How Much Do Content Creators Make?

According to aggregated data from Glassdoor, the median content creator salary is $56,000 per year. 1 Most earn somewhere in the range of $42,000–$77,000 per year, which is equal to $3,500–$6,400 per month. However, these figures likely reflect the earnings of full-time creators.

If you look at the average salaries for different types of content creators, you’ll find a lot of variation in how much they make. There are also huge differences in how much the highest paid content creators earn based on content type.

The table below shows the average salary of a typical content creator compared to what the most famous content creators pull in each year.

Content Creator Salaries

Sources: Target Internet (blogger and video content creator), Crowdfundly, and Impulze.

How much can you realistically earn from content creation?

Just because the average content creator salary is $56,000 per year doesn’t mean that this is the income you’re most likely to make. Like income data in other fields, the average is sharply skewed by a small percentage of very high earners.

A recent study from The Influencer Marketing Factory backs up the content creator average salary data. 2 However, it also shows that the income distribution of content creators isn’t even.

The chart below shows the report’s breakdown of the percentage of content creators that fall into each income bracket.

Annual Earnings of Content Creators

These findings show that while it is possible to reach Cristiano Ronaldo or Joe Rogan levels of success, only about 2% of content creators ever get there.

Content creator salary outlook

There is a positive outlook for the creator economy. There was a 314% growth in the number of content creators between 2021 and 2023 alone. 2 Income levels are trending higher, and the compound annual growth rate is expected to increase by 13.5% between 2023 and 2030.

That said, to get a really good understanding of whether or not now is a lucrative time to get into content creation, you need to look at the big picture.

Although there’s been a recent surge in popularity in content creation, the creator economy is nothing new. It really kicked off back in the 2000s with the advent of YouTube and the introduction of the YouTube Partner Program.

As social media, digital payment platforms, and other related technologies evolved, so too did the way in which people could make a living online. This helped usher in the era of influencer marketing, which really hit its stride in the mid-2010s.

Now, although the number of content creators has exploded, revenue growth has not. Because of the sheer amount of creators flooding the industry right now, it’s going to be even harder to break into content creation and make a decent living from it in the years to come.

Not all content creators make money. To make money from content creation, you need to actively monetize your content. Digital creators often use a combination of monetization strategies to generate revenue for their businesses.

Which ones they choose depends on the types of content they create as well as the digital platforms they use. The table below gives a snapshot of the most popular monetization strategies and how they work.

Content Creator Monetization Strategies

For more information on how to make money as a content creator, check out our comprehensive guide to becoming a content creator.

There are various factors that will have an impact on your earning potential as a content creator. Keep these in mind as you get started.

Type of content

If you look at the comparison chart of content creator salaries, you’ll notice some disparities in how much different kinds of content creators make.

For example, the average blogger makes $62,000, whereas the average social media influencer makes $96,000. You’ll also see significant disparities in the top earners’ salaries. While the highest paid blogger makes $12 million a year, the highest paid influencer makes a quarter of that from a single post.

Regardless of what type of creator you become, you still have the ability to make good money. However, it’s important to set your expectations accordingly. Certain creators like influencers and podcasters have the ability to make more because of brand sponsorships.

Platform

Just as your medium will impact your digital creator salary, so will your chosen platform. For example, a social media creator has numerous platform options. Each platform differs in terms of user volume and demographic.

Choosing a more popular social media platform may give you greater potential exposure. But if your target audience primarily uses a smaller platform, then choosing that smaller platform could get you higher levels of engagement.

In addition, it’s not just the makeup of the platform users that influences how much you can make as a content creator. The platform’s monetization options also play a big role. Take TikTok creators, for instance. They don’t just get paid by TikTok for engagement—they can also make money from donations, affiliate links, and other methods.

More monetization options can easily equate to greater earnings for a content creator. This may be one of the reasons why TikTok and YouTube are the most profitable social media platforms for content creators, ranking higher than other social media platforms like Instagram and X (Twitter) that don’t directly pay their creators.2

Monetization strategy

We’ve discussed the different ways content creators make money. There are plenty of options to choose from, but they don’t all offer the same income potential. For example, the majority of creators using affiliate marketing (57.6%) earn less than $10,000 per year.3

The statistics are pretty similar for ads on a blog, which generally generate between $2 and $12 per 1,000 views.4 From this, we can determine that you’d need somewhere in the range of 833,333–5,000,000 page views to generate $10,000 from ads. However, under half of websites get this many views.

