About this map
Explore the creator economy through 12 stakeholders and 102 relationships. Click a stakeholder to read its role, follow the lines to see who pays whom, or switch to List for the text version. Dive into tools, brands and platforms to browse the companies behind the connections.
Start with the ecosystem guide, read the 2026 overview, or find out how the creator economy works. The methodology explains the sources and limits.
How to read this map
This interactive creator economy map connects 12 stakeholders through 102 relationships. Select a stakeholder, follow a line, or use the lenses to trace money, content and attention, rules and influence, or people and services. Dive into 1,181 tools, 858 brands and 229 platforms.
Read the ecosystem guide, the 2026 overview, or how the industry works. Sources and method explains how the map was assembled.
The 12 stakeholders
The same content as the interactive map, in reading order, with my take on each stakeholder.
Content Creators
The engine of the whole economy.
Individuals and small teams who entertain, educate, inspire, and curate. They turn attention into trust, and trust into revenue through ads, sponsorships, products, and memberships.
Numbers and sources
- 50M+ people worldwide identify as creators — Goldman Sachs, 2023
- $480B projected creator economy size by 2027 — Goldman Sachs, 2023
- ~4% of creators are estimated to earn a full-time income — Goldman Sachs, 2023
- $100B+ paid by YouTube to creators, artists, and media companies over four years — YouTube, Sep 2025
Who they are
Entertainers · Educators · Inspirers · Curators · Newsletter writers · Streamers · Podcasters · News influencers
Examples
MrBeast · Emma Chamberlain · Marques Brownlee · Alex Cooper · Ali Abdaal · Colin & Samir · Dude Perfect · Kai Cenat
What they do
- Create content that educates, entertains, inspires, or curates
- Recommend products through sponsorships, affiliate links, and UGC
- Sell digital products, courses, coaching, merch, and memberships
- Engage through comments, DMs, live streams, and communities
- Build parasocial relationships that convert followers into customers
- Mobilize audiences for launches, campaigns, and causes
- Launch their own brands and software from audience pain points
- Test platform features early and shape cultural trends
Relationships
- Publish content that entertains, educates, inspires, or saves time: The core exchange of the whole map. Creators publish consistently, audiences give attention and trust in return.
- Pay directly: memberships, tips, courses, merch, products: Direct fan revenue is the part creators control. It includes Patreon memberships, YouTube channel memberships, Super Chats, courses, coaching, digital products, and merch.
- Supply the content that drives engagement and ad impressions: Platforms own no content. Creators are the supply side; without them there is nothing to recommend or sell ads against.
- Pay via ad revenue share, creator funds, subscriptions, and tips: YouTube shares 55% of long-form ad revenue and 45% of the Shorts pool. TikTok, Instagram, X, Snap, and Spotify run funds or rewards programs that pay far less per view.
- Pay for sponsorships, UGC, affiliate commissions, and ambassadorships: The largest external money flow in the economy. Brands pay flat fees, per-post rates, commissions, and equity for access to the trust creators have built.
- Deliver reach, trust, conversions, and reusable UGC assets: Creators give brands what ads cannot: borrowed trust. Brands also reuse creator content in paid ads, on product pages, and in retail.
- Represent, negotiate deals, and run career strategy: Managers and agents source brand deals, negotiate rates and usage rights, handle PR, and help the biggest creators raise capital and launch companies.
- Pay commissions of 10 to 20% on deals and revenue: Representation is paid as a percentage of what it brings in, aligning incentives around bigger deals and more revenue lines.
- Provide the software for monetization, community, editing, and analytics: Tools let one person run what used to require a studio, a store, a publisher, and a bank.
- Pay subscriptions and take rates; give feedback and promotion: Creators are the customers: monthly subscriptions, payment-processing take rates, and affiliate promotion. Their feedback shapes roadmaps.
- Educate, cover, and set the narrative about what works: Newsletters, podcasts, and trade press tell creators which platforms, formats, and business models are worth their time.
- Provide the stories, data, and drama that media covers: Creators are the subject of creator economy media, and some of them now own it.
- Offer learning, networking, deals, and fan meetups: Events compress a year of networking into a few days and let creators meet fans in person.
- Headline, speak, and draw the attendees: Events sell tickets and sponsorships on the strength of the creators who show up.
- Provide editing, strategy, writing, production, and community management: Behind most large channels is a team. Freelancers and operators do the work that lets creators focus on the content.
- Hire freelancers and full-time staff to run and scale their Creator Businesses: Creator businesses are now employers. Top creators run teams of dozens or hundreds. Smaller creators might hire contractors, freelancers, VA's to reduce costs and increase profit margins. % based deals are also made where freelancers get paid based on the amount $ they make with digital products or other monetization channels.
- Require sponsorship disclosure and ban fake reviews: Creators must clearly disclose paid relationships and may not fake reviews, buy followers, or hide material connections.
- Found companies and supply free distribution: The creator's audience is the launch channel, the focus group, and the first customers.
- Return profits and equity value that fund more content: Owning the product means owning the margin. Brand profits finance bigger content bets.
- Invest directly in creators and their holding companies: Funds now back the creator as a business, taking equity in everything they build rather than in a single product.
- Become angel investors, LPs, and fund partners: Top creators invest in the tools they use and the brands they promote, and some raise their own funds.
- Set the rules creators live by: Eligibility thresholds, bonus programs, and algorithm changes shape creator income more than any law.
- Push back, migrate, and diversify: Creators respond to rule changes by moving audiences, which platforms now pay to prevent.
- Lobby, litigate, and organize: Creators have sued over the TikTok law and formed guilds to lobby on disclosure, taxes, and platform policy.
In the news
- · CAA and TPG form Compound Creative Holdings, a $250M company to buy creator-led businesses (Variety)
A Hollywood agency and a private equity firm pooled capital to acquire and operate creator companies. Talent representation and ownership are merging.
- · Accenture Song buys Whalar (Accenture)
The creator agency's 170 staff and co-CEOs joined Accenture Song, which already owned Superdigital and Unlimited.
- · Reign Maker Group buys creator management firm Hyphen HQ (Deadline)
A new roll-up vehicle founded to buy creator economy companies picked up a talent business, part of a wave of management consolidation.
- · Night raises $70M to build, operate, and acquire businesses in gaming, music, sports, and live events (Tubefilter)
The management firm behind Kai Cenat, Sam and Colby, and T-Pain took money from StepStone, Founders Fund, and others so it can own businesses as well as represent talent.
- · YouTube doubles the bar to join the Partner Program (TechCrunch)
From February 1, 2027, new creators need 8,000 qualified watch hours in a year or 20 million Shorts views in 90 days, double the old thresholds. Existing members keep access but must accept new terms.
- · 70 creator economy M&A deals in the first half of 2026, a record pace (The Ankler)
Software companies, agencies, media properties, and talent firms are all being bought. Creators are now sellers, buyers, and targets.
- · Meta paid nearly $3B to creators in 2025 and will pay TikTok and YouTube creators to post on Facebook (CNBC)
Payouts rose 35% year on year, with about 60% going to Reels. Meta offers guaranteed monthly pay for three months plus a reach boost to lure creators from rival platforms.
- · YouTube says it has paid over $100B to creators, artists, and media companies in four years (YouTube)
Announced at Made on YouTube 2025 alongside new AI and creator tools. Neal Mohan: 'We didn't just create a platform. We built an economy.'
- · One in five US adults regularly gets news from influencers (Pew Research Center)
Pew found 21% of adults, and 37% of those under 30, regularly get news from creators, most of whom have no ties to a news organization.
