Creator economy statistics 2026: the UK and US numbers that matter

The creator economy statistics that matter most in 2026 are these: Goldman Sachs sized the global creator economy at around $250 billion in 2023 and expects it to approach $480 billion by 2027. US brands are forecast to spend about $44 billion on creator advertising in 2026, according to IAB. In the UK, advertiser spend on creator partnerships is forecast to pass £1bn for the first time in 2026.

Below, we’ve gathered the most useful verified numbers for 2026 in one place, grouped by the questions people actually search. Every figure has a linked source and a year. Where two credible sources disagree, we say so and show both, because in this market the definition behind a number matters as much as the number itself. New to the topic? Start with our plain-English guide to what the creator economy is.

Key takeaways

• The global creator economy was worth about $250 billion in 2023 and could approach $480 billion by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs.

• US creator ad spend is forecast at around $44 billion in 2026, more than triple the $13.9 billion recorded in 2021 (IAB).

• UK creator partnership spend is forecast at £1.217bn in 2026, up 26% on 2025 (Marketing Week, reporting IAB UK data).

• YouTube says it paid over $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies in the four years to September 2025.

• Ownership is rising. Nearly 45% of creators in one 2025 survey already own a brand or business alongside their content.

Why do creator economy statistics matter in 2026?

Because the money is moving faster than almost any other part of media. IAB found US creator ad spend grew 26% in 2025, around four times faster than the total media industry, which grew 5.7% (IAB, November 2025).

The UK story is similar. Creator partnership spend grew 20.1% in 2025, more than twice the 9.6% growth in the rest of UK digital advertising (InPublishing, September 2026).

For creators, that growth is useful context in every conversation with a brand, a platform or an investor. It shows that creator budgets are becoming a permanent line in marketing plans, not an experiment. For brand marketers and investors, it explains why so many are now looking for longer, deeper partnerships with creators.

How big is the creator economy?

The most widely quoted estimate comes from Goldman Sachs. In April 2023 it put the creator economy’s total addressable market at roughly $250 billion, growing at a 10% to 20% compound annual rate to approach $480 billion by 2027 (Goldman Sachs, 2023). That figure covers much more than advertising, including platform payouts, brand deals and other ways creators earn.

A narrower measure is influencer marketing spend. Statista estimated the global influencer marketing market at about $33 billion in 2025, noting it has more than tripled since 2020 (Statista, 2025).

Why do creator economy market size estimates differ so much?

Here the sources disagree, and it’s worth saying so plainly. Statista’s global influencer marketing figure for 2025 (about $33 billion) is smaller than IAB’s US-only creator ad spend figure for the same year ($37 billion). The two are not contradicting each other so much as measuring different things with different methods: IAB counts US advertiser spend across creator content and paid media, while Statista tracks the influencer marketing market as it defines it.

Our advice is simple. Quote one source per point, name it, give the year, and never add figures from different studies together.

How big is the UK creator economy?

The clearest UK number is new. IAB UK commissioned the first dedicated measurement of advertiser investment in creator partnerships aimed at UK consumers, published in September 2026. It found:

• 2024: £804m

• 2025: £966m, up 20.1%

• 2026 (forecast): £1.217bn, up 26%

Those figures come from Marketing Week’s report on the IAB UK data. In 2025, creator partnerships made up around 2.4% of the UK’s £40.5bn total adspend, which suggests plenty of room to grow.

Brand appetite points the same way. In the same Marketing Week report, Kolsquare data showed 93% of UK brands and agencies expect to increase influencer marketing spend over the next 12 months, up from 81% in 2025.

A different lens is economic contribution. YouTube says its UK creators contributed £2.8bn to UK GDP in 2025, a 25% increase year on year, and supported more than 60,000 full-time equivalent jobs, based on Oxford Economics research (YouTube Official Blog, September 2026).

Note that these are two different measures. The IAB UK figure is advertiser spend on creator partnerships across all platforms. The YouTube figure is the wider economic contribution of one platform’s creators. Both are useful, but they answer different questions.

How much do brands spend on creators in the US?

