Top
creator economy startups
2024
1. 41 Creator Economy Startups to Know in 2024
Product: Beacons
Beacons makes it easy for creators to have an online home. Their free Creator plan gives you all you need to get started. You can set up a customizable two-tab website on the free plan (or five tabs on the $10 Entrepreneur plan), where you can upload images and adjust colors and fonts. You can add unlimited links, social icons, embedded music & videos, and even a shoppable TikTok feed.
You can easily use your webpages to sell digital products like eBooks and videos or even take requests from your followers for custom videos, photos, or artwork. Beacons takes a 9% transaction fee on these sales on the Creator plan, reduced to 0% on the Entrepreneur plan. You can accept support from followers who want to support your work without paying any transaction fees.
Huddles is a mobile Creator platform that makes it easy for Creators to identify and engage with their top fans, all while receiving support directly from that top-fan base. What’s even better is that it’s free to use! Creators can shoot or upload videos, and Huddles offers a selection of tools that make it easy to enhance and edit.
The app includes a virtual tipping system called “Drops” which are digital goods purchased by fans that can be used as a token of appreciation (like a virtual tip jar) or for access to send Fanmail, a unique monetization-first messaging tool that allows Creators and their Fans to communicate directly in-app.
The app is easy to use and fans can simply swipe up or down to view videos by creators they follow and show their support by sending a drop or Fanmail.
Huddles has built tools for creators that enable them to better segment and interact with their most loyal and engaged fans. What makes Huddles so unique is the fact that anyone on Huddles can monetize, in line with their ethos that everyone is a Creator.
Product: OnlyFans
OnlyFans is a subscription site where content creators can monetize their influence. Creators can lock their content behind a paywall which fans can access for a monthly fee or one-off tip. Fans either pay for content via a monthly subscription of between $4.99 and $50 per month or by pay-per-view. Because of past actions, most notably by influencer Bella Thorne and her fans, OnlyFans has now capped PPV pricing at $50 per post and tips from new fans at $100 per tip.
OnlyFans has fewer rules than many other sites and has become best known for its adult content. However, it is registered in the USA and subject to that nation’s laws, so it is not possible to advertise escort services on the platform. However, OnlyFans caters to more than just the adult market. Artists, fitness instructors, chefs, and other creators use the site to monetize their content.
Product: BRUSHWRK
BRUSHWRK aims to make art accessible. They are a platform for creatives from all backgrounds to showcase, sell and get their work off the ground. BRUSHWRK helps artists get paid for their passion.
Their powerful machine learning-powered recommendation engine helps put art lovers and potential buyers in front of art they will love, which means more sales for artists. It is a collaborative community and marketplace where artists and creatives can share, interact and learn from one another.
BRUSHWRK handles sales for artists. Quickly list your pieces and let their algorithm put your creations in front of people who would have a preference for them. Interested buyers can own beautiful works with the click of a single button.
5. 41 Creator Economy Startups to Know in 2024
Product: Buy Me a Coffee
Buy Me a Coffee provides a mechanism for creators to accept support and memberships and build a direct relationship with their fans. You create a page with the distinct URL of buymeacoffee.com/yourname. Setting up your page is free and takes you less than a minute to set up. In just a couple of taps, your fans can make the payment (buy you a coffee) and leave you a message. You can earn a recurring income by accepting monthly or yearly membership. Share exclusive content, or just give fans a way to support your work on an ongoing basis.
All types of creators use Buy Me a Coffee to raise funds from their followers: video creators, writers, musicians, podcasters, artists, developers, and nonprofits.
Product: Creator Cash
Creator Cash gives creators the certainty to pursue their passions. It claims to be the fastest way to fund your ideas, launch your business, and convert your audience into customers.
It includes a range of tools to help your creator business grow, split into Cash, Earnings, Store, and Card. You can monetize your digital downloads, courses, events, shoutouts, and more. You can even set up shop and give your fans an easy way to support you.
Part of the Cash tool is Instant Cash, which connects to your YouTube channel. From there, the tool calculates your estimated earnings to determine how much Creator Cash can provide as an early payment to help you with your cash flow. They provide you with a personalized dashboard to share insights, earnings per video, and CPMs. If your YouTube channel is profitable enough, Creator Cash will pay you your upcoming YouTube earnings instantly.