- · The creator economy could approach half a trillion dollars by 2027 (Goldman Sachs)
Goldman's research estimated 50M creators globally and a $250B market, growing to $480B by 2027, driven by brand spend and platform payouts.
- · Beast Games premieres on Prime Video (Amazon / MrBeast)
A 1,000-contestant game show produced by a creator for a streaming giant showed how far creator-led production has come.
Audiences & Fans
Attention, engagement, and $$.
The people who watch, read, listen, comment, share, and buy. From casual scrollers to superfans, they are the source of every dollar in the economy, either directly or via the attention they lend to ads.
Numbers and sources
- 5.79B social media users worldwide, 69.9% of the population — DataReportal, Apr 2026
- $11.8B spent by US shoppers on TikTok Shop in the first half of 2026 — Tubefilter, Aug 2026
- 1,000 true fans is enough for a full-time creator income — Kevin Kelly's model
- 37% of US adults under 30 regularly get news from influencers — Pew, 2024
Who they are
Casual viewers · Followers · Subscribers · Paying members · Customers · Superfans · Community members
Examples
YouTube subscribers · Patreon patrons · Twitch chat · Substack subscribers · Discord communities · VidCon attendees
What they do
- Consume content daily across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and more
- Feed algorithms with likes, comments, shares, and watch time
- Buy products promoted by creators via affiliate links and UGC
- Pay directly through memberships, tips, courses, and merch
- Attend live events and meet creators in person
- Create their own content (recaps, reactions, fan edits)
- Shape platform design through usage patterns
Relationships
- Publish content that entertains, educates, inspires, or saves time: The core exchange of the whole map. Creators publish consistently, audiences give attention and trust in return.
- Pay directly: memberships, tips, courses, merch, products: Direct fan revenue is the part creators control. It includes Patreon memberships, YouTube channel memberships, Super Chats, courses, coaching, digital products, and merch.
- Give attention and engagement signals that train the algorithms: Every like, comment, share, watch-second, and skip is data. Audiences train the recommendation systems that decide which creators win.
- Recommend and distribute content through personalized feeds: Platforms decide what billions of people see. Discovery has shifted from following to recommendation, which is why creators can go from zero to millions in weeks.
- Buy tickets to meet creators and other fans: Fan conventions monetize the parasocial relationship directly.
- Protect users: age limits, data privacy, and child safety: Age verification, privacy law, and child protection rules change who can be on platforms and how they can be monetized.
- Buy products on creator recommendations: The conversion at the end of the funnel. Creator-driven purchases are why the rest of the money flows.
- Sell products directly, online and in retail: Creator brands reach fans through DTC sites, marketplaces, and physical retail shelves.
- Buy the products: Fans buy from creators they trust, often at higher conversion rates than traditional brands see.
- Subscribe to and read creator economy media: Audiences pay for newsletters and podcasts that cover the industry, and creators are now a news source in their own right.
- Explain the creator economy to the public: Research and press shape how the public understands creators, from news influencers to health advice.
- Push for new rules through complaints and campaigns: Parent campaigns and public pressure drove age limits, and consumer complaints trigger enforcement.
- Sell fan experiences and meetups: Fan conventions are where the parasocial relationship becomes a physical one.
- Pay through creator tools, which keep a take rate: Most direct fan revenue passes through a tool that takes a cut.
- Deliver newsletters, communities, courses, and live shopping: For fans, the tool is the product: the inbox, the community, the stream.
- Run creator-style brand accounts and ambassador pages: Brands now behave like creators, with in-house personalities and ambassador rosters that audiences follow directly.
In the news
- · Nearly 6 in 10 young women get health and wellness information from influencers (Pew Research Center)
Pew's 2026 short read shows creators are now a primary information source in categories that used to belong to doctors and publishers.
- · Digital 2026 April update: 5.79 billion social media users, 69.9% of the world (We Are Social / DataReportal)
Active social identities grew 5.4% in a year, about 800,000 new users a day.
- · US shoppers spent $11.8B on TikTok Shop in the first half of 2026 (Tubefilter)
US GMV grew 103% year on year and the US became TikTok Shop's largest market again. The platform is on track to pass $100B in global GMV for the year.
- · Young adults and the future of news (Pew Research Center)
Adults under 30 are the most likely to get news from creators and the most likely to come across it by accident rather than seeking it out.
- · Digital 2025: 5.24 billion social media user identities (DataReportal)
The annual report put social users at 63.9% of the world's population, with time spent per day still above two hours.
- · Digital Media Trends 2025: Gen Z finds creators more relevant than TV (Deloitte)
Deloitte's survey found younger audiences now see social video and creators as their primary source of entertainment and recommendations.
- · America's news influencers (Pew Research Center)
Pew mapped 500 news influencers and the audiences who trust them, finding the audience skews young and male and that X is the most common home platform.
Social Media Platforms
Distribution, discovery, and the rules of the game.
The platforms that host, distribute, and monetize creator content. They decide who gets seen, how much creators earn, and what features exist, and they change those rules constantly.
Numbers and sources
- 55% of YouTube ad revenue goes to creators in the Partner Program — YouTube
- 45% of Shorts ad revenue pool shared with creators since Feb 2023 — YouTube
- 3B+ monthly users on Meta's family of apps — Meta, 2024
- 150M+ TikTok users in the US when the divest-or-ban law passed — TikTok, 2024
Who they are
YouTube · TikTok · Instagram · Facebook · X · LinkedIn · Twitch · Kick · Snapchat · Pinterest · Threads · Bluesky · Spotify
Examples
YouTube Partner Program · TikTok Creator Rewards · Instagram Creator Marketplace · Twitch Partner Plus · X Creator Revenue Sharing · Spotify Partner Program
What they do
- Host, distribute, and monetize creator content at scale
- Pay creators through ad revenue share, funds, subscriptions, and tips
- Shape creator behavior through algorithms, features, and policy
- Sell ad inventory and creator marketplaces to brands
- Roll out new formats constantly: Shorts, Reels, Lives, Notes, Threads
- Open or restrict APIs, making or breaking third-party tools
- Lobby and litigate against regulation
- Employ tens of thousands of people in creator-facing roles
Relationships
- Supply the content that drives engagement and ad impressions: Platforms own no content. Creators are the supply side; without them there is nothing to recommend or sell ads against.
- Pay via ad revenue share, creator funds, subscriptions, and tips: YouTube shares 55% of long-form ad revenue and 45% of the Shorts pool. TikTok, Instagram, X, Snap, and Spotify run funds or rewards programs that pay far less per view.
- Give attention and engagement signals that train the algorithms: Every like, comment, share, watch-second, and skip is data. Audiences train the recommendation systems that decide which creators win.
- Recommend and distribute content through personalized feeds: Platforms decide what billions of people see. Discovery has shifted from following to recommendation, which is why creators can go from zero to millions in weeks.
- Buy paid ads, boosted creator posts, and marketplace placements: Most brand money still goes to platforms as ads. A growing share pays to amplify creator content through partnership ads and creator marketplaces.
- Provide ad inventory, creator marketplaces, and measurement: Platforms sell brands the audience, the targeting, the creators, and the attribution, all in one place.
- Invest via venture rounds, private equity, and public markets: Platforms are the largest capital sinks in the map. Investor pressure for growth flows down into monetization and algorithm decisions.
- Deliver returns and set expectations for the whole category: Platform valuations set the ceiling for what investors believe creator businesses can be worth.
