Methodology
The data presented in this report was collected from 100 of the leading companies in the creator economy. After gathering data on each brand, we filtered through them by their revenue, website traffic, ad spend, year founded, and social media reach across platforms.
Utilizing NeoReach’s proprietary data, we determined each brand’s growth rate and audience demographics, in addition to conducting a trending analysis to predict future growth.
This analysis allowed us to provide a comprehensive overview of the creator economy landscape. In this report, we will identify the most successful companies, the top industries and products, which brands are growing/slowing down, and which companies will continue to grow.
Top 100 Creator Economy Companies 2022
Top 100 Creator Economy Companies
Year Founded–Timeline
This timeline highlights when some of the companies featured on our Top 100 Creator Economy Companies of 2022 were founded. It has a 20 year range starting in 2002 with Spread Shirt, a T-shirt company, to as recent as 2020 with companies like Collective Management and Creator Cash.
Top 10 Revenue Companies
This graph shows the annual revenue of the top 10 Creator Economy companies based on revenue. Taking the top spot on that list is Shopify, an E-commerce company founded in 2006 with an annual revenue of 5.2 billion dollars in 2022, OpenSea, a NFT marketplace company, took the 10th spot bringing in an annual revenue of 93,800 dollars in 2022.
Top 10 Revenue Companies
Shopify
Merchandise Company
Shopify, the leading e-commerce platform for online stores, was founded by Tobias Lütke, Scott Lake, and Daniel Weinand in 2006. The brand plays a key role in the creator economy, as it has expanded to accommodate online shopping via social media.
Only Fans
Subscription Company
OnlyFans, a subscription-based website with an estimated annual revenue of 2.5 billion dollars, was founded in 2016 by Timothy Stokely and is based out of London. OnlyFans allows for creators to monetize their content by requiring a monthly subscription fee to their page.
BitClout
Blockchain Company
BitClout is a blockchain social media platform marketed as a “platform owned by its users.” One of the newer companies on this list, it was founded in 2021 by Nader al-Naji and has an estimated annual revenue of $1B.
Impact
Ad Platforms Company
Another one of the top creator economy companies is Impact.com, a partnership management platform. The company was founded in 2008 by David A. Yovanno and Per Peterson.
JellySmack
Community Management / Analytics & Operation
JellySmack, a tech-enabled social media amplification platform, was founded by Swann Maizil, Robin Sabban, and Michael Philippe in 2016. The company’s estimated annual revenue is an impressive $216M.
Spring
Merchandise Company
Founded in 2011, Spring is a social commerce platform founded by Evan Stites-Clayton and Walker Williams which allows users to sell custom products.
Patreon
Subscriptions Company
Founded in 2013 by Jack Conte, Patreon is a subscription based company with an estimated annual revenue of 160 million dollars in 2022. Patreon allows for fans to subscribe to their favorite creators' pages for exclusive content, as well as helping creators monetize their content.
Acast
Ad Platforms Company
Founded by Karl Rosander, Måns Ulvestam, and John Billgren in 2014 Acast helps support podcast creators by helping with advertisement strategy, they also help creators start their own podcast or join an existing podcast.
Discord
Community Management / Analytics & Operations Company
Discord is a social platform that allows users to communicate through instant messaging and video/voice calls. With an estimated annual revenue of $130M, the platform was founded in 2015 by Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy.
OpenSea
Blockchain Company
OpenSea is the first and largest online marketplace for NFTs and crypto collectables was founded in 2017 by Devin Finzer. With an estimated annual revenue of 93.8 million dollars, OpenSea allows users to buy, sell, and create NFTs.
Top 10 Social Following Instagram Growth
This graph shows the top 10 Creator Economy companies of 2022 based on their social following growth on Instagram. As you can see VSCO has had a slight decline between 2020 and 2022 but still makes the top of the list with 3.8 million followers on Instagram. Onlyfans has had tremendous growth with their following on Instagram between 2020 and 2022 making them the number two Creator Economy company of 2022 with slightly above 2 million followers on Instagram.
VSCO
Content Creation Company
VSCO was founded in 2011 by Joel Flory and Greg Lutze. Vsco is a content creation company that allows its users an easy-to-use platform for editing their pictures and videos. In 2022 they had an estimated annual revenue of 25.4 million dollars, and have 3.8 million followers on Instagram.
Only Fans
Subscription Company
Only Fans in a subscription company founded in 2016 by Timothy Stokely. Only Fans has just over 2 million followers on Instagram, they provide an easy way for creators to monetize their content by requiring a subscription fee to view their content.
Discord
Community Management / Analytics & Operations Company
Discord is a community management/ analytic and operations company founded in 2015 by Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy. They had an estimated annual revenue of $130M and had just above 2 million followers on Instagram, 1.6 million followers on TikTok, and 3.8 million followers on their YouTube page.
YouTooz
Merchandise Company
YouTooz is a merchandising company that was founded in 2019 by Austin Long that had an estimated annual revenue of 8 million dollars. YouTooz has 1.1 million followers on instagram, 834,400 followers on TikTok, and 273,000 followers on their YouTube page.
Open Sea
Blockchain Company
OpenSea is the largest marketplace for NFTs, it was founded in 2017 by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah. OpenSea had an estimated annual revenue of 93.8 million dollars and has a following of 1.1 million people on Instagram.
Shopify
Merchandise Company
Shopify is a merchandising company that was founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke, Scott Lake, and Daniel Weinand. In 2022, Shopify had an estimated annual revenue of 5.2 billion dollars with a monthly website traffic of 23.3 million people.
Polarr
Content Creation Company
Polarr is a content creation company that was founded in 2014 by Borui Wang. Polarr allows for creators to create their own visual aesthetic and has an estimated annual revenue of 3.7 million dollars.
