Platforms began calling their users creators. Investors gave the phenomenon the name creator economy. And from a marketing label, a new professional category gradually emerged. But what is presented as the economy of creators actually earns the most for the platforms themselves.
The creator economy has become one of the most frequently used terms in the digital economy in recent years. Yet several different markets hide behind a single name. Creators, platforms, brands, technology tools and investors. Each of them develops at a different pace and according to different rules. To truly understand the creator economy, it is necessary to view it as a system of layers that together transform attention into economic value.
It is an ecosystem of several parallel markets that intertwine and feed on each other. Creators publish content. Audiences watch. Brands pay for attention. Beneath this simple model lies a complex business system.
How it began
The term creator economy first appeared as early as 1997. It was used by technology forecaster Paul Saffo of Stanford when he described a new digital economy around online creators. At that time, though, it was more of a theoretical idea. The internet did not yet have the infrastructure that would allow creators to earn money.
Interestingly, the word creator in its present sense was popularised around 2011 by YouTube, when it began calling its users creators instead of YouTube stars. Monetisation tools gradually followed, such as ad revenue share, Patreon, Twitch or Substack. To a certain extent this was marketing. The word influencer sounds like advertising. Creator sounds more like an entrepreneur.
The term creator economy itself exploded around 2020, when the investment fund SignalFire published a report according to which there were about 50 million creators. From that moment on, VC funds, startups and technology media began using it en masse.
Today it denotes a broader framework covering influencers, YouTubers, streamers, podcasters, newsletter authors, independent artists and online teachers. In other words, an ecosystem of people who monetise content and audiences.
But the word creator was not just a description. It was a platform strategy for turning users into a new professional category.
A large part of economists, however, hardly use the term at all. They speak rather of the attention economy, the platform economy, digital labour or the gig economy.
How it all fits together
At the centre stand creators themselves and their audiences. Without them none of this would make sense. Someone makes something, writes or photographs it. They find an audience. And at that moment the question arises: can this support them? This is where content begins to turn into income.
Goldman Sachs analysis shows that creators today earn money in three main ways. The largest share of income, however, still comes from brand deals. These represent around 70% of creator monetisation. Even in the age of subscriptions and communities, the relationship between creator and brand remains a key pillar of the whole economy.
For this relationship to work at scale, another layer has grown around it. There are not only creators and brands. There is infrastructure. Influencer marketing platforms. Affiliate tools. Analytics. Campaign management. Talent management. Agencies. Companies and technologies that connect supply with demand, measure performance and distribute the money.
One market, four layers
The whole system can be simplified into four overlapping layers. The base consists of creators and their audiences. Above them stand monetisation models such as brand deals, advertising or subscriptions. A further layer is the technical and service infrastructure that powers the whole system. At the top are investors and holding companies that try to consolidate these relationships and take control of them.
How the creator economy has developed
The number of creators is growing. Goldman Sachs estimated in 2023 roughly 50 million creators worldwide and expected growth of 10 to 20 percent a year. According to the same analysis, the whole sector is worth about $250 billion and could grow to as much as $480 billion by 2027.
Advertising in this segment is also growing. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, spending on creator marketing should reach roughly $37 billion in 2025. These figures also show an important thing, however. The creator economy is not one market. It is a system of several interconnected layers. The number of creators is growing. Advertising budgets are growing. The infrastructure serving this ecosystem is growing.
According to Quartermast Advisors, a total of 81 transactions took place in the creator economy in 2025, representing year-on-year growth of 17.4% compared with 2024. Specific deals also show how varied this market is. Bending Spoons acquired Vimeo for $1.38 billion. Later acquired the affiliate platform Mavely for $250 million. Publicis bought the global influencer marketing platform Captiv8 and earlier also BR Media Group in Latin America. And Wonder acquired Tastemade, thereby connecting content, commerce and distribution.
It is on platforms that what we call the creator economy today is created. Only when we look at it this way does the creator economy stop being a vague acronym for something around influencers and start to make real economic sense.
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