Creator Marketplace: 281,041 Deals, 44,331 Brands, 30,825 Creators in 2026

The other side is breadth.

Which creators work with the most distinct brands.

The top 50 below all worked with at least 49 sponsors.

Each row also shows total deal count.

That lets you split creators who shipped one-off deals from creators who shipped many deals with each brand.

Source: Influencer Advisory sponsor_deals_per_deal table, ranked by distinct brand count, 2026-05-22.

The deal-to-brand ratio is the second insight.

Welcome To The Outdoors ran 426 deals across 310 brands, a 1.37x ratio.

That signals almost zero brand-loyalty operating.

Lydia Elise Millen is the opposite shape.

403 deals across 189 brands, a 2.13x ratio.

She repeats with her partners more than half the time.

Both creators work hard.

But a brand picking long-term partners needs to read these ratios before signing.

A channel that has worked with 310 brands once each tells you a lot about how the first call will go.

This Golden Hour stands out.

369 total deals across 58 brands, a 6.4x ratio, the highest in the top 50.

That is a creator running a planned ambassador roster on their own channel.

The Zinny Studio (301 deals across 76 brands, 4.0x) is the same pattern at smaller scale.

What creators cost inside the marketplace

Price discovery in the creator marketplace is noisy by design.

Published rate cards are wish-lists.

Agency quotes bake in markup.

Self-serve platforms list inflated floors.

The only honest way to see the median rate is to collect real negotiated numbers and tier them.

We have a priced rate sample of 13 creators in this niche.

The sample is small.

We say so up front.

The median rates fall out like this.

Source: Influencer Advisory youtube_creators table, priced subset 13 creators in our database, niche cut.

The real mid-band median in this niche is $1,825 per deal.

Not the $5,000 to $7,000 most public rate cards quote.

Even with the small sample, the pattern matches what we see across our broader database.

Brands that size budgets from public cards overpay by 2x to 3x in the 50K to 250K sub band.

A note on the under 10K band.

The $4,000 figure looks odd.

A single priced creator in that band drives the number.

Treat it as directional, not load-bearing.

The bigger lesson holds.

Rates follow pricing power.

Under 10K creators sometimes hold more of it than their subscriber count suggests.

The repeat sponsor rate is the signal to watch

If you only remember one number from this post, make it 46.5%.

That is the share of tracked sponsor brands that come back for a second creator deal.

Every other marketplace metric flows from this one.

A repeat rate that high means the creator marketplace is not a one-shot channel for most buyers.

Enough brands get a usable outcome the first time to try a second.

It also means every creator should expect about half of new brand chats to come from past ties.

From the buyer side the rule is plain.

Close your second campaign with the same creator inside six months of your first.

If you cannot, you are below market.

That pace is what the top brands above have built into their media plans.

Squarespace does not run 3,022 deals by running 3,022 different tests.

It runs a tight bench of 523 creators with 78% repeat.

Any brand picking a new agency or platform should ask for the same figure on that partner's book.

If they cannot show it, they are not a marketplace.

They are a one-off booking engine.

The TikTok side of the marketplace

The creator marketplace is not only YouTube.

TikTok plays the same role with a flatter tier split and different rate math.

The top creators by follower count in our TikTok matched set are listed below.

Source: Influencer Advisory tiktok_creators table, niche cut 10 accounts in our database.

Sprout Social reports TikTok as the fastest growing sponsor channel by percent change in brand spend.

The follower counts above look big on their own.

But the real story on TikTok is the long tail below 1M followers.

That is where the math for performance brands works.

Read our TikTok Creator Economy 2026 for the full tier split on that platform.

How to choose a creator marketplace

Whether you are weighing a self-serve platform, an agency, or going direct, ask for three numbers.

Walk if they cannot produce them.

1. Active creator count by size tier. You want proof they have real supply where you plan to buy, not one big total.
2. Brand repeat rate on their book. Our benchmark across all deals is 46.5%. A partner who cannot show a repeat rate is a booking engine, not a marketplace.
3. Median rate at the 50K to 250K band. Our benchmark is near $1,825 per deal. A quote far above that needs a reason.

Pick the route that matches your budget and how much sourcing work you want to do.

Not the one with the biggest creator count on its homepage.

What this means for brands and creators

Three real takeaways from the data.

First, size your first marketplace budget around the real 50K to 250K sub-band rate.

Not the wish-list card.

A $1,825 median in the 50K to 250K band is what a sharp buyer plans on.

Pay more for proven operators.

Never use a public card as your start point.

Second, judge any marketplace partner by their brand repeat rate.

Not their creator count.

A platform with 100,000 creators and a 10% repeat rate is weaker than one with 5,000 creators and a 40% repeat rate.

Repeat rate is trust as a number.

Third, creators should read the 46.5% brand-repeat number as a money insight.

If nearly half of brands repeat, plan that half of next year's revenue comes from brands you have closed once.

That changes how you handle reports, follow-up pace, and pricing on second deals.

For more on how those second deals are priced, see How Much Does Influencer Marketing Cost.

The 2026 creator marketplace is larger, more top-heavy, and more repeat-driven than almost any other ad channel.

It is still mis-priced in the 50K to 250K sub band.

That is where the real pricing-power play lives for brands willing to use data instead of rate cards.

Tell us your category and your target sub band.

We return the active sponsor brands, the named pairs, and the rate yardstick to anchor your test budget.

Where we come in, after the test campaign

The payoff on a creator program shows up between deal 3 and deal 8, not deal 1.

We track every renewal across 281,041 deals.

So the second-buy choice is grounded in delivered work, not a vibes check.

The brand-repeat moat is the outlier that funds the program.

Speak with us before the rebook window closes.

Methodology

Data source: the Influencer Advisory Supabase project, tables youtube_creators, tiktok_creators, and sponsor_deals_per_deal.

Headline stats (281,041 deals, 44,331 brands, 30,825 creators, 46.5% repeat) come from SQL run on 2026-05-22.

Across the full deal set, dropping rows flagged is_attribution_not_sponsor = true.

Brand names use the company_normalized column.

It collapses spelling variants (Ground News / GroundNews / ground.news map to groundnews).

The 50-row pair table counts distinct video titles per creator-brand pair.

It keeps only each creator's deepest single pair to show variety.

Rate medians come from a smaller priced subset (13 creators) noted inline.

For a niche cut or a repeat rate benchmark on your own book, get in touch via our contact page.

Related reading: Affiliate Marketing Programs in 2026 · Ambassador Program in 2026 · Social Media Marketing Consultant in 2026 · Advertising Regulation News May 2026 · Best Digital Marketing Agency in 2026.