- Sponsor, host, and run their own creator summits: Platforms use events to court creators and announce features.
- Employ tens of thousands in creator-facing roles: Partnership managers, policy teams, trust and safety, and product teams are all part of the creator economy workforce.
- Set rules on privacy, moderation, ads, child safety, and ownership: From the DSA to COPPA to the TikTok law, regulators decide what platforms must do, and who may own them.
- Lobby, litigate, and shape the rules: Platforms spend heavily to influence regulation and go to court when they lose.
- Control the APIs and policies tools depend on: A single API pricing change or policy shift can kill a category of tools overnight.
- Provide commerce rails and shelf space inside the feed: Platforms are now retailers. Creator brands sell directly inside TikTok Shop, YouTube Shopping, Instagram, and live-shopping apps.
- Pay ads, marketplace commissions, and fees: Creator brands buy paid reach and pay commission on every in-app sale.
- Supply data, payout numbers, and access: Platform announcements set the agenda for creator economy coverage.
- Scrutinize policy changes and shape creator sentiment: Coverage of monetization changes and bonus cuts pressures platforms and drives creator migration.
- Run agency partner programs and give early access: Platforms work through agencies to reach many creators at once.
- Bring rosters to new formats and features: Agencies decide where their creators post next, which makes them kingmakers for new features.
- Set the rules creators live by: Eligibility thresholds, bonus programs, and algorithm changes shape creator income more than any law.
- Push back, migrate, and diversify: Creators respond to rule changes by moving audiences, which platforms now pay to prevent.
- Staff partnerships, trust and safety, and product teams: Platforms run on creator-facing employees.
In the news
- · Made on YouTube 2026: AI editing, help with brand pitches, and real-time dubbing for Live (Google)
Ask Studio will help creators respond to brand briefs, likeness detection expands to protect a creator's face and voice, and Shorts can now be organised into seasons and episodes.
- · Spotify Partner Program expands to more than 35 new markets (Spotify)
Video podcast payouts, launched in four countries in January 2025, now reach most of Spotify's major markets.
- · YouTube doubles Partner Program entry requirements from February 2027 (TechCrunch)
8,000 qualified watch hours or 20 million Shorts views. YouTube says it will add other incentives, including Shopping bonuses and brand-deal tools, for channels below the bar.
- · TikTok Shop US GMV nearly doubles to $11.8B in H1 2026 (Tubefilter)
Global GMV passed $50B for the half. TikTok is now a retailer as much as a video app, and the US has 1.35 million stores on it.
- · Meta paid nearly $3B to creators in 2025, and now pays rivals' creators to post on Facebook (CNBC)
Guaranteed pay for three months and a permanent reach boost for TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube creators who bring their content to Facebook Reels.
- · TikTok's US business closes into a joint venture led by Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX (Variety)
After the 2024 divest-or-ban law and several deadline extensions, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC took over the US app, with the investor group holding 80.1% and ByteDance 19.9%. Oracle hosts US user data and oversees retraining of the recommendation algorithm.
- · Spotify Partner Program launches with payouts for video podcasters (Spotify)
Spotify began paying creators for video podcast consumption by Premium users, competing directly with YouTube for podcasters.
- · Patreon moves iOS to subscription billing, passing Apple's 30% fee to fans (Patreon)
Apple required Patreon to use in-app purchase for memberships. Creators could choose whether fans absorb the fee or take a cut themselves.
- · X shifts creator payouts to be based on engagement from Premium users (X)
Revenue sharing moved away from ads shown in replies to a model tied to engagement, changing incentives for creators on the platform.
- · YouTube starts sharing Shorts ad revenue with creators (YouTube)
The first large-scale revenue share for short-form video, in contrast to the fixed-pool creator funds used by TikTok and Instagram.
Brands & Advertisers
The biggest source of outside money.
Companies that pay creators and platforms to reach their audiences. The more engaged/niche they are the better the pay (but not always!). Sponsorships, UGC, affiliate programs, and paid social are now core marketing budget lines rather than experiments an intern comes up with.
Numbers and sources
- $40B+ projected global influencer marketing market in 2026 — Influencer Marketing Hub, 2026
- $10B+ US influencer marketing spend forecast for 2025 — eMarketer
- 300,000 creators in Unilever's direct network, up from 10,000 in two years — Unilever, 2026
- $500M Publicis paid to acquire influencer agency Influential — Publicis, 2024
Who they are
DTC brands · Consumer tech · Beauty & wellness · Fintech & finance · Gaming · Enterprise B2B · Retail & CPG · Media & entertainment
Examples
Unilever · Gymshark · Glossier · NordVPN · HelloFresh · Shopify · Adobe · Nike · Grok
What they do
- Pay creators for sponsored content, product placements, and UGC
- Provide free products and affiliate deals to incentivize promotion
- Run long-term ambassadorships and co-branded products
- Buy paid ads and creator marketplace placements from platforms
- Fund research, reports, and events that shape industry narratives
- Acquire or invest in creator-led brands
- Hire in-house influencer marketing teams and agencies
Relationships
- Pay for sponsorships, UGC, affiliate commissions, and ambassadorships: The largest external money flow in the economy. Brands pay flat fees, per-post rates, commissions, and equity for access to the trust creators have built.
- Deliver reach, trust, conversions, and reusable UGC assets: Creators give brands what ads cannot: borrowed trust. Brands also reuse creator content in paid ads, on product pages, and in retail.
- Buy paid ads, boosted creator posts, and marketplace placements: Most brand money still goes to platforms as ads. A growing share pays to amplify creator content through partnership ads and creator marketplaces.
- Provide ad inventory, creator marketplaces, and measurement: Platforms sell brands the audience, the targeting, the creators, and the attribution, all in one place.
- Publish reports and case studies that justify creator budgets: Benchmark reports and case studies give marketers the numbers they need to defend and grow influencer budgets internally.
- Sponsor stages, booths, and activations: Brands pay to be where creators and fans already are.
- Give brands direct access to creators, fans, and trends: Events are where brands find creators to work with and see what audiences care about.
- Hold advertisers liable for creator disclosures and claims: Brands are responsible for what the creators they pay say, and for the disclosure of the relationship.
- Supply creator rosters and run campaigns: Agencies package their creators for brands and manage the campaign end to end.
- Pay agency fees and campaign budgets: Brands pay agencies to find, vet, and manage creators at scale.
- Buy products on creator recommendations: The conversion at the end of the funnel. Creator-driven purchases are why the rest of the money flows.
- Compete for shelf space, and get acquired: Creator brands compete directly with legacy CPG and beauty brands, and the incumbents respond by buying or partnering.
- Acquire, co-build, and distribute creator brands: Legacy brands provide capital, manufacturing, and distribution to creator brands, or simply buy them.
- Sell influencer software, creator networks, and measurement to brands: A large share of creator tools are sold to marketers, not creators: discovery, contracts, payments, and attribution.
- Pay SaaS subscriptions, platform fees, and acquisition prices: Brands are the highest-paying customers of the tools layer, and the biggest ones buy the tools outright.
- Staff in-house creator, social, and influencer teams: Brands hire creator managers, social producers, and community leads to run programs at scale.
- Employ and contract creator marketing talent: In-house salaries, agency retainers, and freelance production budgets.
- Run creator-style brand accounts and ambassador pages: Brands now behave like creators, with in-house personalities and ambassador rosters that audiences follow directly.
- Lobby through industry bodies and self-regulation: Advertisers shape disclosure rules through trade groups and voluntary codes before regulators act.
