42 Creator Economy Statistics, Trends, and Data Points for 2026

This briefing compiles verified figures on the creator economy: its market size, the number of creators worldwide, what creators actually earn, brand spending on influencers, platform dynamics, and the split between full-time professionals and side-hustlers. Every number here traces to a named publisher and year, and the data matters because market-size estimates vary widely depending on how each source defines the “creator economy,” a definitional problem we flag throughout.

Executive Summary

• Goldman Sachs Research estimated the creator economy total addressable market at roughly $250 billion in 2023 and projected it could approach $480 billion by 2027. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• Goldman Sachs Research counted roughly 50 million global creators and expects that population to grow at a 10 to 20 percent compound annual growth rate over five years. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• Goldman Sachs Research found that only about 4 percent of creators are professionals earning more than $100,000 a year. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• SignalFire estimated over 50 million people worldwide consider themselves creators, with roughly 2 million doing it full-time and about 46.7 million as amateurs. Source: SignalFire, Creator Economy Market Map, 2020.
• Statista estimated the global influencer marketing market at nearly $10 billion in 2020, rising to roughly $24 billion in 2024 and about $32.55 billion in 2025. Source: Statista, 2025.
• Adobe found more than 165 million creators joined the global creator economy between 2020 and 2022, based on a survey of about 9,000 creators across nine countries. Source: Adobe, Future of Creativity Study, 2022.
• Linktree reported that of 9,500 surveyed creators, about 66 percent identified as part-time, and only 12 percent of full-time creators earned more than $50,000 a year. Source: Linktree, Creator Report, 2022.
• Adobe found that 48 percent of non-professional creators earn money from their creative activities, rising to 53 percent in the U.S. Source: Adobe, Future of Creativity Study, 2022.

Key Findings

• The creator economy total addressable market was estimated at about $250 billion in 2023 by Goldman Sachs Research. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• Goldman Sachs Research projected the creator economy could approach $480 billion globally by 2027, roughly doubling in five years. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• Goldman Sachs Research estimated about 50 million people worldwide are creators as of 2023. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• Goldman Sachs Research expected the global creator population to grow at a 10 to 20 percent compound annual growth rate over the five years following 2023. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• Goldman Sachs Research found only about 4 percent of global creators qualify as professionals earning more than $100,000 a year. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• SignalFire estimated over 50 million people globally consider themselves creators, of whom roughly 2 million are full-time professionals. Source: SignalFire, Creator Economy Market Map, 2020.
• SignalFire estimated about 46.7 million amateur creators worldwide monetize part-time as of its 2020 market map. Source: SignalFire, Creator Economy Market Map, 2020.
• Statista estimated the global influencer marketing market reached approximately $32.55 billion in 2025, up from nearly $10 billion in 2020. Source: Statista, 2025.
• Adobe reported more than 165 million creators joined the global creator economy between 2020 and 2022. Source: Adobe, Future of Creativity Study, 2022.
• Adobe found 48 percent of non-professional creators earn money from their creative activities, and 53 percent in the U.S. Source: Adobe, Future of Creativity Study, 2022.
• Linktree reported that about 66 percent of surveyed creators considered themselves part-time, based on a survey of 9,500 creators. Source: Linktree, Creator Report, 2022, via TechCrunch.
• Linktree found only 12 percent of full-time creators earned more than $50,000 a year, while 46 percent earned less than $1,000 annually. Source: Linktree, Creator Report, 2022, via TechCrunch.
• Goldman Sachs Research identified brand deals as the largest single revenue source for creators at roughly 70 percent of creator income. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• Adobe reported that among creators who monetize, 77 percent said they only started doing so within the prior year. Source: Adobe, Future of Creativity Study, 2022.

Market Size and the Definition Problem

Creator economy market-size figures are not directly comparable because each publisher defines the boundary of the market differently. Some count only influencer marketing spend, others add platform payouts, subscriptions, tipping, merchandise, and creator tooling. Read every headline number alongside its definition.

Goldman Sachs Research estimated the total addressable market at about $250 billion in 2023, and projected it could approach $480 billion by 2027. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023. That definition spans influencer marketing plus platform payouts and other direct monetization, which is why it is far larger than a pure influencer-marketing number.

Statista, by contrast, tracks the narrower influencer marketing segment, which it estimated at approximately $32.55 billion in 2025. Source: Statista, 2025. The gap between roughly $32.55 billion and $250 billion for overlapping years is a definitional gap, not a data contradiction: the two publishers are measuring different things.

What this means: any single “creator economy is worth $X” claim should be read with its scope attached. A number that includes platform ad-revenue shares and subscriptions will always dwarf a number that counts only brand-to-creator marketing spend.

