One of the best things that have happened in the creator economy in the last few years is the growth of various monetization techniques.
For a long time, content creators were limited to ad-revenue-sharing models. Though not entirely bad, this model left a lot of things outside the creator’s control.
Publishing platforms were at the driving seat, deciding what percentage of the ad revenue would be shared with the creators. Also, if the platforms decided you violated their terms, they could kick you out of their program and demonetize your content.
That’s not the case anymore. Thankfully!
Sure, platforms can still kick you out of their programs, but you now have more monetization options. This means you can create several income streams and build a truly sustainable content creation business.
Have you ever managed to earn money by creating content? What strategies or tools helped you the most?
What is the earning potential of a content creator?
The best way to answer this question is to look at real life examples of how much creators at different levels make. But let’s start with some context first.
Today’s content creators do not rely on only one platform. They create one piece of content and distribute it on multiple platforms.
YouTube is one of the most popular platforms among content creators. The platform has an ad-revenue-sharing model. It pays creators between $3 and $5 per 1,000 views. This data is based on a combination of self-reported earning reports and the Google AdSense calculator.
The exact amount you’ll earn from YouTube will depend on your niche and region, among other factors.
Next, you have TikTok. TikTok is different from YouTube in that it has a Creator Fund, which pays creators around $0.02 to $0.04 per 1,000 views.
That’s how much creators can earn directly from the platforms. But besides that, they have other revenue streams like brand partnerships, merchandise sales, and even donations.
We’ll talk more about these and other revenue streams later. For now, keep them in mind as we break down the earnings of three creators to show you the earning potential of a content creator.
Example 1: Matt Upham – TikTok content Creator
Matt Upham is a software engineer who built a side hustle as a tech content creator. As of September 2022, the creator had 522K TikTok followers, 113K Instagram followers, and 56K YouTube Subscribers.
We’re giving you his follower count as of September 2022 to match his earnings for that month and year.
So, how much did he make?
According to Business Insider, Matt made $10,145.36 that month. Here is a breakdown of his earnings:
- Brand deals – $8,863.34
- Speaking engagement – $485.05
- YouTube AdSense and Shorts Fund – $442.31
- Instagram Reels bonus – $254.66
- Tutoring – $100
Matt Upham is based in San Francisco.
Example 2: Charli Prangley – YouTuber
Our second example is Charli Prangley, a designer YouTube creator based in Spain. Charli released her 2024 earnings report on a YouTube video.
The creator has just over 230K YouTube Subscribers. She saw her income drop significantly compared to previous years, mostly due to burnout (she didn’t produce as much fresh content as she did in previous years).
In 2024, Charli made a total of GBP 11,201 (or roughly $14,199).
From that total, GBP 6,158 came from content, which covers channel sponsorship, adsense, affiliate commissions, and content sponsorships.
About GBP 4,845 came from products and services, where she sold a custom font and Scribbles vector pack, mentored, conducted one live workshop, and offered on-demand workshop replays.
Charli has also monetized her content through Patreon and YouTube membership subscriptions.
The most impressive part about Charli’s earnings is that she is doing content creation as a part-time gig!
Example 3: Humphrey Yang – YouTuber
Humphrey Yang is a considerably bigger digital content creator than the two examples we’ve shared above. He’s based in the US and is in the personal finance niche.
Humphrey Yang shared his 2023 earnings in 2024, when he had 1 million subscribers and over 200M lifetime views. He earned around $274,374.56 that year from YouTube alone.
Though the creator didn’t go into details regarding other income sources like brand sponsorships, his YouTube earnings alone should give you some perspective on how much you can earn as a content creator once your career takes off.
8 popular income streams for a content creator
Let’s now look at some of the most popular and effective income streams for content creators.
1. Brand deals and sponsorships
Brand deals and sponsorships are perhaps the most popular monetization strategies in the creator economy. This technique can take different forms, but it generally involves the creator promoting a particular brand in the content.