IAB tracks US creator ad spend, and its numbers show steady, fast growth:

The 2021 to 2025 figures come from IAB’s 2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend and Strategy Report. The 2026 forecast was shared at IAB’s first CreatorFronts event in September 2026, where the industry also set out an ambition to reach $100 billion or more in creator advertising (IAB, 2026).

Two more details from the 2025 report are useful for creators. Some 48% of advertisers now see creators as a “must buy”, ranking them third behind social media and paid search. And when brands choose creators, 58% put weight on the creator’s reputation and 56% on audience alignment. Trust and fit matter as much as reach.

On the wider economy, YouTube says the economic activity around its platform contributed more than $60 billion to US GDP in 2025 and supported over 540,000 full-time equivalent jobs, again based on Oxford Economics research (YouTube Official Blog, 2026).

How many creators are there, and how many earn a living?

This is where the numbers vary most, because everyone defines “creator” differently.

• Goldman Sachs (2023): about 50 million creators worldwide, of whom around 4% are professionals earning more than $100,000 a year (Goldman Sachs).

• Linktree (2022): about 200 million people globally using their influence, creativity or skills to build and earn from an audience. It also found 12% of full-time creators made more than $50,000 a year (Linktree Creator Report, 2022).

So the two best-known estimates of how many creators there are differ by a factor of four. Goldman’s figure leans towards people actively earning, while Linktree’s broader definition includes anyone building and earning from an audience. Both are now a few years old, so treat them as a guide to scale rather than a live headcount.

More recent numbers help fill the gap. YouTube says more than 3 million creators are now in the YouTube Partner Program (YouTube Official Blog, August 2026). And in a 2025 survey of more than 3,000 creators, nearly 57% of full-time creators earned less than the US living wage from content creation alone (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2025).

Read together, these figures tell a clear, constructive story. Earnings from content alone are concentrated at the top, which is exactly why the creators who do best tend to add income streams they control.

Which platforms pay creators the most?

There’s no clean league table, because platforms don’t publish like-for-like payout data. What we do have are official totals and published revenue shares:

• YouTube: “over $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies globally over the last four years”, announced in September 2025 (YouTube Official Blog). Partners receive 55% of net ad revenue on long-form videos and 45% of their allocated Shorts revenue (YouTube Help).

• Patreon: passed $10 billion paid to creators since its 2013 launch, and is paying out around $2 billion a year (Tubefilter, August 2025).

• Kajabi: also passed $10 billion in creator earnings since 2010, with nearly 1,800 creators earning at least $1 million on the platform (same source).

• Spotify: paid more than $100 million to creators and podcasters in the first quarter of 2025, the first quarter of its Partner Program in markets including the UK and US (Tubefilter, April 2025). In September 2026 Spotify said monthly payouts to enrolled shows had risen by more than a third since it widened eligibility earlier in the year (Spotify Newsroom).

• Twitch: a standard 50/50 subscription split, with eligible streamers able to earn 60/40 or 70/30 (Digiday, September 2026).

The pattern worth noticing: the platforms with the largest disclosed totals include memberships and courses (Patreon, Kajabi), not only advertising. Direct payment from fans is now a serious part of how creators earn.

How are creators diversifying income and building brands?

Brand deals are still the backbone for many. Over 49% of creators surveyed by Influencer Marketing Hub in 2025 said they earn most of their revenue from brand deals. But nearly 45% already own some form of brand or business alongside their content, and full-time creators who own a brand reported earning close to $100,000 a year from it (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2025).

The direction of travel is clear in the newest data too. Epidemic Sound’s 2026 survey of 3,000 creators across the UK and US found 72% are actively building owned audiences through channels like newsletters and Discord, and 41% want to build a sustainable, independent business or grow into a media brand or creator studio (Epidemic Sound, 2026).

Commerce is growing inside the platforms as well. YouTube says more than 500,000 creators are taking part in YouTube Shopping (YouTube Official Blog, January 2026).

