Content Creation is the new 9-5! Find out how brilliant creatives are getting paid to create content in 2025. 

I analyzed the top creators to help you learn their money making strategies. This post (and video) are my findings! Keep reading to find out how brilliant creators are making money in 2025, especially if you want content creation to be your new 9-5.

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Everyone wants to be a content creator.

Content creation is the now – and it’s the future. How do I know this? 

The global influencer marketing market is estimated to reach $24 billion this year. There are school classes teaching 10-14 years how to run a YouTube channel. ‘Content Creation’ is officially being taught in school. 

So the big question that I want to focus on answering is this: how are the best of the best (like Mr. Beast who made $82,000,000 last year), making their money? How do these brilliant creator minds work? And how can you apply these techniques and this mindset to your own personal brand, so that you too, can be a brilliant content creator setting yourself up for success. 

As always, if you’d like to watch instead of read, simply click the video below! Ready? Let’s dive right in.

How Brilliant Creators Are Making Money in 2025

Let’s start by identifying who the top creators are! For this post I analyzed content creators from the Forbes Top 50 Creators list from last year, the creators that were on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and some creators from the Sprout Social list of top YouTube Influencers. 

Then, to give you the most accurate information I could, I created a spreadsheet, because I love numbers, and numbers don’t lie. 

Using my spreadsheet, I became the best internet sleuth on the planet. So good that Google started asking my questions 😉. And through the public information I had access to, I uncovered how much each creator earned per year AND where that money came from. 

All of this information helped me crack the code on how these brilliant creators are making money in 2025.

Identifying the Top Creators of 2025

Our top earner on my list is Mr. Beast, bringing in $82,000,000 last year alone, and the lowest earner on this list is Taylor Cassidy with $500,000 (which I need to say, is not LOW at all, that’s insane and amazing. Taylor, if you’re reading this, you’re crushing it).

Age-wise, the oldest creators from this data are Rhett and Link, both of them are 46 years old and personally, might be my favorite creators on this list. The youngest creator is Ryan from Ryan’s World (he is 12 years old, though I’m not sure this counts as he is not the ‘brains’ behind the family business). If we replace Ryan with his parents – the youngest creator on my list is Taylor Cassidy who is 20 years old. 

Overall – the average age is 29 years old. 

Keep in mind that this is going to skew young – because a chunk of the creators that I analyzed were on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. 

What platforms are these creators on? 

The top two platforms that I analyzed were TikTok and YouTube. 47.6 % of these creators have TikTok as their main platform, and 38% have YouTube as their main platform. These are quite a bit higher than others – with Instagram hitting only 6% and 3.4% with  Twitch as their biggest platform. Then 4.7% aren’t active on any platform at the moment.

The TikTok YouTube Duo

What I noticed when I was analyzing these creators is that a lot of people use TikTok and YouTube as a really strong duo. For example, if their main platform is TikTok, they have YouTube as their 2nd platform. And if YouTube is their first platform, TikTok is their second. 

This is a really interesting power duo that I saw common amongst 85% of these top performers.

The Average Income of Top Creators

Now for the fun part. How much money are these brilliant creators actually making? On average, these creators make $12,758,000 per year. 

How? Through multiple streams of income! 

You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again – the most important income stream for content creators is multiple income streams. All of these creators that I analyzed had 2 or more income streams – with the average being 3.38 different income streams. 

Keep in mind that they each could have more – this is based on public information, which means an average of 3.38 different income streams directly funding their personal brand.

Income Streams of Top Creators

Here is a list of the top income streams that came up during my research:

• Brand collaborations
• YouTube monetization
• Monthly memberships
• Merch or other physical products
• Affiliate marketing
• Digital products
• Offering live shows or hosting events
• Other media: like TV appearances/acting/music licensing

The lesser common income streams among that list were:

• Digital products
• Live shows or events and other media.

Now, let’s break down the most common income streams of the top earning creators of 2024. 

• 81% of creators offer brand collaborations as an income stream
• 76% of the creators have monetized on YouTube
• 55% sell merchandise or offer some physical product like coffee, makeup, jewelry, etc.
• 38% do affiliate marketing (this number might be higher but not everyone disclosed if links were affiliate or not – so if I was unsure, I left them out. Remember, you should always disclose affiliate links!)
• 33% of these creators offer some form of monthly membership

The fact that some of the top creators of 2024 are utilizing monthly memberships makes me so happy. Monthly memberships is one of the best ways for creators to drive predictable, recurring income. Brand collaborations can fluctuate from month to month – meaning you have no real control over your income.

How to Create Your Own Membership Website

Rhett and Link from Good Mythical Morning have membership options for their fans. Yoga with Adriene has over 13,000.000 subscribers and she has a membership website as well. Her membership website, Find What Feels Good is hosted on UScreen. 

If you’re a coach or aspiring content creator in the educational space, UScreen is an amazing tool for you. They are THE platform for building a membership website to help you generate a sustainable and predictable revenue stream. 