You may have a specific brand sponsor a particular portion of a YouTube video, for example. Some brands can also pay for you to create sponsored content for them. This is sometimes considered as paid user generated content (UGC) or freelance content creation. But you must be careful not to let the incentives push you into creating disingenuous content.
In other cases, brands become channel sponsors where the creator gets paid on a continuous basis as long as they continue producing new content and mentioning the brand. This essentially turns creators into brand ambassadors.
For example, the creator Charlie, a designer, has Figma as her channel sponsor. In fact, 50.2% of her GBP 6,158 content income came from that channel sponsorship. That’s around GBP 3,092.60 (roughly $3,900).
She talks about the brand in her videos and shares a link to their website in the description.
Unfortunately, brand deals and sponsorships are only available to creators who have already built an audience. As you can imagine, brands want exposure and can only get it from creators with engaged audiences.
The good news?
You don’t need hundreds of thousands of followers or subscribers to get these deals. The rise of microinfluencers means that even creators with 10,000 followers or subscribers can get decent deals. You just need to pick the right deals that align with the personal brand you want to build.
2. Merchandise sales
This is another common monetization strategy. But let’s start by discussing the issues with this option.
Selling merchandise requires you to run an eCommerce business. This essentially means you now have to worry about inventory, fulfillment, and all that stuff. Though software tools like Shopify are making it easier to start an eCommerce business, running one can still be a headache.
You might also be forced to add more people to your team who can handle the eCommerce side of your online business. You may need folks to do the creative work of creating merchandise and some eCommerce marketing experts, for example.
Also, merchandise doesn’t just mean t-shirts, hoodies, and hats. It can also include products like books, which take time to write and publish.
But it’s not all gloom. Merchandise reduces your income reliability on YouTube, TikTok, and other social platforms.
Secondly, promoting your merchandise is a lot easier once you’ve already built an audience. Think about it. There’s a reason brands are constantly looking out for creators they can partner with.
Being a creator means you’re already one step ahead when selling merchandise because you already have a large engaged audience. Ali Abdaal has a productivity book he promotes all the time in his content. Or what about a popular example like Mr Beast who sells various products including chocolate.
3. Online course sale
An online course is one of the best ways to generate extra income as a content creator. And the best part about online courses is that you can create an evergreen course that’ll continue to generate passive income long after publication.
So long as the content of your course remains relevant, folks will always be willing to pay for it.
The best way to make money with online courses is to pick a niche in which you’re already an expert. For example, if you create content on personal finance, you can create a course within that niche. You could create a course on investing in stocks or something similar, for instance.
Some of the best YouTubers have even created courses on how to thrive on the platform.
Creating online courses is also super easy. And since you already have an audience, you don’t have to use platforms like Udemy to sell your course. Such platforms have a revenue sharing model where they can take up to 63% of your earnings.
Instead, use online course platforms like GetResponse’s AI course builder. This platform lets you self-host your platform, meaning you get to keep 100% of your earnings.
The course builder also has an AI assistant that can help structure your course and generate some of your content. That means you don’t need any coding or design skills to create the course. The intuitive course creator will guide you through the process and structure your course. You just need to focus on the course content, which is where your expertise is required.
Now, of course, there are plenty of course builders out there. However, our solution is the most cost-effective.
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To put it in perspective, the cheapest package on Kajabi (an extremely popular online course builder) costs $71 per month and supports only 1 product (so one course) and 250 contacts.
4. Subscription platforms
Subscription platforms are like SaaS but for content creators. And instead of offering a software, you provide exclusive content.
This involves going the extra mile to curate super useful content and sharing it with your loyal followers, who pay monthly fees to access this information.
Patreon is by far the most popular subscription platform among creators. The personal finance YouTuber, Humphrey Yang, has a Patreon account where he shares exclusive content like his stock portfolio and trades.
Sometimes he also shares exclusive videos with his Patreon members. These videos are never uploaded on his YouTube channel.
Mentour Pilot is another creator with an active Patreon account. He creates aviation-related YouTube content. Below are his membership packages.