In the news
- · Agency fees in creator deals become the next transparency fight (Digiday)
ANA figures put the average agency take at about 30% of influencer spend, and only 39% of agreements are transparent to the marketer.
- · Cannes Lions 2026: more than 250 creators, and every platform on the beach (Variety)
The largest creator turnout in the festival's history. YouTube, TikTok, Meta, Spotify, and Reddit all ran activations pitching creators and brands at once.
- · Accenture Song acquires creator agency Whalar (Accenture)
A consulting giant bought a 170-person creator agency, following Publicis's Influential and Captiv8 deals. Creator marketing is now sold at the CEO level.
- · Unilever is now working with close to 300,000 creators (Forbes)
CEO Fernando Fernández said the direct creator network grew from 10,000 to 300,000 in two years, with about half of digital spend going to creator-led content.
- · Benchmark Report 2026: market projected above $40B (Influencer Marketing Hub)
Most surveyed brands planned to raise influencer budgets again in 2026, with TikTok the most common platform in their plans.
- · Unilever to spend half its ad budget on social and work with 20x more influencers (Reuters)
New CEO Fernando Fernandez said consumers distrust corporate messaging and that creators at scale are the answer. Unilever is the world's second-largest advertiser.
- · Publicis acquires Captiv8, a year after buying Influential for $500M (Publicis Groupe)
Captiv8 tracks 15M creators. Combined with Influential and Epsilon's identity data, it gives the holding company an influencer platform it can sell to enterprise clients.
- · Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2025 (Influencer Marketing Hub)
The annual survey estimated the global market at $32.55B for 2025, with most marketers planning to increase budgets and many preferring nano and micro creators.
- · Publicis buys Influential for around $500M (Publicis Groupe)
One of the biggest influencer marketing deals to date, giving Publicis a creator network of 3.5M+ profiles and AI matching tools.
Talent Agencies & Managers
The deal makers behind the biggest creators.
Managers, agents, and creator agencies who secure brand deals, negotiate terms, handle PR/licensing, and help the biggest creators build companies and raise capital.
Numbers and sources
- 70%+ of creators with 500K+ followers have formal representation — Tubefilter, 2023
- 10 to 20% typical management commission on creator earnings — Industry standard
- $70M raised by Night in Feb 2026 to buy and build businesses around its creators — Tubefilter
- $250M CAA and TPG's Compound Creative Holdings, formed to buy creator businesses — Variety, 2026
Who they are
Talent managers · Talent agencies · Creator agencies · Influencer marketing agencies · PR firms · Licensing & IP agents
Examples
Night · UTA · CAA · WME · Wasserman · Viral Nation · Whalar · Underscore Talent · Select Management
What they do
- Negotiate brand deals and secure sponsorships for creators
- Manage partnerships, PR, licensing, and long-term career strategy
- Advise on monetization, positioning, and product launches
- Package creator-led businesses for investors and acquirers
- Run campaigns for brands using their rosters
- Take a commission on everything they touch
Relationships
- Represent, negotiate deals, and run career strategy: Managers and agents source brand deals, negotiate rates and usage rights, handle PR, and help the biggest creators raise capital and launch companies.
- Pay commissions of 10 to 20% on deals and revenue: Representation is paid as a percentage of what it brings in, aligning incentives around bigger deals and more revenue lines.
- Supply creator rosters and run campaigns: Agencies package their creators for brands and manage the campaign end to end.
- Pay agency fees and campaign budgets: Brands pay agencies to find, vet, and manage creators at scale.
- Fund and roll up management firms and agencies: Investors are buying the representation layer because it sits closest to creator cash flow.
- Deliver exits and source deal flow: Agencies package creator businesses for investors and are themselves acquisition targets.
- Incubate, co-found, and operate creator brands: Management firms now build companies with their clients instead of only negotiating deals for them.
- Share equity, fees, and exit proceeds: When a manager helps build the company, they are paid in ownership as well as commission.
- Run agency operations: CRM, payments, reporting, and rosters: Management firms run on the same software brands use, plus creator-finance tools for payouts.
- Pay for software and act as channel partners: Agencies pay per seat and bring whole rosters onto a tool, which makes them a key distribution channel.
- Employ managers, coordinators, and campaign staff: Agencies are employers in their own right, and consolidation moves those jobs into bigger companies.
- Provide freelance production, editing, and campaign delivery: Agencies outsource much of the actual content work to freelancers.
- Extend advertising liability to agencies and intermediaries: The FTC's 2023 Endorsement Guides spell out the liability of intermediaries, and UK rules cover agencies too.
- Run agency partner programs and give early access: Platforms work through agencies to reach many creators at once.
- Bring rosters to new formats and features: Agencies decide where their creators post next, which makes them kingmakers for new features.
- Pitch stories and place clients in the press: PR is part of representation. Agencies feed the trade press its profiles and deal announcements.
In the news
- · Agency fees in creator deals become the next transparency fight (Digiday)
ANA figures put the average agency take at about 30% of influencer spend, and only 39% of agreements are transparent to the marketer.
- · Slow Ventures raises $60M fund to invest in creators as businesses (Slow Ventures)
The fund backs creators with equity-style deals, a model that managers and agencies now pitch alongside brand deals.
- · Holding companies buy their way into creator talent (Publicis Groupe)
Publicis' acquisition of Influential, then Captiv8, put agency-side creator management inside the world's largest ad groups.
- · MrBeast parts ways with manager Reed Duchscher and Night (Bloomberg)
After six years, MrBeast moved management in-house to centralize control of his business. Duchscher kept working with him on Feastables. Night still manages other large creators and co-founds brands with them.
Creator Tools & Software
1,000+ products built for creator workflows.
My favourite stakeholder inside the creator economy! Contains tools and software purpose-built for creators: monetization, courses, communities, newsletters, editing, AI, analytics, link-in-bio, brand-deal marketplaces, and finance. Many are bootstrapped and some are VC-backed startups that live or die by platform policy changes. My other side-project creatoeconomytools.com is essentially a collection of all the tools & startups in the creator economy!
Numbers and sources
- 1,181 live tools from creatoreconomytools.com shown on this map, adult-category tools excluded — Creator Economy Tools, 2026
- $20B Whatnot valuation after its $545M Series G — Inc., Aug 2026
- 5M+ paid subscriptions on Substack, with 50+ creators earning $1M+ a year — THR, May 2026
- $500M Captions valuation after $60M Series C — Captions, Jul 2024
Who they are
Monetization · Courses & communities · Newsletters · Content creation & AI · Social media management · Analytics · Link in bio · Brand deals · E-commerce · Finance
Examples
Kajabi · Patreon · Substack · Beehiiv · Skool · Linktree · Descript · Opus Clip · Grin · 1of10
What they do
- Provide tools for monetization: memberships, courses, newsletters, storefronts
- Enable cross-platform workflows, scheduling, editing, and analytics
- Depend on platform APIs and policy to stay alive
- Raise venture funding and pitch creators as the next SMB market
- Pay creators and professionals through affiliate and partner programs
- Sponsor newsletters, podcasts, and events to reach creators
Relationships
- Provide the software for monetization, community, editing, and analytics: Tools let one person run what used to require a studio, a store, a publisher, and a bank.
- Pay subscriptions and take rates; give feedback and promotion: Creators are the customers: monthly subscriptions, payment-processing take rates, and affiliate promotion. Their feedback shapes roadmaps.
- Fund startups and guide strategy through board seats: Most creator tools are venture-backed. Investors fund growth and push toward defensible business models.
