How many ‘creators’ are there and how do they make money? [SignalFire study]
2 million people make a living as content creators, according to a new study by venture capital firm SignalFire.
Not all musicians think of themselves as content creators. But – just like everyone who posts regularly on social media in hopes of eventually making money – they certainly are – and there is a lot of competition.
In a new sweeping look at the content creator ecosystem, SignalFire identified 2 million full-time and 46.7 part-time creators.
Here is SignalFire‘s bottom’s up TAM (total addressable market) analysis for the 50 million.
Professional Individual Creators (~2M+) – Making content full-time
- YouTube: Of the 31M channels on YouTube, ~1M creators have over 10K subscribers (source)
- Instagram: Of the 1bn accounts on Instagram, ~500K have over 100k followers and are considered active influencers (source)
- Twitch: Of the 3M streamers on Twitch, ~300K have either Partner or Affiliate status (source)
- Others: including musicians, podcasters, writers, illustrators, etc total ~200K
Amateur Individual Creators (~46.7M) – Monetizing content creation part-time
- YouTube: Of the 31M channels on YouTube, ~12M have between 100-10K subscribers (source)
- Instagram: Of the 1bn accounts on Instagram, ~30M have between 50-100K followers (source)
- Twitch: Of the 3M streamers on Twitch, ~2.7M are non Partner or Affiliates
- Others: including musicians, podcasters, writers, illustrators, maybe a total of ~2M<
How Do Creators Earn Money?
According to SignalFire creators on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch, TikTok, Substack, Patreon, and OnlyFans primarily earn money by:
- Advertising revenue shares
- Sponsored content
- Product placement
- Tipping
- Paid subscriptions
- Digital content sales
- Merchandise
- Shout-outs
- Live and virtual events
- VIP meetups
- Fan clubs
We’ll have more highlights of this SignalFire study later this week.
Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is also the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor at the Berklee College Of Music online.