Whether you have a large or small following, you can open the doors to a Netflix style video library that allows your members to easily categorize and BINGE through your video content like they would binge their favorite TV show. 

And if you want, you can have your own branded app – just like Adriene. The UScreen team will design one that you can offer to iPhone and Android users. This means your members can watch your content on their phones or even TV.

So if you like this post so far and you’re interested in uncovering ‘The Truth About Sustainable Careers for Creators’, use this link to watch a free workshop where experts Jade Beason and Amy Landino dive deep into what career sustainability really means.

Before I move on to the ways that you can make money as a content creator – I wanted to highlight that these brilliant creators are always business owners. 

In fact 57.2% of these creators own other businesses, outside of their personal brands. Markiplier, Ninja and Marques Brownlee all own and invest in real-estate. Nick DiGiovanni started a salt company called Osmo. KSI not only has his own personal brand, but he is also the CEO of Misfits Boxing and the co-owner of Prime Hydration, XIF (19) Vodka, Sidemen Clothing and a restaurant chain known as Sides. 

I didn’t include owning a business in the income streams section because even though it builds personal income and wealth, it doesn’t focus on their personal brand. The businesses felt separate to me. However, if you think that owning another business is another income stream, the average goes from 3.3 income streams to 5.5. 

Now let’s pivot – what can we learn from these brilliant creators? How can we apply their strategies and mindset to  make money and grow online in 2025?

How You Can Make Money (like these Brilliant Creators) in 2025

Key Takeaway #1: Set up multiple income streams

The first thing that I want you to take away from this guide is that you should be setting up multiple income streams that make sense for you, your brand and your audience. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach with choosing the right income streams for you. 

Every single creator that I analyzed has a different approach to how they make money and what works for them. If you don’t want to invest into a business, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to sell merch – you don’t have to. The 42.8% of creators who didn’t own other businesses, still have brilliant ways they’re making money for themselves and their personal brands. 

For example, PrestonPlayz doesn’t own or invest in any other businesses, but he does have a multi-channel network going with 8 different YouTube channels generating him 8 different income streams just from Monetization. That doesn’t include brand partnerships, which he can offer on multiple channels.

Key Takeaway #2: Feed an audience, not an algorithm

This goes for picking income streams and for picking the content you create. 

Understanding the basic information about your audience and what they want to watch, it ultimately is going to be more powerful than understanding an algorithm. 

Algorithms, across all social media platforms, were designed to study human behavior. If you can understand human behavior, and more specifically, your audience’s behavior, you’re basically working WITH the algorithm. Understanding what videos your audience wants to watch, what thumbnails they click, what hooks grab their attention – all of that is going to help you. 

If this is something that you want to make money from, then you’ll need to figure out your income stream. If you understand your audience, you should be able to choose income streams that will be more successful for you. 

Either by providing something that your audience finds valuable, offering your services or working with brands that your audience will genuinely love. 

And understanding your audience will help you create something of value, that solves a real problem in someone’s life – meaning people will actually buy what you’re selling.

Key Takeaway #3: Content creation is a business, not a hobby or side hustle

I analyzed the most intelligent content creators and each and every one of them are approaching content creation with a level of intention and professionalism that isn’t always seen with creators on your TikTok FYP. 

This doesn’t mean you have to have everything figured out right now. This doesn’t mean that every video you post has to be perfect. No, it just means that you need to be willing to learn. Educate yourself so that you can grow your craft, don’t be afraid to take messy action over and over again. 

Do you think Mr. Beast’s first video was a masterpiece? No, it was a two minute video of him playing minecraft. Marques Brownlee’s first video was a “13-year old golf swing analysis.” The goal isn’t to be perfect, the goal is to learn and grow. 

And if you seriously want to make money with content creation – you need to treat it seriously.

Key Takeaway #4: Never give up

There is one thing that all of these content creators have in common. They never gave up.

I know, I know it’s cheesy! Stay with me. 

Rhett and Link have been posting for over 17 years. Even Mr. Beast has been posting for 12 years (his first viral video happened in 2017 – five years after he started posting consistently). 

What would have happened if these creators stopped posting after just one year? 

I think a lot of people hear you say, “never give up” and they translate that to “if I just keep doing the same thing, I’ll eventually blow up.” Sorry, but NO. That’s not what I’m saying here. 

Yes, keep posting. But if you’ve been consistently doing the same thing for an entire year and something isn’t working, change it up. 

These successful creators didn’t do the same thing over and over expecting different results. They changed the format of their videos. They evolved until something clicked. 

Rhett and Link were constantly changing and adapting, from making jungles, to skits and everything under the sun until they found what worked for them and their audience. 

When you put in the work and preserve long enough to become good at it – keep creating. You never know when you’re just one video away from going viral. 

Thanks so much for being here, follow your joy! If you want to become a full-time content creator in 2025, watch this video next. I’ll break down your exact 12-Month Content Creator plan, month by month. It also has a workbook to go with it, that breaks down your action items for each month to help keep you accountable. You can download the workbook here. 

Thanks so much for being here, follow your joy!