- Return capital through growth, acquisitions, and exits: Investors get paid when tools are acquired, go public, or compound revenue. Consolidation is accelerating as bigger players buy features.
- Sponsor newsletters, podcasts, and research to reach creators: Creator economy media is largely funded by the tools that want to reach creators.
- Build the tools and certify as setup experts: Professionals both work at tool companies and build service businesses around them.
- Employ, certify, and pay affiliate and partner commissions: Tools pay professionals as employees, certified partners, and affiliates who bring them creator customers.
- Control the APIs and policies tools depend on: A single API pricing change or policy shift can kill a category of tools overnight.
- Sell influencer software, creator networks, and measurement to brands: A large share of creator tools are sold to marketers, not creators: discovery, contracts, payments, and attribution.
- Pay SaaS subscriptions, platform fees, and acquisition prices: Brands are the highest-paying customers of the tools layer, and the biggest ones buy the tools outright.
- Run agency operations: CRM, payments, reporting, and rosters: Management firms run on the same software brands use, plus creator-finance tools for payouts.
- Pay for software and act as channel partners: Agencies pay per seat and bring whole rosters onto a tool, which makes them a key distribution channel.
- Set privacy, payments, tax, and marketplace rules: Tools that hold data, move money, or sell goods carry regulatory obligations of their own.
- Build compliance features and lobby: Tools turn rules into product: disclosure toggles, age checks, contract templates, and tax forms.
- Pay through creator tools, which keep a take rate: Most direct fan revenue passes through a tool that takes a cut.
- Deliver newsletters, communities, courses, and live shopping: For fans, the tool is the product: the inbox, the community, the stream.
- Sponsor, exhibit, and launch at events: Startups/companies buy stages and booths where creators gather.
- Give tools a stage and a customer pipeline: Events are where tools sign creators and agencies in person.
In the news
- · Whatnot raises $545M Series G at a $20B valuation (Inc.)
The live-shopping marketplace nearly doubled its valuation in nine months, the largest creator commerce round of the year.
- · Substack passes 5 million paid subscriptions; 50+ creators earn $1M+ a year (The Hollywood Reporter)
UK paid subscriptions alone passed 500,000. Video podcasters are moving audiences from Patreon, Supercast, and Circle to Substack.
- · Creator economy VC funding fell to $58M across nine deals in the first five months of 2026 (Contentgrip)
Compared with about $807M a year earlier. Acquisitions, not venture rounds, are now the main exit path for tools.
- · Later buys affiliate platform Mavely from Nu Skin for $250M (Contentgrip)
A scheduling tool bought a creator commerce network, merging creator management, affiliate links, and brand campaigns in one product.
- · Substack raises $100M Series C at a $1.1B valuation (Substack)
Led by BOND and The Chernin Group, Skims co-founder Jens Grede joined the board as part of the deal.
- · Opus Clip raises $20M from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 at a $215M valuation (Opus Clip)
AI clipping for short-form video became one of the fastest-growing creator tool categories.
- · ElevenLabs raises $180M Series C at $3.3B (ElevenLabs)
AI voice, dubbing, and audiobooks for creators became a multi-billion-dollar category.
- · ConvertKit rebrands as Kit (Kit)
One of the original creator email tools repositioned as an operating system for creator businesses, reflecting the category's maturity.
- · Captions raises $60M Series C at a $500M valuation (Captions)
AI video editing for creators drew Index, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, and a16z.
- · beehiiv raises $33M Series B (beehiiv)
Newsletter infrastructure built by ex-Morning Brew staff grew into a direct Substack rival with ad network and referral tools.
Creator-Led Startups & Brands
When the creator becomes the company.
Consumer brands, media companies, software products, and holding companies founded by creators, using their audience as free distribution. The fastest-growing and most investable corner of the creator economy.
Numbers and sources
- $1B e.l.f. paid to acquire Hailey Bieber's Rhode — e.l.f. Beauty, May 2025
- $1.2B retail sales for Prime Hydration in 2023 — Prime / Congo Brands
- $250M+ Feastables revenue in 2024 — Bloomberg, 2025
- $100M+ raised by Dude Perfect from Highmount Capital — Dude Perfect, 2024
Who they are
Consumer product brands · Beverage brands · Beauty & skincare · Media companies & studios · Software products · Holding companies · Creator-run agencies
Examples
Feastables (MrBeast) · Prime (Logan Paul & KSI) · Chamberlain Coffee · Unwell Hydration (Alex Cooper) · Rhode · Eden.so (Dan Koe) · Dude Perfect · The Publish Press (Colin & Samir)
What they do
- Launch products where the creator already owns the demand/marketing
- Use content as a zero-cost customer acquisition channel
- Raise venture or growth capital at consumer-brand valuations
- Hire operators, brand managers, and supply-chain teams
- Compete with, partner with, and sell to legacy brands
- Reinvest profits back into content and company growth
Relationships
- Found companies and supply free distribution: The creator's audience is the launch channel, the focus group, and the first customers.
- Return profits and equity value that fund more content: Owning the product means owning the margin. Brand profits finance bigger content bets.
- Sell products directly, online and in retail: Creator brands reach fans through DTC sites, marketplaces, and physical retail shelves.
- Buy the products: Fans buy from creators they trust, often at higher conversion rates than traditional brands see.
- Invest at consumer-brand and media valuations: Investors now back the creator's company rather than just the tools around it.
- Deliver exits and returns: Creator brands have started producing real exits.
- Compete for shelf space, and get acquired: Creator brands compete directly with legacy CPG and beauty brands, and the incumbents respond by buying or partnering.
- Acquire, co-build, and distribute creator brands: Legacy brands provide capital, manufacturing, and distribution to creator brands, or simply buy them.
- Hire operators, brand managers, and executives: Creator companies bring in professional operators to run what the creator started.
- Incubate, co-found, and operate creator brands: Management firms now build companies with their clients instead of only negotiating deals for them.
- Share equity, fees, and exit proceeds: When a manager helps build the company, they are paid in ownership as well as commission.
- Provide commerce rails and shelf space inside the feed: Platforms are now retailers. Creator brands sell directly inside TikTok Shop, YouTube Shopping, Instagram, and live-shopping apps.
- Pay ads, marketplace commissions, and fees: Creator brands buy paid reach and pay commission on every in-app sale.
- Apply product safety, labeling, and advertising law: Once a creator sells a physical product, food, beverage, and consumer protection law applies.
- Launch and sample products at creator events: Creator brands treat conventions as retail activations.
- Supply the biggest business stories in the space: Creator brand revenue, valuations, and exits are now the headline numbers in creator economy coverage.
- Run creator companies as executives and operators: Creator brands hire outside leadership to scale.
In the news
- · Record 70 creator economy M&A deals in H1 2026 (The Ankler)
Creator-led media companies, agencies, and software were all traded. Holding companies now compete with strategics for the best creator businesses.
- · CAA and TPG launch $250M Compound Creative Holdings to acquire creator-led businesses (Variety)
The vehicle buys, operates, and grows companies founded by YouTubers and other creators, giving creator brands a new class of buyer.
- · Night raises $70M to own businesses alongside its talent (Tubefilter)
The management firm's pitch is to build and acquire companies with its creators across gaming, music, sports, and live events.
- · e.l.f. acquires Rhode for $1B (e.l.f. Beauty)
Hailey Bieber's three-year-old skincare brand, built almost entirely on social distribution, became the biggest creator-founded exit to date.