In addition to sharing some exclusive content, he also provides early access to some videos and does monthly Zoom hangouts with his members.
5. Consulting
Consulting comes naturally to skilled content creators because it basically involves sharing your expertise with other brands or individuals in your industry. And you can charge quite a premium for this.
Besides one-off consultations, some creators also charge to speak at an event while others host group workshops.
For example, Charli (from example 2 above) did a design workshop where she earned more from that workshop (GBP 3,060.71 or $3,864.78) than she ever did from any one speaking fee. She charged $39 for the workshop livestream. The workshop is also available on-demand to this day for $39.
6. Direct advertising
Have you noticed that an increasing number of creators (especially YouTubers) are asking viewers to subscribe to their newsletters?
This goes back to the point we mentioned earlier. Creators want to reduce reliance on third-party platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Meta. These platforms can change algorithms at any moment. A slight change could significantly impact your earnings.
So creators are building independent businesses outside these platforms using solutions like GetResponse and Patreon to create newsletters and membership sites, respectively.
It’s through these newsletters that YouTubers are advertising different products and services. For example, a creator in the personal finance niche could promote a brokerage like Robinhood in their newsletter.
Here is an example of a newsletter from blogger and Pinterest Marketing Strategist Anastacia.
Notice the different products she promotes at the bottom?
7. Ad revenue-sharing programs
This was the “default” income stream for creators for a long time before other strategies became popular.
YouTube popularized ad-revenue-sharing programs through the YouTube partner program. Brands pay YouTube to advertise their products. YouTube embeds these ads at the start, in the middle, or at the end of videos. YouTube gets paid and they share that revenue with creators.
The model has now been adopted by most other platforms, including Meta with Facebook reels.
8. Donations
Lastly, we have donations. This is where content creators request their audience to donate to support their content.
You can use this option at the beginning of your content creation career. It will help you meet the budget you need to create more content because chances are you’ll still not be eligible for most revenue sharing programs.
That said, this is not the most reliable content monetization strategy and your income will also be sporadic. That’s why it only makes sense if you’re just starting and have limited options.
Subscribers will also understand it if it comes from a new creator and not someone already big.
But there’s an exception.
Donations are also a great way to generate revenue if you want to fund a specific project. So this is not someone buying you coffee. It’s your audience coming together to fund something. In this case, even big creators can ask for donations.
Here’s an example of JerryRigEverything (a YouTube creator) doing a fund drive to build a library. You can see the donation notifications in the comments.
If you request donations for a project, make sure to be clear and accountable. These fund drives can hurt your reputation if it turns out that money was misappropriated.
In closing
Creators have one significant hedge over most businesses. While businesses create a product first and find a market for it later, creators have an existing audience; all they have to do is find a fitting product.
Once they have a product figured out, they simply use their influence to promote it and create a massive business. This has led to the rise of the “creator-led economy”.
It’s what popular creators like Mr Beast and KSI have done with Feasitibles and Prime. And yeah, those are extreme examples, but you get the idea.
So, if you’re an upcoming creator, ad-revenue-sharing programs are a nice-to-have but they’re only a tip of the iceberg. Use the other content monetization strategies discussed above to create a sustainable business.
How do content creators make money FAQs
1. How are content creators paid?
Content creators are paid through ad-revenue-sharing, where platforms like YouTube pay a percentage of their ad revenue (55% for long-form videos and 45% for shorts) to creators.
2. Where do content creators make the most money?
Content creators make the most money on YouTube due to its decent ad-revenue-sharing program compared to other platforms. YouTube pays creators around $3 to $5 per 1,000 qualified YouTube views, which is much higher than what other content-sharing platforms pay.
3. How do content creators make money on social media?
Content creators make money on social media platforms through a combination of ad-revenue sharing, platform creator funds, brand sponsorships, merchandise sales, and donations. Some creators also monetize their content outside social media through membership sites, consultations, and online courses.
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