Number of Creators Worldwide

Creator counts also vary by methodology, because “creator” ranges from a full-time professional to anyone who posts monetizable content occasionally.

Goldman Sachs Research estimated roughly 50 million people worldwide are creators as of 2023. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023. SignalFire independently estimated over 50 million creators, split into roughly 2 million full-time professionals and about 46.7 million amateurs, in its 2020 market map. Source: SignalFire, Creator Economy Market Map, 2020.

Adobe used a much broader definition and reported that more than 165 million creators joined the global creator economy between 2020 and 2022 alone, based on a survey of about 9,000 creators across nine countries. Source: Adobe, Future of Creativity Study, 2022. Adobe’s higher figures reflect a wide definition that counts non-professional and hobbyist creators, not only monetizing or professional creators.

What this means: the roughly 50 million figure from Goldman Sachs and SignalFire refers to a narrower, more monetization-oriented population, while Adobe’s larger counts reflect anyone participating in creative online activity. Treat the two as different populations, not competing estimates of the same thing.

Creator Earnings

The consistent finding across sources is that creator income is highly concentrated at the top, with most creators earning little.

Goldman Sachs Research found that only about 4 percent of global creators are professionals earning more than $100,000 a year. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023. Linktree reported that only 12 percent of full-time creators earned more than $50,000 a year, and 46 percent of full-time creators earned less than $1,000 annually, based on a survey of 9,500 creators. Source: Linktree, Creator Report, 2022, via TechCrunch.

On revenue mix, Goldman Sachs Research identified brand deals as the largest single income source at roughly 70 percent of creator revenue. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023. Linktree found that affiliate revenue was frequently cited as a top income driver, while larger brand partnerships were harder for smaller creators to rely on. Source: Linktree, Creator Report, 2022, via TechCrunch.

What this means: creator earnings follow a steep power-law distribution. A small professional tier captures most of the income, while the large majority earn hobbyist-level amounts. These are self-reported survey figures and carry sampling limitations, so treat exact percentages as directional.

Brand Spend on Creators and Influencers

Brand spending on influencer marketing has grown rapidly and is the most consistently measured slice of the creator economy.

Statista estimated the global influencer marketing market at nearly $10 billion in 2020, rising to roughly $24 billion in 2024 and about $32.55 billion in 2025. Source: Statista, 2025. Statista also reported the global influencer marketing market more than tripled between 2020 and 2025. Source: Statista, 2025.

What this means: influencer marketing spend is the clearest measurable proxy for brand investment in creators, but it excludes platform payouts, subscriptions, and creator commerce, so it understates total creator monetization. This is why influencer-marketing figures near $32 billion coexist with total-market estimates near $250 billion for overlapping years.

Platforms

SignalFire’s 2020 market map remains one of the few sources to publish per-platform creator counts, though the figures are now several years old and should be treated as dated.

SignalFire estimated YouTube had roughly 31 million channels, of which about 1 million were professional creators with 10,000 or more subscribers. Source: SignalFire, Creator Economy Market Map, 2020. SignalFire estimated Instagram had around 500,000 professional influencers with 100,000 or more followers. Source: SignalFire, Creator Economy Market Map, 2020. SignalFire estimated Twitch had about 3 million streamers, of whom roughly 300,000 held Partner or Affiliate status. Source: SignalFire, Creator Economy Market Map, 2020.

On platform revenue share, SignalFire noted revenue splits vary widely, with Patreon taking about 5 percent and platforms such as Twitch and YouTube taking roughly 30 to 50 percent. Source: SignalFire, Creator Economy Market Map, 2020.

What this means: platform take rates directly shape how much of gross creator revenue reaches creators. Lower-take platforms like Patreon leave more with the creator, while ad-supported video platforms retain a larger cut. These specific 2020 counts are dated and should be refreshed before publication in any current-year context.

Full-Time vs Side-Hustle

Every source that measures work status finds that the creator economy is overwhelmingly part-time.

SignalFire estimated only about 2 million of over 50 million creators work full-time, roughly 4 percent. Source: SignalFire, Creator Economy Market Map, 2020. Linktree reported that about 66 percent of surveyed creators identified as part-time. Source: Linktree, Creator Report, 2022, via TechCrunch. Adobe framed its survey population as non-professional creators exploring side hustles and hobbies, and found 48 percent of them earn money from creative activities. Source: Adobe, Future of Creativity Study, 2022.

What this means: the creator economy is a side-hustle economy for the large majority. A small full-time tier drives most of the headline revenue, while most participants create alongside other income sources.

Original Synthesis

These derived insights combine the verified figures above. Each states its formula, inputs, and limitations, and none should be overstated.

