How many professional creators are there? How many creators are there total?
How much do creators earn per sponsored post, and what other income streams do they use?
In this post, we’ve rounded up the best creator economy statistics from reports published around the web.
They cover all of these questions and more and really open your eyes to common misconceptions we all have about content creation.
Here’s one that jumped out: While you might see everyone on TikTok, the real money is being made by people like you who are starting a blog. 25% earn the most via blogs.
Key findings: creator economy statistics
Before we dig into all of the data with a full list of sources, here are the key findings that really stood out:
| Metric | Data | Insights |
|---|---|---|
| Total Global Creators | 207 Million+ | The market is huge, but “Nano-influencers” (1k-10k) make up 67%. |
| Market Valuation | $21.1 Billion | Influencer marketing is growing, creating more opportunities for small blogs. |
| Niche Authority | 62% Agree Specializing Works | Picking a tight niche is the #1 way to boost engagement and reach. |
| Revenue Source | 25% Earn Most via Blogs | Despite social media hype, blogs remain the highest revenue-generating asset. |
| Monetization Choice | 41% Favor Own Products | Selling your own physical/digital products beats “renting” affiliate links. |
| Top Paid Niche | Lifestyle ($994 avg/deal) | High-visual, high-relatability niches command the highest brand premiums. |
General creator economy statistics
1. There are 207 million creators on the web
The global creator economy includes a creator pool of over 207 million creators from around the world.
This data comes from Linktree’s 2022 Creator Report.
They also revealed a collective social media user base of 4.2 billion social media users, which gives you an idea of the potential professional creators have in growing a following.
Source: Linktree
2. Facebook has the largest user base with 2.9 billion monthly active users
Statista tracks user base data for all major social media platforms.
Their data reveals that Facebook has the largest user base with 2.9 billion monthly active users by the end of fourth quarter of 2022.
This is interesting as a majority of the statistics in this article point to Instagram, TikTok and YouTube as being the most influential social media platforms for creators.
Source: Statista
3. 67% of all influencers are nano influencers with 1,000 to 10,000 followers
According to data uncovered by Linktree, most creators, or 67.15%, are nano influencers, meaning they have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers.
This percentage makes up the majority of influencers, or roughly 139 million of all content creators.
The next biggest chunk of creators are micro influencers, or influencers with 10,000 to 100,000 followers.
There are 41 million micro influencers, which is 19.81% of all creators.
There are 2 million macro influencers (100,000 to 1 million followers) and 2 million mega influencers (over 1 million followers).
These numbers make up less than 1% of all creators globally each, or 1.94% combined.
23 million creators have fewer than 1,000 followers. This number makes up 11.11% of all creators.
Source: Linktree
4. 66% of creators work part time as content creators
This data comes from a survey of 9,500 creators, which was conducted by Linktree for their 2022 Creator Report.
66% of respondents reported working as creators part time, which means 34% of creators are full-time creators.
36% are amateur creators who have only been making content for less than one or equal to one year.
43% of creators spend less than or equal to five hours a week on content creation.
Source: Linktree
5. 77% of social media influencers are women
For Collabstr’s 2023 Influencer Marketing Report, the brand surveyed 50,000 influencers.
They discovered a whopping 77% of respondents to be women while 23% were men.
This gender gap even became a trend on a per-platform basis.
According to survey results, 76% of influencers on TikTok are women while only 24% are men.
On Instagram, 79% of influencers are women while 21% are men.
The gap is smallest on YouTube. Here, 69% of influencers are women while 31% are men.
The trend continues when you compare follower counts of men and women on TikTok and Instagram.
However, the gap is smallest when you compare follower counts on YouTube, specifically among YouTubers with 50,000 to 500,000 subscribers.
53% of YouTubers with 50,000 to 100,000 subscribers are women while 47% are men.
56% of YouTubers with 100,000 to 500,000 subscribers are women while 44% are men.
Source: Collabstr
6. 25% of influencers operate in the fashion and beauty niche
This stat comes from Influencer Marketing Hub in their 2023 State of Marketing Report.
They found that the fashion and beauty niche was popular among 25% of respondents, gaming among 12.9%, travel and lifestyle among 12.5%, sports among 12%, family, parent and home among 10.7%, and health and fitness among 6.8%.
19% of respondents voted for “other.”
However, it should be noted that Influencer Marketing Hub’s numbers come from a survey of 3,500 marketing agencies and brands.
Collabstr also publishes a report on influencer marketing every year.
While they don’t say what percentage of respondents voted for what, their report does state that the most popular niches (voted for by 50,000 influencers) are lifestyle, fashion, beauty, travel, modeling, and health and fitness.
Source: Influencer Marketing Hub
7. The global influencer marketing industry is expected to grow to $21.1B in 2023
The influencer marketing industry grew to $16.4 billion USD in 2022 and is expected to grow to $21.1B in 2023.
This data was uncovered by Influencer Marketing Hub, who also discovered, through a survey of 3,500 marketing professionals, that 67% of marketers plan to spend more on influencer marketing in 2023.
This means there’s a lot of potential for the average nano influencer to launch a full-fledged creator business.
There’s also a lot of potential for brands to circumvent ad-blocking technology by spending less on ad revenue and more on influencer marketing, including commissioning creators to create sponsored posts.
When brands do this with creators who have active, highly-engaged followings, their engagements from marketing campaigns have the potential to be higher than marketing campaigns that involve inserting ads in multiple channels.
Source: Influencer Marketing Hub
8. The United States is the #1 country for influencer marketing
Collabstr surveyed 50,000 influencers and 20,000 brands and marketing agencies.
The resulting data revealed the 10 most popular countries for brand deals.
The United States was ranked as the most popular country for paid collaborations between brands and influencers, follow