Product: Fanhouse
You can use Fanhouse to connect directly with your fans and earn money by growing your exclusive, authentic community. Creators can monetize their social media personalities by posting freely about their lives while connecting and engaging with their top fans.
You can receive money from monthly subscriptions and fans tipping, both in regular posts and direct messages. Fans can also request custom content like greeting videos for a price. Fans can interact with each other in addition to one-on-one interaction with you.
Product: Feather
Feather claims to be made by creators for creators: yogis, chefs, coaches, meditators, nutritionists, photographers – indeed all creators. You can use it to share your passions and expertise, host classes online, build your brand, and grow a community.
You launch your Feather link and add paid videos and events. You can then add other links you wish. Once you have done this, you can publicize your Feather link by putting it on your website, launching an email campaign, sticking it in your Instagram / TikTok bios, or simply sharing the link.
Feather enables simple booking for your events/courses and then records attendance. You can use Feather to make money, manage your customers, email them, and take notes. You can collect payments and donations with a single click.
Product: Hecto
Creators can use Hecto to reach their target market through trusted newsletters. It is a platform to buy, sell and manage newsletter ads and sponsorships. You can use it to generate leads from engaged email audiences. You can even build your campaign across multiple newsletters.
Subscribers can message creators directly on the platform, meaning that they don’t have to give personal contact if they enquire. It also highlights upfront pricing; there is no need to request pricing information as you can see the prices of ad packages before you contact a newsletter. Potential advertisers can pay newsletter creators directly, safely, and securely through Hecto.
Product: HeyWith
HeyWith offers a means by which creators can share their expertise, advice, and knowledge to their fans and followers through personalized short videos. They can create 1-on-1 videos to personally connect with their faithful fans. You can earn money and reputation while you help others grow.
As a creator, you build a unique profile highlighting your skills. You can customize it with your preferred colors and add unlimited video services. You can set your own asking and video prices and manage paid requests.
Product: Jemi
Jemi offers a way for creators and superfans to connect. Fans can join communities and memberships with exclusive content and pay for personalized interactions and items. Creators can use Jemi as a one-stop-shop for anything fan monetization-related. They can generate recurring revenue by gating access to their best videos, tweets, posts and more, and offering exclusive benefits on top of that to their exclusive community.
Creators can use Jemi’s store to sell anything from merch, shoutouts, and more. They can securely collect payments through Stripe and even donate their earnings to support their favorite cause or charity if they wish.
Product: Ko-fi
Ko-fi is a platform for creators where you create a page to accept donations from your fans. Indeed, you can create your Ko-fi page and start accepting donations in just 60 seconds. You can grow your income by opening a free Ko-fi Shop, offering subscriptions, or selling commissions and services.
You can do all of this for free or upgrade to a Gold subscription for $6/month. Gold pages earn 7.2x more than free pages on average. Amongst the additional features included with a Gold account, you can let your supporters pay you with recurring monthly payments. You can also sell commissions.
Product: Markk
Markk is a real-time ratings app for places. It pays you to rate places with just videos or photos.
It’s a simple process to add a rating on Markk: Take a photo, tag a place, pick your rating, add any stickers or text, and post. You earn points with every rating that you can convert into cash. Your ratings become “referral invites.” You earn more points when people Bookmark your ratings and then rate the same place.
You earn Streak bonus points when you rate every week and Discovery bonus points for being the first to rate a place on Markk.
You can convert your points to cash, starting at $5 for 1,000 points. The ultimate reward of $20,000 comes when you redeem 1,000,000 points.
Product: Matchmade
Matchmade connects creators and advertisers. They recognize that no one likes ads, but everyone enjoys good content. Firms can use creator marketing to reach and engage with today’s tech-savvy consumers. Matchmade’s data, tools, and automation allow industry professionals to focus on the essential creative human side of marketing.
Matchmade recognizes that creators develop original, high-quality content as a form of self-expression rather than for the sole purpose of making money. They have an audience due to the authentic, engaging content that they produce. They can support themselves, allowing advertisers to tap into their audience without compromising their creativity.