1. Influencer marketing as a share of the total creator economy

Dividing Statista’s 2025 influencer-marketing estimate of about $32.55 billion by Goldman Sachs Research’s total-market estimate of about $250 billion (2023 base) yields roughly 13 percent. Inputs: Statista, 2025; Goldman Sachs Research, 2023. Formula: influencer marketing spend divided by total addressable market. Limitation: the numerator and denominator come from different publishers, different base years, and different definitions, so this ratio is indicative only and should not be treated as precise.

2. Average revenue per creator, order-of-magnitude

Dividing Goldman Sachs Research’s roughly $250 billion total market (2023) by its roughly 50 million creators gives an order-of-magnitude average of about $5,000 per creator per year. Inputs: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023. Formula: total market divided by creator count. Limitation: this is a mean across a highly skewed distribution, so it badly overstates the typical creator’s income given that most earn far less and a small professional tier captures the bulk of revenue.

3. The professional concentration ratio

Goldman Sachs Research’s finding that about 4 percent of creators earn above $100,000, cross-checked against SignalFire’s estimate that about 2 million of over 50 million creators (roughly 4 percent) are full-time, produces a consistent professional-tier share of approximately 4 percent from two independent sources. Inputs: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023; SignalFire, 2020. Formula: professional or full-time creators divided by total creators. Limitation: the two sources define the top tier differently (income threshold versus work status) and use different base years, so the agreement is directional rather than exact.

Data Tables

Table sources: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023; Statista, 2025; Adobe Future of Creativity Study, 2022 (linked in Key Findings above).

Table sources: SignalFire Creator Economy Market Map, 2020; Goldman Sachs Research, 2023. SignalFire counts are dated to 2020.

Table source: Statista, Global influencer market size, 2025 (linked in Key Findings above).

Charts to build

• Chart 1: Creator economy vs influencer marketing, side by side. Data needed: Goldman Sachs total-market estimates ($250B 2023, $480B 2027) and Statista influencer-marketing values (2020-2025). Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023; Statista, 2025. Insight: the total market dwarfs the influencer-marketing slice. Citation-worthy because it visualizes the definition gap in one image.
• Chart 2: Creator income distribution. Data needed: Linktree earnings bands (46% under $1,000; 12% over $50,000) and Goldman Sachs 4% over $100,000. Source: Linktree, 2022; Goldman Sachs Research, 2023. Insight: income is concentrated at the top. Citation-worthy as a clean visual of the power-law.
• Chart 3: Full-time vs part-time creators. Data needed: SignalFire 2M full-time vs 46.7M amateur; Linktree 66% part-time. Source: SignalFire, 2020; Linktree, 2022. Insight: the economy is overwhelmingly a side hustle. Citation-worthy for the stark ratio.
• Chart 4: Influencer marketing market growth, 2020-2025. Data needed: Statista annual values. Source: Statista, 2025. Insight: the market more than tripled in five years. Citation-worthy as a simple trend line journalists can cite directly.
• Chart 5: Creators added since 2020 by country. Data needed: Adobe per-country growth (U.S. +34M, Brazil +73M, and others). Source: Adobe, 2022. Insight: growth is global and led by Brazil. Citation-worthy for its geographic angle.

Methodology

Source-selection criteria: this asset prioritizes named, verifiable publishers with a real URL, favoring the specified primary and near-primary sources (Goldman Sachs Research, SignalFire, Linktree, Statista, Adobe). Inclusion rule: a statistic was included only if it could be attributed to a specific publisher and year and located via web verification. Exclusion rule: any figure that could not be traced to a named source, or that appeared only in aggregator blogs without a clear original, was excluded.

Conflicting numbers were handled by attribution rather than averaging. Where market-size or creator-count figures diverged, the divergence is presented as a definitional difference, with each figure kept next to its source and scope rather than blended into a single number. Derived estimates in the Original Synthesis section state their formula and inputs explicitly and are labeled order-of-magnitude where the underlying distribution is skewed.

Data limitations: several figures are self-reported survey results (Linktree, Adobe) with sampling and self-selection bias. SignalFire’s platform counts date to 2020 and are likely outdated. Goldman Sachs and Statista figures are projections or estimates, not audited financials. Base years differ across sources, so cross-source ratios are indicative only. Date of last update: July 2026.

Source Quality

Tier 1 (primary / official first-party data): Adobe Future of Creativity Study (first-party survey of about 9,000 creators); Linktree Creator Report (first-party survey of 9,500 creators). These are original data collections published by the surveying organization.

Tier 2 (credible market research and investment research): Goldman Sachs Research creator-economy sizing; Statista influencer-marketing market data; SignalFire Creator Economy Market Map. These are analyst estimates and market models built on multiple inputs.

