, and selling their physical products.
Although TikTok has a Creator Fund, it pays substantially less than the other monetization methods. According to our estimation, TikTok pays between $20 and $40 per 1 million views.
While sponsored posts remain the most popular monetization method, many TikTok stars have begun selling their physical products to increase their income. For example, the D’Amelio sisters have recently signed a brand deal with Hollister for over $27 million in 2021.
Top TikTok creators by earnings
Clubhouse is a social audio app founded in 2020. Users can create chat rooms on the platform where they can talk, stream live podcasts, and have discussions.
The top-ten influencers on Clubhouse have over 50 million followers combined.
Currently, the company doesn’t provide any methods to monetize audiences directly on the platform. However, influencers have worked out ways to leverage their audiences to generate earnings.
The most common monetization method is leveraging your club to advertise your business or sell ad space to companies. Top clubs have hundreds of thousands of members who receive notifications whenever their club hosts a room.
Instagram Marketing Secrets – Tips, Tricks & Guidance is a club with over 350,000 members and hosts rooms daily. It allows paid advertisers to sponsor rooms, co-host rooms, and co-mod rooms in exchange for a fee.
Suggested Reading: Top 30+ Clubhouse Statistics: Users, Revenue & More
Twitch is a popular online streaming platform with over 8 million active streamers and 31 million daily viewers.
Popular streamers can apply to become Twitch partners, of whom there currently are more than 27,000.
To become partners, creators must complete the “Path to Partner Achievement” or “demonstrate large, engaged viewership/following on other services.”
Becoming a partner on Twitch has many benefits, including earning a share of the ads revenue, being able to accept virtual currency, and offering subscriptions to your fans.
Thinkific, a leading online course platform, studied their highest-earning creators and found that top earners were twice as likely to offer subscriptions to customers.
This study demonstrated a wider trend in the ecosphere of knowledge entrepreneurs moving towards a subscription model, with 36% of creators saying they intend to start selling memberships in 2022
Products creators want to sell in 2022
Many platforms have been launched to support this model. Two of the most popular subscription platforms are Patreon and Substack.
Patreon is a membership platform that gives creators the tools to get paid. Patrons subscribe to influencers they like and, in return, receive exclusive content. The content can include blog posts, videos, live calls, and podcasts.
To date, Patreon has paid out over $3.5 billion to over 250,000 creators. The top influencer is True Crime Obsessed, which has 49,501 patrons and is estimated to generate over $130,000 per month. Patronage tiers range from $5 to $10.
Suggested Reading: 40+ Top Patreon Statistics: Creators, Earnings & More
Creator earnings on Substack have experienced phenomenal growth in the past two years, with the top-ten writers now making a combined $20 million.
With such high earning potential, the platform managed to attract a lot of high-quality talent. Today, writers from leading publications, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, have joined.
Top writers on the platform have tens of thousands of subscribers. Most writers opt not to charge their readers any subscription fees, and those that do typically charge between $5 and $20 per month.
Suggested Reading: 30+ Top Substack Statistics: Newsletters, Earnings & More
OnlyFans is one of the most famous subscription platforms that allows creators to charge for viewing adult content. As of August 2021, the company had 130 million users and 2 million creators. The platform shot to notoriety for allowing the publication of pornographic content.
A New York Post report showed that top creators earn a staggering 270 times more than the average worker. Bella Thorne, a former Disney star turned into a leading OnlyFans creator, was the first person to generate $1 million in revenue in one day on the platform.
Udemy is an online learning and teaching platform founded in 2010 that hosts 65,000 instructors who produced over 183k courses.
In a 2021 investor report, Udemy said that it paid $177 million to instructors and that top instructors earn more than $1 million annually.
One of the platform’s top earners is Alan Rodrigues, who teaches over 20 courses, including Microsoft Azure and AWS Cloud Computing. He has taught over 363k students since joining.
The number of top instructors is set to grow over the next few years, with 94% of business leaders saying they expect their employees to pick up new skills, which presents an excellent opportunity for course creators.
Kajabi is a platform that provides knowledge entrepreneurs with monetization tools to sell courses, membership programs, and podcasts.
The company takes a different approach to pricing than platforms like Patreon. Instead of charging a fixed percentage fee on each sale, they charge a monthly subscription fee.
Kajabi Heroes have already been paid over $3.5 billion and are on track to earn $1.7 billion this year—of which course sales generated 41% of the earnings.
With the trend towards digital products, courses, and memberships increasing, the Kajabi platform is expected to continue rising in popularity.
Suggested Reading: Top Online Learning Statistics and Trends
Online communities have become the hottest trend in recent years, with creators trying to connect with their community members more intimately. A Thinkific report found that the most successful creators are twice as likely to build a community.
Various online community platforms exist, but the most popular tool is Facebook Groups, which hosts 78% of all online communities across tens of millions of groups.
Another trend is to sell access to communities. According to a Kajabi report, 28% of creators on the platform intend to start selling online communities.
Suggested Reading: Top Online Community Statistics and Trends
There is no stopping the incredible growth of these online ecosystems, and we are sure our general creator economy statistics helped you understand where these trends are heading.
That’s the complete round-up of the 25 most important creator economy statistics and trends in 2024.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Please leave a comment and let us know your thoughts!
An online community platform is a software that lets you create a website where people with common interests can connect and interact. The platform provides the infrastructure for members to communicate and collaborate with each other, share content, and participate in activities and events.
Choosing the right platform for your community depends on the type of community you’re building, the features and functionality you need, your technical know-how, and your budget. However, a good community builder should offer the essential tools for content creation, community organization, member management, moderation, etc.
Circle is the best all-around community platform that works well for creators as well as brands. In addition, Mighty Networks and BuddyBoss are also great options for creators.
BuddyBoss is the best community plugin for WordPress users, as it is the only robust WordPress-based option that offers a complete suite of community-building features. It also integrates with other popular plugins like LearnDash and Gamipress.
The best way to get your community app is to subscribe to a community builder that lets you create branded apps. There are a few providers out there, like Mighty Networks, BuddyBoss, and Disciple, that provide this service.
Hey there! I'm Baidhurya, the brains behind SellCoursesOnline. I used to run a digital agency, where I helped course businesses launch their eLearning platforms. I also led the tech and marketing teams at StationX, helping it grow to 500K+ students. In addition, I created the popular supply chain network design course. With 8+ years of experience, I'm here to share my expertise and insights on course creation and platforms with you.
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Hey there! I’m Baidhurya, the brains behind SellCoursesOnline. I used to run a digital agency, where I helped course businesses launch their eLearning platforms. I also led the tech and marketing teams at StationX, helping it grow to 500K+ students. In addition, I created the popular supply chain network design course. With 8+ years of experience, I’m here to share my expertise and insights on course creation and platforms with you.
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