Publishing and monetizing original content on social platforms has become easier now than ever before. In 2020, the vast majority of content creators worldwide were amateurs who earned from making content part-time. Meanwhile, approximately 500 thousand professionals earned a living completely from publishing content on Instagram. Instagram was by far the most popular outlet among influencers, with 30 million amateur creators monetizing content on the Facebook-owned platform that year.

In 2021, approximately 139 million global creators had an audience of between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. By comparison, there were only two million digital content creators worldwide with an audience size of between 100,000 and one million followers. Additionally, there were around two million digital content creators with more than one million followers during the examined year.

According to a survey of content creators conducted in May 2022 in nine global markets, there were over 303 million users worldwide who regularly posted the results of their activities online as content creators. Among the examined markets, Brazil counted 106 million content creators, while the United States has around 86 million content creators as of the examined period. Content creators are social media and online users who share their experiences online via user-generated content. While their user base is often smaller than the one of an influencer, content creators have been observed to captivate users more effectively thanks to the creation of more intimate and topic-oriented communities.

In 2023, online video content community and user-generated content platform OnlyFans counted approximately 4.11 million creators. Funded in 2016, OnlyFans is a video platform hosting content generated by users as well as live streaming sessions. While OnlyFans hosts creators producing content covering a variety of topics -including fitness and music - the platform acquired notoriety in 2020 thanks to its hosting of adult and pornographic content, allowing creators to find an online hub to perform during the initial phase of the global coronavirus pandemic outbreak.

A survey carried out in 2021 revealed a correlation between the share of online content creators who worked full-time, and the number of years they had been active content creators in the online sphere. Nearly 84 percent of those who had been creating for over six years now worked full-time, while less than half of those who had been active for less than a year were doing so.

The value of the creator economy market in Japan amounted to almost 1.87 trillion Japanese yen in 2023. The market size comprises the income generated via creator activities and expenditures on creator support services. Creator activities Creator activities can be divided into direct and indirect ways of earning income. The former category includes the selling of goods, texts, illustrations, and skills, but also encompasses money earned via fan communities, tipping, and crowdfunding. The latter category includes advertising, tie-ups, as well as media and event performances. Influencer marketing is a growing business in Japan, and creators can leverage social media and online marketplaces to reach large audiences and a high number of potential customers. However, it is important to note that creator activities are not limited to the internet. Creema Ltd., for instance, offers an online marketplace for handicrafts, but also organizes offline events where people can sell their handmade goods. Creator support services Creator support services target aspects such as content editing, website creation, matching processes, agents, and operation support. Companies active in the creator support business include, among others, Toridori Inc., which provides a platform connecting influencers with advertisers, and Base, Inc., which offers an online shop opening service and related payment and fundraising services. One particularly noteworthy company is the influencer marketing agency Uuum Co., Ltd., co-founded by the YouTuber Hikakin in 2013 to support video content creators. Uuum has thousands of affiliated channels and cooperates with many leading Japanese YouTubers.

The majority of content creators in India across platforms were nano influencers, that figured around two million in 2024. Contrariwise, mega influencers and celebrities, who had the most followers, amounted to 40,000 in number during the same period. Nano influencers also had the highest engagement rate among all the content creator tiers.

According to a survey of professional content creators based in the United States, 82 percent of respondents reported generating revenues thanks to sponsored content in 2023, down from 91 percent who indicated the same in 2021. Affiliate marketing represented a viable channel to generate income for 56 percent of the respondents in 2023, while creator funds represented a way to make money for 25 percent of U.S. content creators in the same year.

Patreon, a crowdfunding platform which helps independent content creators get paid has seen overall growth in creator subscriptions since March 2016. The service's subscriber-count peaked in June 2020, with a total of 192,965 creators.

On September 15, 2022, the United States was home to 266 creators with more than 10 million followers, which made it the country with the highest number of supernova creators on YouTube worldwide. India ranked second, with 188 supernova creators, followed by Brazil with 80.

In 2023, according to the results of a survey conducted among creators based in the United States, 21 percent of them used artificial intelligence (AI) for editing content purposes. Another 21 percent used it for generating images or videos. Five percent and a half of U.S. creators stated that they did not use AI.

As of September 2023, over 70 percent of content creators reported having generated revenues of less than 500 U.S. dollars annually. In comparison, only four percent of content creators and influencers reported generating between 10,000 and 50,000 U.S. dollars in the previous 12 months.

As of September 2022, the majority of content creators on TikTok had between 10 and 50 thousand followers, as roughly 71 percent of creators on the short-video platform had an audience of this size. As predictable, progressively smaller numbers of creators hosted larger-sized audiences on the platform, with 0.1 percent of the total creators having between five and 10 million followers on the popular social video platform.

In July 2021, the account of K-pop boy band BTS amassed close to 47 million video plays of content hosted on their TikTok account. American YouTuber and beauty influencer Nikita Dragun ranked second, with roughly 39 million video plays on her TikTok account. Charlie D'Amelio, which was the most followed TikTok creator in the same period, ranked third with 35 million video plays.

In the month ending December 31, 2024, "millions" of developers and creators earned Robux on the Roblox Platform, of which more than 24,500 developers were registered in the Developer Exchange Program. In the most recently reported year, developers and creators that were qualified and registered in Roblox's Developer Exchange Program earned 922 million U.S. dollars in the annual payout. Roblox creators can earn the virtual currency Robux through their virtual gaming creations.

In 2022, companies supporting the creator economy generated 511.7 million U.S. dollars via merchandising sales, as well as 308 million U.S. dollars via subscriptions. Blockchain services saw an estimate of 192.7 million U.S. dollars in revenues, while ad platforms working with content creators and influencers saw revenues of over 47 million U.S. dollars from this service during the examined year.

In 2022, e-commerce and point-of-sales platform Shopify was estimated to have generated over five billion U.S. dollars in revenues. Content creators' platform OnlyFans followed with annual revenues of 2.5 billion U.S. dollars. Blockchain and social platform BitClout ranked third, with annual revenues of around one billion U.S. dollars. Impact.com, a website for influencers' recruiting and affiliate marketing, saw revenues of 233.6 million U.S. dollars in 2022. From recruiting and brand pairing to AI analysis of content libraries such as in the case of Jellysmack, internet personalities and creators have seen their opportunity for content monetization grow in the last years.

In 2023, according to the results of a survey conducted among creators based in the United States, 75 percent of the ones with followers below 150,000 in count earned less than 20,000 U.S. dollars annually. To compare - almost 29 percent of creators with more than five million followers made between 20 and 50,000 U.S. dollars annually. Around 35 percent of American creators with a follower base between one and three million earned between 100,000 and 500,000 U.S. dollars per annum.

As of 2020, OnlyFans saw approximately one million active content creators on its platform worldwide. By comparison, global registered users on the platform were around 85 million. Founded in 2016 and based in London, OnlyFans is an online platform where creators can host their content for users to access by paying a subscription or for free.

As of 2024, India had as many as 300,000 content creators on YouTube who belonged to the nano influencer tier. Meanwhile, the number of influencers with a mega or celebrity status figured around 10,000. YouTube is the second most popular platform among Indian influencers after Instagram.