- · Alex Cooper launches Unwell Hydration with Nestlé (Unwell / Alex Cooper)
The Call Her Daddy host launched a beverage brand through a partnership with Nestlé's Blue Triton, showing legacy CPG now co-builds with creators rather than just sponsoring them.
- · Beast Industries CEO says the company may go public (TechCrunch)
CEO Jeff Housenbold, hired in 2024, said he wants the people who watch MrBeast to have a chance to own the company. Reports put the valuation at about $5B.
- · Feastables made $251M in sales and $20M+ profit in 2024, more than MrBeast's videos (Fast Company)
Investor documents seen by Bloomberg showed the snack brand out-earning the media business, which lost close to $80M on $246M of revenue.
- · Dude Perfect hires NBA executive Andrew Yaffe as its first CEO (Variety)
The hire followed Highmount's investment. Yaffe and the company parted ways less than two years later.
- · Dude Perfect lands a $100M to $300M investment from Highmount Capital (Variety)
The group's first outside capital after 15 years of self-funding. It paid for a Texas headquarters, a streaming app, and a professional executive team.
VCs, Investors & Funding
Capital for tools, platforms, and now creators themselves.
Venture funds, angels, growth equity, and public markets that fund creator tools, platforms, and creator-led companies. After a 2021 peak and a correction in 2022 and 2023, capital returned, especially for AI tooling and creator-founded brands.
Numbers and sources
- 70 creator economy M&A deals in the first half of 2026, a record — The Ankler
- $60M Slow Ventures Creator Fund backing creators as businesses — Slow Ventures, 2025
- $100M Substack Series C led by BOND and TCG — 2025
- $5B valuation sought by Beast Industries in 2024 and 2025 — Bloomberg
Who they are
Venture capital · Angel investors · Growth & private equity · Creator-focused funds · Revenue-based financing · Crowdfunding · Public markets
Examples
a16z · Index Ventures · Slow Ventures · Creator Ventures · Night Ventures · Spotter · Highmount Capital · SoftBank Vision Fund · Kickstarter · Wefunder
What they do
- Fund early-stage startups building tools and infrastructure for creators
- Back creators directly with equity-style deals and holding companies
- Guide strategy through board seats, mentorship, and networks
- Invest in platforms via IPOs, private rounds, and public markets
- Attend and sponsor events to source deal flow
- Pressure platforms to prioritize growth and creator monetization
Relationships
- Fund startups and guide strategy through board seats: Most creator tools are venture-backed. Investors fund growth and push toward defensible business models.
- Return capital through growth, acquisitions, and exits: Investors get paid when tools are acquired, go public, or compound revenue. Consolidation is accelerating as bigger players buy features.
- Invest via venture rounds, private equity, and public markets: Platforms are the largest capital sinks in the map. Investor pressure for growth flows down into monetization and algorithm decisions.
- Deliver returns and set expectations for the whole category: Platform valuations set the ceiling for what investors believe creator businesses can be worth.
- Surface startups, rank players, and validate markets: Coverage and rankings shape which startups get meetings and which market sizes get quoted in decks.
- Attend and sponsor to scout startups and creators: Events are where investors meet founders and creators before they are famous.
- Invest at consumer-brand and media valuations: Investors now back the creator's company rather than just the tools around it.
- Deliver exits and returns: Creator brands have started producing real exits.
- Invest directly in creators and their holding companies: Funds now back the creator as a business, taking equity in everything they build rather than in a single product.
- Become angel investors, LPs, and fund partners: Top creators invest in the tools they use and the brands they promote, and some raise their own funds.
- Fund and roll up management firms and agencies: Investors are buying the representation layer because it sits closest to creator cash flow.
- Deliver exits and source deal flow: Agencies package creator businesses for investors and are themselves acquisition targets.
- Fund research, sponsor coverage, and publish their own: Investors sponsor the newsletters they read and publish market maps to attract deal flow.
In the news
- · Whatnot raises $545M at $20B from ICONIQ, Lightspeed, and Avra (Inc.)
Live creator commerce drew the biggest creator economy cheque of 2026.
- · TPG and CAA put $250M into a creator holding company (Variety)
Private equity is buying operating creator businesses rather than backing tools.
- · Creator economy venture funding drops to $58M in the first five months of 2026 (Contentgrip)
Nine deals versus eleven a year earlier, but total capital fell more than 90%. The median round is $4M. Money moved from venture rounds to M&A.
- · Founders Fund, StepStone, and K5 Global back Night with $70M (Tubefilter)
Investors funding a management company to acquire businesses built around its creators.
- · Slow Ventures launches a $60M fund to invest in creators (Slow Ventures)
The fund takes equity in the creator's overall business, betting that niche creators can build 'holding companies' around their audiences.
- · Substack's $100M round shows platform-scale creator tools still raise (Substack)
BOND and The Chernin Group led at $1.1B, with Skims co-founder Jens Grede joined the board.
- · Highmount invests $100M+ in Dude Perfect (Variety)
Growth equity treating a creator group as a media company with recurring, diversified revenue. The money paid for a headquarters, an app, and a first CEO.
- · Goldman: creator economy to reach $480B by 2027 (Goldman Sachs)
The report investors cite most often when sizing the market, forecasting 10 to 20% annual growth.
Media, Research & Press
Who explains the economy to itself.
Newsletters, trade press, podcasts, analysts, and research firms that track trends, rank players, and shape what creators, brands, and investors believe is working.
Numbers and sources
- 30+ dedicated creator economy newsletters and outlets — Creator Economy Tools
- 70 H1 2026 M&A deals tallied by The Ankler, now a regular beat — The Ankler, 2026
- 500 news influencers mapped by Pew in its 2024 study — Pew Research Center
Who they are
Creator economy newsletters · Trade press · Podcasts · Research firms & analysts · Banks & consultancies · Academic researchers
Examples
Tubefilter · The Publish Press · Colin & Samir · ICYMI by Lia Haberman · Lindsey Gamble · Creator Economy Tools · Influencer Marketing Hub · eMarketer · Goldman Sachs Research · Pew Research Center
What they do
- Publish trend reports that influence budgets and investment
- Feature and rank startups, tools, and creators
- Validate credibility through case studies and interviews
- Educate creators through newsletters, podcasts, and courses
- Curate narratives about what is working and what is dying
- Sell sponsorships, research, and events back to the industry
Relationships
- Publish reports and case studies that justify creator budgets: Benchmark reports and case studies give marketers the numbers they need to defend and grow influencer budgets internally.
- Surface startups, rank players, and validate markets: Coverage and rankings shape which startups get meetings and which market sizes get quoted in decks.
- Sponsor newsletters, podcasts, and research to reach creators: Creator economy media is largely funded by the tools that want to reach creators.
- Educate, cover, and set the narrative about what works: Newsletters, podcasts, and trade press tell creators which platforms, formats, and business models are worth their time.
- Provide the stories, data, and drama that media covers: Creators are the subject of creator economy media, and some of them now own it.
- Host, program, and give awards: Newsletters and trade outlets turn their audiences into ticketed events and award shows.
- Generate announcements, interviews, and access: Platforms and tools time their launches to events, and press gets its interviews there.
- Supply data, payout numbers, and access: Platform announcements set the agenda for creator economy coverage.
- Scrutinize policy changes and shape creator sentiment: Coverage of monetization changes and bonus cuts pressures platforms and drives creator migration.
- Subscribe to and read creator economy media: Audiences pay for newsletters and podcasts that cover the industry, and creators are now a news source in their own right.
- Explain the creator economy to the public: Research and press shape how the public understands creators, from news influencers to health advice.