Tier 3 (reputable journalism relaying primary data): TechCrunch coverage of the Linktree Creator Report, used here to relay Linktree’s own figures.

Most Quotable Statistics

• The creator economy could approach $480 billion by 2027, up from about $250 billion in 2023. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• Only about 4 percent of creators are professionals earning more than $100,000 a year. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.
• Only 12 percent of full-time creators earn more than $50,000 a year, and 46 percent earn less than $1,000. Source: Linktree, 2022.
• More than 165 million creators joined the global creator economy between 2020 and 2022. Source: Adobe, 2022.
• The global influencer marketing market reached about $32.55 billion in 2025, up from nearly $10 billion in 2020. Source: Statista, 2025.

Data Limitations

Market-size numbers are not comparable across publishers because of differing definitions; a total-market figure and an influencer-marketing figure measure different things. Survey-based figures from Adobe and Linktree carry self-selection and self-reporting bias. SignalFire’s platform-level counts date to 2020 and should not be presented as current. Goldman Sachs and Statista figures include projections that may not have materialized. Creator-count estimates depend heavily on how broadly “creator” is defined, which is why totals range from roughly 50 million to hundreds of millions.

Recommended Dataset Fields

For a downloadable CSV, recommended columns: metric_name; value; unit (USD, count, percent); year; geography; publisher; source_url; definition_scope (total_market, influencer_marketing_only, creator_count, earnings); data_type (survey, analyst_estimate, projection); confidence_flag; notes. A definition_scope column is essential so users do not compare non-comparable figures.

Press Summary

The creator economy is large, growing, and consistently misreported because publishers define it differently. Goldman Sachs Research put the total addressable market at roughly $250 billion in 2023 and projected it could approach $480 billion by 2027, while Statista tracked the narrower influencer-marketing slice at about $32.55 billion in 2025. Both are correct; they measure different things. Roughly 50 million people are creators by Goldman Sachs and SignalFire counts, though Adobe’s broader definition added more than 165 million creators between 2020 and 2022. Income is steeply concentrated: Goldman Sachs found only about 4 percent of creators earn over $100,000, and Linktree found only 12 percent of full-time creators clear $50,000. The economy is overwhelmingly part-time, with SignalFire estimating just 2 million full-time creators out of over 50 million. For any newsroom, the key caveat is scope: always attach a definition to a market-size number. Source references appear throughout this briefing.

Suggested Headlines

• The Creator Economy Could Hit $480 Billion by 2027, But Almost No One Is Getting Rich
• 50 Million Creators, 2 Million Full-Timers: The Side-Hustle Math of the Creator Economy
• Only 4% of Creators Earn Six Figures, Goldman Sachs Finds
• Why Every “Creator Economy Is Worth $X” Number Is Different
• Brand Spending on Influencers Tripled to $32.5 Billion in Five Years

FAQ

How big is the creator economy?

Goldman Sachs Research estimated the total addressable market at about $250 billion in 2023, projected to approach $480 billion by 2027. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.

How many creators are there worldwide?

Goldman Sachs Research estimated roughly 50 million creators as of 2023, a figure echoed by SignalFire. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.

How much do creators earn on average?

Earnings are highly skewed; Goldman Sachs Research found only about 4 percent of creators earn more than $100,000 a year. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.

What share of full-time creators make a good living?

Linktree found only 12 percent of full-time creators earn more than $50,000 a year. Source: Linktree, 2022.

How much do brands spend on influencer marketing?

Statista estimated the global influencer marketing market at about $32.55 billion in 2025. Source: Statista, 2025.

How fast is influencer marketing growing?

Statista reported the global influencer marketing market more than tripled between 2020 and 2025, from nearly $10 billion. Source: Statista, 2025.

How many creators are full-time versus part-time?

SignalFire estimated about 2 million full-time creators out of over 50 million, and Linktree found about 66 percent identify as part-time. Source: SignalFire, 2020; Linktree, 2022.

How many new creators joined recently?

Adobe reported more than 165 million creators joined the global creator economy between 2020 and 2022. Source: Adobe, 2022.

What is the main way creators earn money?

Goldman Sachs Research identified brand deals as the largest revenue source at roughly 70 percent of creator income. Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2023.

Do most non-professional creators make money?

Adobe found 48 percent of non-professional creators earn money from their creative activities, rising to 53 percent in the U.S. Source: Adobe, 2022.

About This Research

This briefing was compiled by CO Consulting, a research-driven growth-consulting firm, using publicly available data from the sources cited above. If your team needs a tailored read on creator-economy sizing or benchmarking, you can book a consultation.

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