What Platforms Are Really Paying Creators

What Creators Are Making on Each Platform

We compiled income data from thousands of creators and published it via Karat Insights. It’s a free tool to see how much other creators are making and how you can maximize your earnings.

The more we dig into the data, the more interesting stuff we find.

In our weekly meeting, we were talking about the ratio of content income to non-content income and knew we needed to share in this week’s newsletter.

Content income → income from platforms themselves
Non-content income → income from other sources

Let’s break this down. Across all platforms, and for creators of all sizes, on average, they’re making 83% of their income not from the platforms themselves.

If we dig into the data a bit more, we see that:

• YouTube pays the most, on average, in platform payments (in this case, Adsense). (Median earnings of $21k/year in Adsense)

• Instagram comes in second (Median earnings of $804/year in platform payments), and TikTok comes in third (Median earnings of $77/year in platform payments).

This likely isn’t a surprise. But this tells us a couple things:

1. Successful creators aren’t reliant on any one platform for their income. They’re paying less than 20% of their income.

   1. In a time when many creators are fearing a platform going away, this is a reminder that there’s a good chance you could replicate your success and earnings on another platform.

2. Successful creators monetize way beyond the platforms themselves.

Creators’ other income streams include:

• Brand deals

• E-commerce (ie. affiliates and digital products)

• Investments

• Subscriptions

If you want us to dive deeper into what each of these income streams look like and how to create them, reply to this email and let us know.

YouTube Tests Jump Ahead Feature

YouTube recently started testing a feature that allows viewers to “jump ahead” in videos. The feature uses AI to find sections of the video people often fast forward through, then suggests it as a “jump ahead” opportunity to new viewers.

From a viewer’s perspective, this is nice. But, as MalayalamMunches said in the comments of the announcement video, this could become a “skip sponsorship” feature.

For creators, this isn’t great. If people skip sponsorships, it could impact conversion rates and the success of campaigns.

Currently, the feature is only available for Premium users, so no need to worry yet. If it’s successful, it could expand though. We’ll keep you posted.

Crypto Surge Signifies Promising Future for Creators

The latest spike in the cryptocurrency market can be seen as a silver lining for stakeholders in the creator economy and a sure future for the next evolution of the internet, Web3.

With many creators facing an issue of piracy, this spike in the crypto market promises a strong future with block-chain based solutions for IP protection and monetization. With this current crypto boom sure to attract future investments in Web3 technologies and platforms all designed to protect and empower creators.

Quick Links

🎥 Creators are making more on YouTube Shorts.

🤳🏼 TikTok announces a global Youth Council.

🥤 Smoothie King launches a Dude Perfect smoothie special.

😬 Feds (potentially) violated the Constitution for asking Google to hand over viewer data.

🎬 OpenAI is coming for Hollywood.

👨‍👦‍👦 Florida passes a law preventing children from using social media, regardless of parental preferences.

See ya next week,

Karat