Product: Mav Farm
Mav Farm is a technology company specializing in P2P art and trade. They describe themselves as one platform designed for passion. Mav Farm’s product suite brings together marketing and sales intelligence. For instance, their Video Analytics module enables creators to schedule video releases and monitor historical and predictive video sales data. Mav Farm Intelligence predicts product trends and audiences, incremental sales, ROMI, marketing opportunities, markdown liabilities, and much more.
Product: Musetown
Musetown is an influencer marketing platform with a strong emphasis on creators. They even have a Musetown Creator Partner Program. The Musetown Partner Program aims to find you long-term brand partners. The program has four steps:
- Match creators with brands – decide a product you would like, and Musetown’s team will hand-pick a quality brand that you can trust.
- Get the product sent to you for free. Use it yourself to see if you like it.
- If you like the product, create content that can introduce it to your fans.
- Identify partnerships that will give you a better result and focus on those!
- Try to increase revenue with existing partners or find a new partner and repeat the steps
17. 41 Creator Economy Startups to Know in 2024
Product: Patreon
Patreon provides an online venue where you can let your fans become active participants in the work they love by offering them a monthly membership. In return, you give them access to exclusive content, community, and insight into your creative process.
You can set up a recurring income stream through monthly payments from your patrons. You can offer different subscription levels, altering your offering to match what your fans can afford.
Product: Pico
Pico calls itself the operating system for creator businesses ready to scale. You can use it to collect emails, manage your audience, engage customers, and sell subscriptions with ease. Indeed, you can configure Pico’s prebuilt forms, user account interfaces, and landing pages for any digital business.
Pico was named the 2019 Startup of the Year by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. Pico proudly calls Brooklyn home.
Pico charges by the number of contacts you have. It is free until you have 500 contacts and then rises at $5/month per 500 contacts. Once you reach 5,000 contacts, the price drops to $5/month per 1,000 contacts and then drops again at 50,000 contacts to $5/mo per 2,000 contacts. You also pay a 2% fee on donations and a 5% fee on some other payments.
Product: ScrollStack
You can publish your writing, videos, audio, illustrations, and more on ScrollStack. You can charge your followers for your work if you wish. You can even use a wide range of audio, video, and visual embeds from other platforms, such as Spotify, Saavn, Vimeo, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also embed links from e-commerce platforms, like links to books.
ScrollStack is a community of creators finding a home for their passion projects and reaching new audiences for their work. ScrollStack aims to convert your followers into supporters, charging them for your best work.
Product: The Mango Jelly
The Mango Jelly is a community of creators who make marketing content for brands and earn rewards. You can earn rewards for such creative activities as writing interesting captions for pictures, blogging, posting awesome Instagram stories, clicking great pictures, creating beautiful art, making cool videos, or even delivering witty remarks.
From a business perspective, The Mango Jelly provides a crowdsourcing platform for excellent marketing content. You can choose from a range of contests and post as many as needed for growth.
Product: TipSnaps
TipSnaps provides a base for creators to earn money from paid subscribers to their content. Subscribers pay a monthly amount in exchange for exclusive behind-the-scenes content. Creators keep 85%, with transaction fees averaging 15%.
You can engage with your subscribers and learn what makes them tick. You create content – videos, images, audio, and more – that remains 100% yours. TipSnaps handles the busywork, processing payments, answering customer questions, and more.
You set your subscription price when you register and market your TipSnaps Page to your loyal social media followers. They can subscribe to your page or send you tips for uploading pictures and videos regularly.
Product: Streamlabs OBS
Streamlabs is livestreaming software that improves on the open-source version of Open Broadcast Software. Streamers on platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook can use it to manage their viewer interactions, chat management, and tip donations. To fully take advantage of the Streamlabs platform, you need to stream through a computer using their streaming software Streamlabs OBS.
San Francisco based Streamlabs was set up in 2014 by Ali Moiz, Murtaza Hussain, and Tom Maneri. It was initially called TwitchAlerts. Logitech acquired the company in 2019.
Product: InVideo
You can use InVideo to make professional videos utilizing premium templates, images, and music. It includes many templates to simplify your video creation. You can use InVideo to create many different types of videos, including YouTube videos, slideshow videos, ad videos, Facebook ads, and many more. The platform helps publishers, media companies, and brands to expand audience engagement through the power of video content.