A UK example shows where this can lead. Deliciously Ella began as a food blog in 2012 and grew into a plant-based food brand with around £24m in annual revenue, before being acquired by Hero Group in September 2024 (Green Queen, 2024). In the US, Kajabi’s figure of nearly 1,800 creators earning $1 million or more shows how far an owned product, like a course or membership, can go.

For a fuller breakdown of each income stream, see our guide on how creators make money.

What do these creator economy statistics mean for creators who want to own something?

Almost every headline number above measures money flowing through someone else: brand budgets, platform payouts, ad revenue shares. That money is real and growing. But it is, in effect, rent paid for access to a creator’s audience.

Here’s the insight we keep coming back to: ad spend tells you what brands will pay to borrow your audience’s attention for a campaign; ownership lets you capture the value of their trust every day after the campaign ends. The creators in the 45% who own a brand aren’t doing less content. They’ve added an asset that compounds.

If that’s the direction you’re weighing up, our guide to building a creator brand you own walks through the practical steps, and our explainer on creator equity deals covers how ownership can be structured.

How should creators use these numbers when pitching brands or investors?

Statistics are most persuasive when they frame your own results rather than replace them. Here’s how we’d use them.

1. Match the number to the market. Pitching a UK brand? Lead with the IAB UK figures. Pitching a US brand or investor? Use IAB US. Mixing markets weakens the point.

2. Always name the source and the year. “IAB forecasts US creator ad spend of around $44 billion in 2026” lands far better than “the creator economy is huge”.

3. Use market data as the frame, then show your own. One line on market growth, then your engagement, audience make-up, conversion data and repeat-purchase signals. Brand decision-makers weigh reputation and audience fit heavily, so show both.

4. For investors, show ownership potential. The 45% of creators who already own a brand, and the growth in owned audiences, help explain why a creator-led business is investable. Your own email list, community or sales data does the rest.

5. Don’t stack incompatible figures. Never add Goldman’s market size to IAB’s ad spend, or compare a GDP contribution with an ad spend number.

If you’re also building your first-party audience, our guide to owned audiences for creators explains why that data is so valuable in these conversations.

Building a brand with Modem Studios

Modem Studios co-creates brands with creators. The creator is a genuine owner and partner in what we build together, and we bring the operational side: product development, supply, launch and growth. If the numbers in this guide have you thinking about what you could own, get in touch and let’s talk about building something together.

FAQ

What is the creator economy worth in 2026?

There is no single agreed figure for 2026. Goldman Sachs estimated the global creator economy at about $250 billion in 2023 and projected it could approach $480 billion by 2027, growing at 10% to 20% a year. Narrower measures, such as US creator ad spend (around $44 billion in 2026, per IAB), track only part of that total.

How much do UK brands spend on creator partnerships?

IAB UK data, reported by Marketing Week in September 2026, puts UK advertiser spend on creator partnerships at £966m in 2025, up 20.1% on 2024. It is forecast to reach £1.217bn in 2026, the first time the category has passed £1bn, growing more than twice as fast as the rest of UK digital advertising.

What percentage of creators earn over $100,000 a year?

Goldman Sachs estimated in 2023 that around 4% of the world’s roughly 50 million creators are professionals earning more than $100,000 a year. Linktree’s 2022 report found 12% of full-time creators earned over $50,000. Both suggest earnings from content alone are concentrated among a relatively small group of creators.

How much has YouTube paid creators?

YouTube said in September 2025 that it had paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies globally over the previous four years. YouTube Partner Program members receive 55% of net ad revenue on long-form videos and 45% of their allocated Shorts revenue, and more than 3 million creators are in the programme.

Why do creator economy statistics from different sources disagree?

Sources define the creator economy differently. Some measure total market value, others only advertiser spend, platform payouts or economic contribution, and each uses its own method and geography. For example, Statista’s global influencer marketing estimate for 2025 is lower than IAB’s US-only creator ad spend figure, because they measure different things.

We’ll keep this page updated as new data lands. The short version: brand budgets for creators are growing fast on both sides of the Atlantic, and the creators getting the most from that growth are the ones building something they own alongside it.