The creator economy is still growing year-over-year, but a monetization gap is emerging

By some measures, the creator economy is more lucrative than ever before, but a deep dive into those numbers reveals persistent inequalities that slow progress for many online video professionals. That’s one of the key conclusions from the latest Creator Earnings Report, a sweeping survey published by the influencer marketing agency NeoReach.

To compile its report, NeoReach gathered earnings info from more than 3,000 creators, who collectively reach more than 1.1 billion followers. Taken together, those creators are having a good year so far. The creator economy has grown about 19% since the start of 2025, NeoReach reported, and the total number of active creators is now north of 127 million.

Despite those healthy topline numbers, NeoReach pointed to some concerning trends in the overall data. “After years of surveying and analyzing the creator economy, we propose a new theory,” reads the report. “Many creators are hitting a monetization ceiling.”

The evidence supporting that theory can be found at both ends of the earnings distribution. More than half of the surveyed creators are making under $15,000 per year, and that percentage is increasing; meanwhile, the cohort of creators taking in more than $200,000 annually now includes just 5% of the survey respondents.

Some of the factors informing the perceived gap are perfectly logical. More participants in the creator economy means more creators who are just starting out, and as you would expect, those newcomers earn less than their veteran counterparts. For creators with less than one year of experience, the average annual earnings came in under $20,000. Creators with at least four years of experience collectively quintupled that haul, taking in more than $100,000 per year on average. The percentage of surveyed creators with fewer than 100,000 followers (about 44%) is similar to the percentage of creators who earn under $15,000.

Other causes of income inequality, however, can be chalked up to platform policies. NeoReach noted that creators who work in labor-intensive content categories struggle to keep up with the demands of platform algorithms. That’s one reason why, on NeoReach’s list of genres ranked by relative revenue generation, art content wound up close to the bottom. The lowest-ranking genre on that list is news and political content; in that niche, platform policies can tamp down creator earnings.

NeoReach argued that creators can begin to close the monetization gap once they start making more than $15,000 per year. Making it past that “turning point” is difficult, but creators who surpass it see their earnings accelerate, NeoReach said. Factors like agency representation and entrepreneurship contribute to that acceleration. Creators under management make three times more than creators who lack representation, and creators who own a brand (45% of respondents) take in twice as much as those who don’t.

Though the streets of the creator economy are still paved with gold, NeoReach’s report shows just how uneven the playing field is. Female creators and Black creators have long claimed to earn less than their white, male counterparts, and those demographic disparities still exist. NeoReach surveyed an equal number of men and women, but the average male creator is making about $8500 more per year than the average female creator. In order to address these persistent problems, creator economy operatives need to be aware of the growing monetization gap — and must start pushing against it.