Data
How many creators are there, and who gets paid?
No census of creators exists. Counts depend on whether a creator is anyone who posts, anyone who earns, or a professional. Income is the clearer story: it is concentrated at the top.
Updated
- 4%of creators earn more than $100,000 a year (of about 50 million, 2023)Goldman Sachs Research, Apr 2023 (opens in a new tab)
- 62%of creator payments went to the top 10% in 2025, up from 53% in 2023CreatorIQ, State of Creator Compensation, Jan 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- 139mcreators with 1,000 to 10,000 followers in 2021Statista, May 2022 (opens in a new tab)
- 6,939influencer marketing agencies and platforms in 2025, from 190 in 2015Influencer Marketing Hub, 2025 (opens in a new tab)
Influencer marketing agencies and platforms worldwide
Influencer Marketing Hub widened its definition in 2022, so growth is not like for like. Source: Influencer Marketing Hub benchmark reports (opens in a new tab).
Show the figures as a table
| Period | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 190 | influencermarketinghub.com (opens in a new tab) |
| 2016 | 335 | influencermarketinghub.com (opens in a new tab) |
| 2017 | 420 | influencermarketinghub.com (opens in a new tab) |
| 2018 | 740 | influencermarketinghub.com (opens in a new tab) |
| 2019 | 1,120 | influencermarketinghub.com (opens in a new tab) |
| 2020 | 1,360 | influencermarketinghub.com (opens in a new tab) |
| 2021 | 1,691 | technologychecker.io (opens in a new tab) (secondary (Statista)) |
| 2022 | 2,553 | technologychecker.io (opens in a new tab) (secondary) |
| 2023 | 3,854 | technologychecker.io (opens in a new tab) (secondary) |
| 2024 | 5,818 | technologychecker.io (opens in a new tab) (secondary) |
| 2025 | 6,939 | influencermarketinghub.com (opens in a new tab) |
How many creators are there: what each source says
Definitions range from 'anyone posting original content' to 'monetising' to 'professional'. No census exists.
| Source | Figure | What it counts | Kind | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe (opens in a new tab) | 303M creators (2022), +165M since 2020 | People creating original content for jobs or passions, survey in 9 markets | Survey estimate | Aug 2022 |
| Linktree (opens in a new tab) | 200M+ creators | People who use influence, creativity or skills to aggregate and monetise an audience | Company estimate | Apr 2022 |
| Goldman Sachs Research (opens in a new tab) | ~50M creators (2023), 4% earning >$100k | Creators earning income from content | Estimate | 19 Apr 2023 |
| Statista (opens in a new tab) | ~139M creators with 1k-10k followers (2021) | Creators by audience size | Estimate (paywalled) | 17 May 2022 |
| Dinis Guarda / Wisdomia (opens in a new tab) | 207M (162M amateurs, 45M professionals) | Not stated; no external source given | 27 Feb 2026 |
Creator income concentration: what each source says
Different populations (platform payment records vs survey vs model).
| Source | Figure | What it counts | Kind | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CreatorIQ (opens in a new tab) | Top 10% got 62% of payments in 2025 (53% in 2023) | Payments via CreatorIQ platform | Observed platform data | 21 Jan 2026 |
| Goldman Sachs Research (opens in a new tab) | About 4% of creators earn >$100k a year | Share of ~50M creators | Survey-based estimate | 19 Apr 2023 |
| Paris Creator Week report (opens in a new tab) | Creators keep $92.6B (42.6%) of the $217.3B value chain | Modelled value-chain split | Model | Nov 2026 |
The 90/10 rule, an author's framework
Dinis Guarda's Creator Economy 360 framework describes participation as a pyramid: of every 1,000 people online, about 900 consume, 90 engage, 9 create and 1 becomes a super creator. It is a framework for thinking about participation, similar to Jakob Nielsen's 90-9-1 rule, not a measured statistic.
Further reading: AI Creator Economy (Part 1), BusinessABC (opens in a new tab)