- Supply the biggest business stories in the space: Creator brand revenue, valuations, and exits are now the headline numbers in creator economy coverage.
- Become the analysts, newsletter writers, and podcasters: Much of creator economy media is written by operators who used to work at platforms, agencies, and tools.
- Publish job boards, training, and career coverage: Trade media is where operators find roles and learn the business.
- Pitch stories and place clients in the press: PR is part of representation. Agencies feed the trade press its profiles and deal announcements.
- Fund research, sponsor coverage, and publish their own: Investors sponsor the newsletters they read and publish market maps to attract deal flow.
In the news
- · Media overtakes software as the most-acquired corner of the creator economy (Net Influencer)
Quartermast counted a record 70 deals in H1 2026, with media the largest share for the first time. Buyers included OpenAI (TBPN), HubSpot (Futurepedia and Starter Story) and James Murdoch's Lupa Systems (Vox Media).
- · The Ankler tracks 70 creator economy deals in H1 2026 (The Ankler)
Trade coverage of creator M&A has become its own beat, with The Ankler, RockWater, and Quartermast publishing deal tallies.
- · 2026 Creators in Action gala honors Colin and Samir and the Whalar Group founders (Tubefilter)
The creator economy now has its own awards circuit, run by the outlets that cover it.
- · Colin and Samir launch Press Publish LA, a West Coast creator meetup (Tubefilter)
A creator-run media company turning its newsletter and podcast audience into live events.
- · Young adults and the future of news (Pew Research Center)
Pew's follow-up to its news influencers study, focused on how adults under 30 find news.
- · Benchmark Report 2025 sizes the market at $32.55B (Influencer Marketing Hub)
The most-cited annual survey of marketers' influencer budgets and priorities.
- · Pew publishes its first study of news influencers (Pew Research Center)
The first large study of creators as news media. Policymakers and publishers cite it often.
- · The $480B creator economy report (Goldman Sachs)
Still the number most decks and pitches quote when sizing the market.
Events & Conferences
Where the whole map meets in one room.
Conferences, summits, and fan conventions where creators, brands, investors, platforms, and professionals gather to learn, network, close deals, and meet fans.
Numbers and sources
- 55,000+ attendees at VidCon Anaheim in a typical year — VidCon
- 30,000+ attendees at the 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026, including 15,000 creators — Gulf News, Jan 2026
- 250+ creators at Cannes Lions 2026, the most in its history — Variety
Who they are
Fan conventions · Industry conferences · Platform creator summits · Marketing & ad-industry festivals · Niche creator masterminds · Virtual summits
Examples
VidCon · 1 Billion Followers Summit · Cannes Lions · VidSummit · Creator Economy Live · SXSW · TwitchCon · Web Summit · Funnel Hacking Live
What they do
- Provide networking for creators, brands, investors, and operators
- Sell sponsorships, booths, and activations to brands and platforms
- Host pitch competitions and deal flow for investors
- Give creators stages to build authority and meet fans
- Help professionals find jobs and clients
Relationships
- Offer learning, networking, deals, and fan meetups: Events compress a year of networking into a few days and let creators meet fans in person.
- Headline, speak, and draw the attendees: Events sell tickets and sponsorships on the strength of the creators who show up.
- Sponsor stages, booths, and activations: Brands pay to be where creators and fans already are.
- Attend and sponsor to scout startups and creators: Events are where investors meet founders and creators before they are famous.
- Sponsor, host, and run their own creator summits: Platforms use events to court creators and announce features.
- Buy tickets to meet creators and other fans: Fan conventions monetize the parasocial relationship directly.
- Give brands direct access to creators, fans, and trends: Events are where brands find creators to work with and see what audiences care about.
- Attend, speak, and work the conferences: Events are where operators find clients, jobs, and reputation.
- Connect operators with jobs and clients: Industry tracks and side events function as the creator economy's job market.
- Host, program, and give awards: Newsletters and trade outlets turn their audiences into ticketed events and award shows.
- Generate announcements, interviews, and access: Platforms and tools time their launches to events, and press gets its interviews there.
- Sell fan experiences and meetups: Fan conventions are where the parasocial relationship becomes a physical one.
- Launch and sample products at creator events: Creator brands treat conventions as retail activations.
- Sponsor, exhibit, and launch at events: Startups/companies buy stages and booths where creators gather.
- Give tools a stage and a customer pipeline: Events are where tools sign creators and agencies in person.
In the news
- · VidCon leaves Anaheim to become a Cannes Lions offshoot (Tubefilter)
Informa is moving VidCon out of the Anaheim Convention Center, its summer home since 2012, and pairing it with Cannes Lions as VidCon x Lions Creators. In the US the series joins the Insight to Impact Festival, starting in Denver in October 2026 and moving to Nashville in 2027.
- · Cannes Lions 2026 draws 250+ creators, the most in its history (Variety)
LIONS Creators moved to the Palais Beach. YouTube, TikTok, Meta, Spotify, and Reddit all ran beachfront activations and launched creator products there.
- · VidCon Anaheim 2026 runs June 25 to 27 with creator, industry, and community tracks (VidCon)
The original creator convention ran its sixteenth year with creator, industry, and community tracks. It turned out to be the last one in Anaheim.
- · Colin and Samir bring Press Publish to Los Angeles (Tubefilter)
Newsletter and podcast brands are becoming event businesses.
- · 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026 sells out with 30,000+ attendees and 15,000 creators (Gulf News)
The fourth edition in Dubai ran across three venues with 500+ speakers, backed by the UAE government.
- · Creators take over Cannes Lions (Cannes Lions)
The world's biggest advertising festival expanded its LIONS Creators programme as brands, platforms, and agencies court creators on the Croisette.
- · VidCon Anaheim returns with creator, industry, and fan tracks (VidCon)
The original creator convention, now with an industry track where brands and platforms pitch creators directly.
- · Dubai summit gathers 15,000+ creators and industry leaders (1 Billion Followers Summit)
Backed by the UAE government, the summit is the largest creator event outside the US. Governments now court creators directly.
Professionals & Freelancers
The operators behind the scenes.
Editors, writers, strategists, community managers, producers, and founders who work for or with creators, at platforms, tools, agencies, and brands. As creators become companies, this layer is growing fastest!
Numbers and sources
- 7,000+ US employees at TikTok alone — TikTok, 2024
- 100+ niche agencies specializing in creator services — Estimate
- Top roles video editor, thumbnail designer, scriptwriter, channel manager, community manager —
Who they are
Video editors · Thumbnail designers · Scriptwriters & copywriters · YouTube strategists · Community managers · Influencer marketing managers · Producers · Platform & tool employees · Founders · Lawyers
Examples
Freelance editors on Upwork and Fiverr · Kajabi Experts · Skool setup specialists · In-house teams at MrBeast, Dude Perfect, Dhar Mann · Creator partnerships teams at YouTube and TikTok · MEEE!! @janismjartans
What they do
- Offer specialized services directly to creators
- Work at platforms, tools, agencies, and brands in creator-facing roles (i.e., Influencer Marketing Specialist at Nike)
- Certify as experts on specific tools/platforms (i.e., Skool Growth Operator, Whop Clipping Specialist, Kajabi Expert)
- Attend (networking) events to find work and build authority
- Build their own media to attract clients (by becoming creators themselves...)
Relationships
- Provide editing, strategy, writing, production, and community management: Behind most large channels is a team. Freelancers and operators do the work that lets creators focus on the content.