On the other hand, there’s no limit to how much you can earn if you’re using your platform to sell your own goods or services. It really comes down to what you have to offer, but the earning potential may be much higher.

Your content creation skills

While there are no formal requirements you need to meet to become a content creator, you’ll need certain hard skills to even begin creating content. For example, becoming a video content creator requires video production skills and maybe graphic design skills. To make money blogging, you would need excellent writing skills and some basic website building and design knowledge.

Ultimately, your skills as a content creator will impact the quality of your work. If the goal is to build an audience and be profitable, then your skill set should already be super polished. Not only will it make you appear more credible than the amateurs out there—you’ll also be able to make your content more easily and quickly.

Time invested

While there are plenty of part-time content creators, they aren’t the ones making hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per year. The amount of time you devote to content creation will affect your earnings.

To earn the big bucks, you pretty much need to be working as a full-time content creator. If you can only do content creation as a side hustle, then you can still earn money—but you’ll likely earn a more modest income.

The important thing is that you’re setting realistic expectations for how much you’ll earn as a content creator based on your bandwidth and the amount of free time you have.

Since you’ll likely be working for yourself, you’ll have a lot of control over your content creator salary. Rather than try anything and everything you can to make money as a digital creator, be more intentional with your decision-making.

The following strategies will help you not only increase your revenue but also achieve a more consistent and predictable content creator income.

Create unique and valuable content

There are hundreds of millions of content creators out there, the vast majority of whom just got started within the last couple of years.

To stand out from other creators in your niche, you need a unique value proposition (UVP). This is a statement that describes what types of services or experiences you’ll provide and their benefits compared to the competition.

Your UVP will then drive your strategy and decision-making to ensure that you consistently deliver unique and valuable content to your audience.

Choose your monetization strategies wisely

There are some platforms that pay content creators, like TikTok and YouTube. That said, they have lofty requirements you have to meet before you’re able to start making money.

So while there may be data and creator testimonials that support the idea that you can make good money on those platforms, it won’t be a reliable way to do so in the beginning.

There are other things you need to consider when choosing how to monetize your content. For example:

• Does the monetization method work for your type of content?
• How much will it cost you?
• What is the average return-on-investment (ROI)?
• How easy will it be to manage?
• Is your audience willing to support you in that manner (like with donations)?

It’s also important to be mindful of all of the ways you’re asking your audience to monetarily support you. You don’t want them to feel like you’re only in it for the money.

Publish content on multiple channels

Even if you primarily create content for one channel, you should be recycling and publishing it on other channels.

For example, let’s say you decided to try your hand at making money on YouTube by starting your own channel. You recently published a 5-minute video discussing the top five interior design trends for the coming year.

The next thing to do would be to repurpose the content into different formats based on the channels you’re on. For example:

• Add the YouTube video and transcript to your blog.
• Share that blog post in your upcoming newsletter.
• Create an infographic with a list of the 5 trends and share it on your social media accounts.
• Create a 30-second preview video and post it to TikTok and Instagram.

This is beneficial for a couple of reasons. The first is that content recycling allows you to reach a bigger audience and grow your presence on other platforms.

The second is that it’s a cost-effective way to create content for secondary channels. Instead of creating separate content for each channel, you reuse the already-great content you’ve created.

Collaborate with other content creators

Once you start to build up clout and become a major player in your space, it’s time to start thinking about collaboration.

You see this all the time on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Your favorite content creator does some crossover content with another creator. Sometimes you know who the other creator is, and other times you don’t.

That’s the beauty of collaboration. It can expose you to a new audience, helping you to grow your followers in the process.

What’s more, collaboration takes some of the work out of having to brainstorm and create content by yourself all the time. If you find a collaborator you vibe well with and trust, you could both benefit from working together.