Creator pay rates have not been a loud enough discussion in the creator economy. Too often, creators undercharge out of a lack of knowledge and awareness of what their content is worth. Without a shared pricing language between creators, brands, and agencies, negotiations often become inconsistent and often unfair.
CreatorOS has published a new creator pricing report, taking a big step into a transparent future for our industry.
“Influencer pricing has a problem - it’s the only area of digital marketing that doesn’t have a consistent methodology as to how it is priced,” CreatorOS CEO Tim Mitchell wrote in the report. “Some rely on followers as the primary metric. At the nano end of the scale, pricing is even more varied and random.”
With the aim of the report being to provide a “transparent, predictable baseline price for creator collaborations,” it’s clear 2026 will be a year of clarity for the creator economy.
The problem with follower-based pricing
Follower count has acted as the shorthand metric for estimating creator value for years. But in algorithm-driven feeds across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts, followers are no longer the best predictor of reach.