InVideo was founded in 2017 and is based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Product: Vochi Video Effects
Vochi is a creative video editing tool. It provides you with unique AI-based technology. You can edit videos with just three taps: choose the sequence, tap the object, apply a visual video effect. The video creator has a motion effect to highlight movement, a glitch to attract viewers’ attention, neon special effects to add lighting or clones to make your video a little bit crazy, and many other effects. It uses neural networks to enable the addition of effects to individual objects in a video on a mobile device.
The company was founded in Belarus in 2019.
Product: Affinity Publisher, Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer,
Affinity is an Adobe-alternative for those who prefer a cheaper alternative.
Affinity began in 1987, developing creative software for Windows. Twenty years later, they decided to redevelop their software from scratch. It took the best part of five years, from writing the first line of code to releasing Affinity Designer, their first new Affinity app, in October 2014. They now have a full creative suite of applications covering photo editing, desktop publishing, and graphic design.
Product: Canva
If your creativity expertise isn’t design or photography, and you have a limited budget, Canva is an excellent choice for your everyday design needs. You use the platform to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents, and other visual content. It is free to use but offers paid subscriptions like Canva Pro and Canva for Enterprise for additional functionality.
Canva was founded in Sydney, Australia, by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams in 2012. In April 2014, social media and technology expert Guy Kawasaki joined the company as chief evangelist (brand promoter). In 2017, the company reached profitability and had 294,000 paying customers. By the end of June 2020, Canva was valued at $6 billion.
Product: Piktochart
Piktochart helps you turn any text- or data-heavy content into a stunning report, presentation, infographic, social media graphic, or printable. You can easily customize the resulting document for your brand. Drag your logo or a screenshot of your website to auto-magically extract your brand colors. Use your company’s fonts. Your custom color palette and uploaded fonts all always accessible in the editor.
Piktochart was launched in March 2012, founded by Ai Ching Goh and Andrea Zaggia, and is based in Penang, Malaysia.
Product: Anchor
Anchor is an all-in-one platform where you can create, distribute, and monetize your podcast from any device, for free. You can record or upload and edit from any device with tools designed to make you sound great, regardless of your skill level. You can even add a track from Spotify to your episodes. Combine songs and your own talk segments to create with the total freedom of audio. US users can monetize content by collecting listener contributions or adding advertisements into episodes.
Michael Mignano and Nir Zicherman founded Anchor in 2015. They initially launched as a social audio service geared for short-form content. However, in February 2018, Anchor relaunched with an updated version of the platform to create and publish podcasts.
29. 41 Creator Economy Startups to Know in 2024
Product: Cameo
Cameo is a marketplace where fans can book personalized video shoutouts from their favorite people: actors, reality TV stars, athletes, musicians, comedians, and creators. Each celebrity on Cameo has set a price for their personalized message. Interested people can ask them to send a specific message to a person they choose.
Currently, 6800 creators have made themselves available for this service. This includes YouTube stars, influencers, TikTok maestros, bloggers, and even 380 animals.
Cameo’s mission is to create the most personalized and authentic fan experiences in the world. They were founded in 2017 and are proud to be Chicago-based.
30. 41 Creator Economy Startups to Know in 2024
Product: Kajabi
Kajabi provides a platform where you can build, market, and sell your online course, membership site, or coaching program with no coding, no hiring, no learning curve, no plugins, and no broken integrations. You can access your website, products, marketing, community, and more from a single dashboard.
Kajabi was founded in 2010, with its headquarters located in Irvine, California, USA. Its customers have collectively made over $600 Million selling online courses. It has featured on the Inc 5000 Fastest-Growing Software Companies list for the last three years, showing 270% growth over 2020.
Product: Represent
Represent offers a platform where actors, athletes, creators, and musicians can sell official merchandise. Your profits depend only on how much you sell, with no upfront costs and no hidden fees. You can also use the site for crowdfunding. Customize a product and set up your campaign for free. Share your campaign with your community, supporters, or fans, and start selling immediately. Once you reach your sales goal, Represent will fulfill all your orders and pass the profits straight to you or your charity.
The Los Angeles-based company was founded in 2012 by Andrej Pancik, Bryan Baum, and Leo Seigal.