- Hire freelancers and full-time staff to run and scale their Creator Businesses: Creator businesses are now employers. Top creators run teams of dozens or hundreds. Smaller creators might hire contractors, freelancers, VA's to reduce costs and increase profit margins. % based deals are also made where freelancers get paid based on the amount $ they make with digital products or other monetization channels.
- Build the tools and certify as setup experts: Professionals both work at tool companies and build service businesses around them.
- Employ, certify, and pay affiliate and partner commissions: Tools pay professionals as employees, certified partners, and affiliates who bring them creator customers.
- Attend, speak, and work the conferences: Events are where operators find clients, jobs, and reputation.
- Connect operators with jobs and clients: Industry tracks and side events function as the creator economy's job market.
- Employ tens of thousands in creator-facing roles: Partnership managers, policy teams, trust and safety, and product teams are all part of the creator economy workforce.
- Hire operators, brand managers, and executives: Creator companies bring in professional operators to run what the creator started.
- Staff in-house creator, social, and influencer teams: Brands hire creator managers, social producers, and community leads to run programs at scale.
- Employ and contract creator marketing talent: In-house salaries, agency retainers, and freelance production budgets.
- Employ managers, coordinators, and campaign staff: Agencies are employers in their own right, and consolidation moves those jobs into bigger companies.
- Provide freelance production, editing, and campaign delivery: Agencies outsource much of the actual content work to freelancers.
- Become the analysts, newsletter writers, and podcasters: Much of creator economy media is written by operators who used to work at platforms, agencies, and tools.
- Publish job boards, training, and career coverage: Trade media is where operators find roles and learn the business.
- Staff partnerships, trust and safety, and product teams: Platforms run on creator-facing employees.
- Run creator companies as executives and operators: Creator brands hire outside leadership to scale.
In the news
- · Creator economy job radar: Nintendo, SKIMS, Substack, TikTok, and Disney hiring creator roles (Net Influencer)
Weekly listings show creator partnerships, influencer marketing, and community roles across games, fashion, and media companies.
- · Whalar's 170 staff join Accenture Song (Accenture)
Agency operators are now consulting-firm employees. That is where creator marketing jobs are moving.
- · Unilever's 300,000-creator network needs an operations layer (Forbes)
Managing creators at that scale means automation, in-house creator managers, and agencies handling logistics.
- · YouTube frames creators as the new studios and employers (YouTube)
Made on YouTube 2025 featured creators building teams of editors, producers, and strategists, backed by $100B+ in payouts over four years.
- · Dude Perfect hires NBA executive Andrew Yaffe as its first CEO (Variety)
Yaffe ran social, digital, and original content at the NBA before joining. He left in a mutual decision less than two years later, which shows how hard the creator-to-company transition can be for hired operators.
Regulators & Legal Frameworks
The rules everyone else plays by.
The most overlooked stakeholder of the creator economy! Government agencies and laws that govern advertising disclosure, data privacy, child protection, content moderation, and platform ownership. Huge influence on the Creator Economy directly by shaping monetization, distribution, and trust.
Numbers and sources
- Aug 2024 FTC final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials — FTC
- Feb 2024 EU Digital Services Act fully applicable to all platforms — European Commission
- Dec 2025 Australia's under-16 social media ban took effect — eSafety Commissioner
- Late 2026 EU Digital Fairness Act proposal expected, targeting hidden influencer ads — European Commission
Who they are
FTC (US) · State legislatures (US) · European Commission (DSA, GDPR, AI Act) · ASA & CMA (UK) · eSafety Commissioner (Australia) · COPPA · Courts
Examples
FTC Endorsement Guides · FTC Fake Reviews Rule · EU Digital Services Act · GDPR · COPPA · Illinois child influencer law · Australia Online Safety Amendment · PAFACA (TikTok law)
What they do
- Require creators to disclose sponsorships and material connections
- Ban fake reviews, undisclosed testimonials, and bought engagement
- Set data privacy and child protection rules for platforms
- Force transparency on algorithms and ads under the DSA
- Protect child influencers' earnings and privacy
- Decide who may own or operate a platform at all
Relationships
- Set rules on privacy, moderation, ads, child safety, and ownership: From the DSA to COPPA to the TikTok law, regulators decide what platforms must do, and who may own them.
- Require sponsorship disclosure and ban fake reviews: Creators must clearly disclose paid relationships and may not fake reviews, buy followers, or hide material connections.
- Hold advertisers liable for creator disclosures and claims: Brands are responsible for what the creators they pay say, and for the disclosure of the relationship.
- Protect users: age limits, data privacy, and child safety: Age verification, privacy law, and child protection rules change who can be on platforms and how they can be monetized.
- Lobby, litigate, and shape the rules: Platforms spend heavily to influence regulation and go to court when they lose.
- Set privacy, payments, tax, and marketplace rules: Tools that hold data, move money, or sell goods carry regulatory obligations of their own.
- Build compliance features and lobby: Tools turn rules into product: disclosure toggles, age checks, contract templates, and tax forms.
- Extend advertising liability to agencies and intermediaries: The FTC's 2023 Endorsement Guides spell out the liability of intermediaries, and UK rules cover agencies too.
- Apply product safety, labeling, and advertising law: Once a creator sells a physical product, food, beverage, and consumer protection law applies.
- Push for new rules through complaints and campaigns: Parent campaigns and public pressure drove age limits, and consumer complaints trigger enforcement.
- Lobby, litigate, and organize: Creators have sued over the TikTok law and formed guilds to lobby on disclosure, taxes, and platform policy.
- Lobby through industry bodies and self-regulation: Advertisers shape disclosure rules through trade groups and voluntary codes before regulators act.
In the news
- · Platform policy as regulation: YouTube doubles Partner Program thresholds (TechCrunch)
Not a law, but for creators the platform's terms have the same force. The change takes effect February 1, 2027.
- · UK lawmakers reject a blanket social media ban for under-16s, press platforms instead (CNBC)
Regulators told platforms to enforce stricter child protection under the Online Safety Act rather than follow Australia's age ban.
- · About half of US states now mandate some form of age gating (Jumio)
No federal law, so platforms face a patchwork. New York's SAFE For Kids Act takes effect January 25, 2027.
- · Commission consults on the Digital Fairness Act, targeting hidden influencer ads and addictive design (European Parliament)
The proposal, expected in late 2026, would end the grey area on undisclosed influencer marketing across the EU and could bring fines and bans on influencer activity.
- · Australia's social media minimum age of 16 takes effect (eSafety Commissioner)
Platforms must take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from holding accounts, the first nationwide age ban and a template other countries are studying.
- · FTC finalizes changes to the COPPA rule (FTC)
Updated children's privacy rules limit how platforms and ad networks can monetize kids' data, affecting family and kids' content creators.
- · FTC announces final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials (FTC)
Civil penalties for fake reviews, undisclosed insider testimonials, and buying followers or views. Directly covers creators and the brands paying them.
- · Illinois child influencer law takes effect (Illinois General Assembly)
The first US law requiring parents to set aside a share of earnings for children featured in monetized content, followed by California and Minnesota.
- · TikTok divest-or-ban law signed (US Congress)
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act gave ByteDance a deadline to divest TikTok's US business, upheld by the Supreme Court in January 2025.
- · Digital Services Act applies to all platforms in the EU (European Commission)
Transparency on recommender systems, ad libraries, and content moderation, with the largest platforms under direct Commission supervision.
- · FTC updates its Endorsement Guides for the social media era (FTC)
The first overhaul since 2009 clarified disclosure rules for creators, covered fake reviews and social media 'likes', and added guidance on kids.