LinkedIn's head of product for creators, Sam Corrao Clanon, summed up the route into Creator Marketplace with arrows: “You get the invite -> you opt in -> brands can find you within the marketplace -> magic happens from there.” LinkedIn guards entry to the marketplace with an invitation, and the creator then agrees the fee and payment with the brand directly. The programme conditions, which LinkedIn may change over time, include, besides the invitation, 5,000 followers and, over the past 90 days, 12 posts and 45,000 impressions.

Besides the numerical conditions, LinkedIn named further criteria when it launched the marketplace in June 2026, among them expertise, content quality, presence on the platform and the match between topics and advertiser demand. LinkedIn Creator Marketplace is so far available only to a selected group of members in the US and Canada and is in an alpha phase. It supports content in English only.

The numerical conditions alone will not get you into Creator Marketplace

Because of the European Digital Markets Act (DMA), the marketplace does not yet support content from authors in countries covered by the regulation. A creator from Czechia cannot get in even above the threshold. The number of followers and posts on which the threshold is based is also measured among senior executives by the Executive LinkedIn Ranking 2025. Among chief executives in Central Europe, Klaus Zellmer of Škoda Auto has the most followers in it, more than 52,000. Only 20% of the executives in the ranking published at least ten posts in the twelve months before data collection in autumn 2025.

Apple Crider, chief executive and co-founder of the agency Creators Agency, calls the follower threshold a gateway that does not in itself show that a creator suits buyers. Dima Beseda, who is building the platform Spiry for measuring the return on influencer marketing, wrote: “A 5,000-follower floor proves someone posts consistently. Whether their audience buys is a separate question, and the marketplace leaves that one with the brand.”

What a brand sees in the marketplace and what price it pays for collaboration

Once a creator opts in, a brand sees their public profile and public posts, analytics based on them, and information about the audience. A creator can opt in under the Monetization tab, which the analytics overview shows only to those who have access to the marketplace. They can opt out of the marketplace at any time. They themselves choose which posts to show to brands and may also list their representation. The creator also approves how a brand uses their sponsored content.

A sponsored ad featuring a creator's post is paid for by the brand, but the author can switch it off. Thought Leader Ads extend the reach of posts by a specific person, such as a company executive or a creator. In the marketplace, only public posts that carry the author's full surname can be found. An author can set automatic approval of all findable posts for a brand they have already worked with. If they withdraw consent, running ads featuring their post are cancelled automatically.

A single post by a creator on LinkedIn cost brands a median of $798 in client campaigns of the data company Favikon in 2026. The median of the rates that creators declare in their own price lists is, in the same overview, around $300. Favikon explains the difference by brands choosing above-average creators.

Creators in the BrandLink programme receive a share of the revenue from ads that run before their videos directly from LinkedIn. From March 2026 LinkedIn began paying out BrandLink rewards through the payment service Stripe. “I think it’s going to take some time for creators of all kinds to start seeing money come from the platform,” said the creator Gigi Robinson, who takes part in LinkedIn's partner programme.

In June LinkedIn confirmed to Digiday that further regions beyond the US and Canada would be added in the coming months. The company declined to give a date at the time. LinkedIn's help centre does not give one even in mid-October. Behind the arrow “magic happens from there” stands a contact email for brand enquiries, which the invited creator fills in under the Monetization tab.