Product: Vibely
Vibely helps you build exciting communities. You can start a movement and set interactive challenges with leaderboards, accountability, and lasting friendships. You can even use Vibely to organize offline meetups of your community.
Teri Yu set up Vibely in Menlo Park, California, in 2018.
Product: Karat
Karat describes itself as the black card for creators. Unlike most credit card companies, Karat focuses on your social stats rather than your credit score. They even let you design your own card.
San Francisco-based Karat includes amongst its investors Kevin Lin – Twitch co-founder, Wayne Hu – ex YouTube leader, Saar Gur – Patreon board member, and Matt Mazzeo – ex CAA leader. Founders Eric Wei and Will Kim started the company in 2019, and they have received several rounds of funding over 2019-20.
Product: Wibbitz Studio, Lightbox, Wavi, Video Creation Services
Wibbitz online video creation software gives you the freedom to create short-form videos online in minutes. It includes simple and intuitive tools that will help you edit videos like a pro. With one-click resizing to landscape, square, or vertical formats, you can get back hours while creating videos for every platform and channel.
New York-based Wibbitz was founded in 2011.
Product: Zoom
Zoom has come into its own during these times of COVID-19. Zoom Video Communications, Inc. is an American communications technology company headquartered in San Jose, California.
Most of its early customers would have been corporate, but nowadays, there’s a wide customer base, including creatives wanting to keep in touch with their supporters.
36. 41 Creator Economy Startups to Know in 2024
Product: Gumroad
Gumroad clearly targets the creator market. They’re an online platform facilitating the sale of creators’ products directly to consumers. Typical creators using Gumroad as a marketplace include writers, designers, game developers, musicians, artists, and filmmakers. Creators can make personalized landing pages and create a simple online store.
Sahil Lavingia built the first version of Gumroad in 2011. The company received several rounds of seed financing over the next few years as the platform matured.
Product: Popshop Live
Popshop Live is a mobile live streaming marketplace where talented individuals can create and host their own shopping channel. Think of it as the Home Shopping Channel for creatives. The app is currently only available for iOS. However, a web app and an Android version will be available soon. It is presently invite-only with plans to launch to the wider public in the foreseeable future. Viewers can interact and shop with the broadcasters in real-time during the streams and access their favorite broadcasters’ storefronts and previous shows anytime.
Popshop Live was founded in March 2016 by Danielle Li and is headquartered in the Greater New York Area.
Product: Substack
Substack focuses exclusively on writers. The company says they started Substack because they believe that what you read matters and that good writing is valuable. They think that writers, bloggers, thinkers, and creatives of every background should be able to pursue their curiosity, generating income directly from their own audiences and on their own terms.
You can use Substack to start a newsletter, build your community, and make money from subscriptions. Publishing is free, as they make their money from a 10% percentage of your subscriptions.
Substack was founded in San Francisco in 2017 by Christopher Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi. They’ve received $17.4 million in three funding rounds from 13 investors.
Product: VistaCreate
VistaCreate is an online design tool, helping you create animations and graphics for social and the web, even if you possess no design skills. It includes over 30,000 templates for all major social media, blogging, and marketing formats. Create images, videos, and animations to suit your marketing needs.
A team of nine software developers and one product owner kicked off VistaCreate’s product development in September 2016. In July 2017, they launched the first free version of VistaCreate and a year later launched the VistaCreate PRO plan, which allows users to create videos and animations for social media.
Product: Caffeine
Caffeine takes a different approach to live streaming. You can broadcast live video and interact with your viewers. Unlike Twitch, Caffeine targets much more than just the gaming audience. There is a strong entertainment focus, and you will find celebrities on the platform. It includes content from partners like FOX Sports, ESPN, BIG EAST Digital Network, DreamHack, Riot Games, and top entertainers, athletes, and gamers.
Caffeine was founded in Redwood City, California, in 2016. It secured a $100 million investment in September 2018 from 21st Century Fox with chairman Lachlan Murdoch joining their board.
Product: Quickmeme
While memes may not be the most obvious way for creators to promote their craft, they are everywhere on social media now. This makes memes essential for creators wanting to build a robust social presence.
UK-based QuickMeme LLC develops entertainment applications and software. Quickmeme is the company’s flagship product.