Skill Share
Courses Company
Skillshare is an online educational course company that allows anyone to master a new skill. Founded in 2010 by Michael Karnjanaprakorn and Malcolm Ong, Skillshare has an estimated annual revenue of 80 million dollars and slightly more than 600,000 followers on Instagram.
Fanjoy
Merchandise Company
Fanjoy is a merchandising company that was founded in 2014 by Chris Vaccarino and allows an easy way for creators to create their own merchandise to sell to their fans and followers. With just above half a million followers on Instagram, Fanjoy had an estimated annual revenue of 7.5 million dollars.
Top Services
Across Top 100 Companies
Top Services
This chart shows the top 12 services across the top 100 companies and the top company in that service. Ad platforms was the top type of service for 2022 with an estimated annual revenue of 233.6 million dollars, the top company in 2022 for ad platforms was Impact. Link in bio was the 12th top service in 2022 with an estimated annual revenue of 16 million dollars, the top company in 2022 for link in bio services was Linktree.
This graph also shows the top 12 services across the top 100 Creator Economy companies in 2022. Community management was the second most used service across the top 100 Creator Economy companies with an estimated revenue of 216 million dollars. Jellymack is one of the top Creator Economy companies in 2022 they help creators maximize their earnings and following across their preferred platforms.
Average of Annual Revenue
This pie chart shows the average of annual revenue based on the top 12 types of Creator Economy companies. The top type of company was Merchandising and accounted for 48.99% of the average annual revenue.
Average of Instagram Reach
This chart shows the average of Instagram reach across the top 12 types of Creator Economy companies. The most popular type of company was Content Creation with an average Instagram reach of 462K, the second most popular type of company was Subscription with an average Instagram reach of 368K.
Average of Paid Monthly Ad Spend
This pie chart shows the services and their corresponding average spend on paid monthly ads in 2022. 72.88% of paid monthly ads was spent on merchandising and only 0.03% of paid monthly ads was spent on blockchain.
Average of Total Fundraised
This graph shows how much was raised by fundraising based on the type of company. The top type of company was those who provide courses, like SkillShare and had an average of 330 million dollars fundraised.
Fastest Growing on Instagram
We also took a look at the fastest growing companies on Instagram. The fastest growing company on Instagram was Geneva which is a community management company that provides a platform for groups to have an easy free way to message each other, they had a 6.58% growth rate on Instagram in 2022
Slowest Growing on Instagram
We also took at the slowest growing companies on Instagram. The slowest growing company on Instagram was BitClout, a blockchain company that has their own cryptocurrency called BitClout.
Companies Trending Up
Utilizing Tensor Social, we conducted a trending analysis on the top 100 creator economy companies. This allowed us to determine the trending directions of the most significant industry companies. From this, we identified the top three upward trending companies: Clout Desk, Descript, and Memmo.
Companies Trending Down
We also identified any companies that are projected to trend downward in the coming months. The three companies who are trending down the most are Beacons, Cameo, and Caffeine. Beacon, a link in bio company, has a projected downward trend of -0.80.
Website Traffic vs. Monthly Revenue
This graph demonstrates the correlation between website traffic and monthly revenue among the top creator economy companies. As you can see in these graphs there is a large correlation between website traffic and monthly revenue, with an outlier being Linktree. Linktree has high website traffic but not as high monthly revenue.
Instagram Reach vs. Monthly Revenue
When considering the top creator economy brands, we found a correlation between website traffic and Instagram reach. There is a consistent correlation between Instagram reach and website reach, the larger the Instagram reach the more website traffic the company has.
Website Traffic vs. Monthly Ad Spend
This graph demonstrates the correlations between website traffic and monthly paid ad spend for the leading brands in the creator economy. Unlike the correlation between Instagram reach and website traffic, there is not as much of a correlation between monthly paid ad spend and website traffic.
Website Traffic vs. Value Per Web Visitor
Looking at these brands, we also identified any correlations between website traffic and estimated value per web visitor.
Value Per Web Visitor vs. Monthly Ad Spend
This graph demonstrates the relationship between the estimated value per web visitor and monthly paid ad spend.
Instagram Growth Rate vs. Monthly Paid Ad Spend
This graph demonstrates the correlation between Instagram growth rate and monthly paid ad spend. Collective had the highest Instagram Growth Rate with 5% but only spent a little over 5,000 dollars on monthly paid ads.
Trending Analysis vs. Instagram Growth Rate
Returning to the trending analysis, we took a look at the growth rate of brands whose trend projection was between 1 and -1.
Monthly Revenue vs. Instagram Reach
Looking more closely at Instagram reach, we identified any correlations it may have to the monthly revenue of these top brands. Collective Management had the largest growth rate on Instagram spending only a little over five thousand dollars on monthly paid ads.
Notable Highlights
Averages Across Top 100 Companies
Some of the notable highlights of our top 100 Creator Economy Companies Report for 2022 include monthly website traffic, their reach across social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, as well as average total revenue.
Editor’s Note
In the past 10 years, we have seen the creator economy rise to astronomical heights. With it, a number of creator economy companies have risen as well. From billion dollar ecommerce platforms like Shopify to groundbreaking social media platforms like Discord, many of these companies have established a notable position in the creator economy.
This report presents data from the top 100 creator economy companies, with launch dates spanning across the 21st century. Some of these companies have grown to enormous heights, while others are standing in their shadows.
As the creator economy grows in size, the number of creator economy companies will grow as well. More than ever before, companies will be tasked with standing out and making their mark on the industry. Fitting into a niche that isn’t already occupied is difficult, so originality must be a top priority if a brand is hoping to succeed.
