$1.3 billion has been invested in the creator economy in 2021 alone. The Creator Economy’s market size is estimated to be around $104.2 billion with a future valuation of trillions of dollars. Not exactly lunch money.
With a market that’s growing so quickly, it’s hard to keep up. Especially if you’re a creator.
What with weekly uploads to hit; audiences to engage with; metrics to keep track of and a whole host of other creator responsibilities- it takes a lot to keep the engine running on a creative business. And it doesn’t leave much space to explore a landscape that’s as rapidly evolving as the creator economy.
And when you think about that, you can see the problem with this arrangement. After all, no matter how many billions of dollars and companies there may be in the space- if creators don’t know about the companies themselves, it’s hard for them to find value in the things that are being created for them.
So we went on a treasure hunt. After months of combing the wild, wild west of the internet, we made a library of over 1000 companies that are building in this space.
This resource library contains tools for creators of all kinds, from writers to video producers to podcasters to illustrators to… you get the point. If you have a talent with one form of media, you’ll find 10 tools here to help you on your creator journey. Hopefully, a hundred.
Now are some of these companies competitors to CreatorStack? Sure, some of them are, in a business sense.
But big picture, we’re all fighting for the same cause. To make the world a better place for creators – a better place for the best parts of being human.
And that’s a vision worth striving compiling enormous lists for.
Here’s CreatorStack’s Resource Kit for Creators – https://kit.creatorstack.com/
Video Platforms
“Content is King. But Video is Queen”
Video is the most consumed form of communication there is today. Every minute on the internet there is 500 hours of content uploaded on YouTube; 28,000 subscribers watching Netflix and 5000 TikTok downloads.
Since video is the premier form of communication, there are a ton of resources to manage every step of the process from:
Audience Building – MelonApp; SpecialTv; CaffeineTV; YouNow;
Learning – Metafy, PipeLine; GamerzClass
Monetization – Boon; Uscreen; PowerSpike; Streamloots
Distribution – Blackbox
Management – Oslo; Live Control; Mob Crush; Frame.io
Engagement – CrowdCast, Maestro
Marketplace – Viral Hog, Storyblocks, Pexels, Depositphotos
Data and Analytics – StreamBee; Replai.ai
Content Creation Tool – Creatorkit, Happyscribe, Unilingo, Artlist, Combo
Music
In a post-pandemic world where physical record sales are almost non-existent and live events are a rarity, musicians today depend on music streaming for their revenue. But music streaming isn’t exactly a lucrative business for the artist. Spotify reportedly paid $.0033-$.0054 per stream. Translated that’s 250 streams to earn a dollar.
Not exactly an ideal situation for creators. These set of platforms are changing that equation one feature at a time:
Audience Building – Audius; Bandcamp; Tidal; Sidedoor
Tool – Record Deal simulator; Publishing Simulator
Content Creation Tool – eMastered; Soundation
Distribution – Kobalt; Stem; BeatStars; Ditto; Amuse; Artlist
Monetize – SongTradr; Trac; Boomy; Matter
Manage – Vydia; ReverbNation
Marketplace – ShareGrid; Landr; Voices
Investments – Royal
Photos & Design
If you thought photo content creators only had Instagram to play around with, think again. From digital photo shoot marketplaces like Soona to an AI photo editing tool like Luminar, there have been plenty of innovations in the category.
Here are some of our favorites:
Audience Building – Pinterest
Content Creation Tool – 500Px; Crello; Luminar ; Venngage
Marketplace – Hyphy.TV; Soona; Foap; Get Craft
Manage – Gump
Writing
Writing is the bedrock of all content. Don’t believe us? There are 600 million blog sites on the internet out of 1.7 billion websites. The number of active bloggers in the United States alone is 31.7 million – a tenth of America’s population.
Here are the platforms that are helping bloggers become platform agnostic:
Audience Building – RevSync; SendFox; Tiny Letter; Papyrus; SparkLoop; Revue .
Content Creation Tool – Mirror; Spell; Write.as; Tales
Monetize – Ghost; Sponsorgap; Swapstack; Hecto; Letterwell
Resources & Discovery – Really Good Emails; Letterhunt; Cleanfox; Leave me alone
Note Taking/ Knowledge Base – Bear; Goodnotes; Scrinever; Obsidian;
Newsletter Reading Apps – Stoop; Slick Inbox
Newsletter feeds – Feedbin; Myrrs
Publishing – Blurb; Reedsy; Libro.fm; Holloway
Podcast
The Podcast space has exploded in the last 3 years. As of March 2021, Apple Podcasts hosts 47 million episodes on their platform from a total of 1.96 million podcasts, up from 550,000 podcasts just three years ago. That’s a lot of competition. The average podcast gets around 27 listens per episode. The top 1% of podcasts have almost 3,200 per episode. And then there’s Joe Rogan who gets upto 7 million listens per episode.
Here are some of the platforms trying to even out that gap:
Content Creation Tool – Squadcast; Castup; Zencastr; Callin; Headliner; Resoundly
Distribution – Transistor; Zencast; Wildcast; Fusebox; Podcastindex
Monetize – Podcorn; Redcircle; Podsights; Glow; Acast; Backtracks
Manage – Simplecast; Sounder; Ausha; Resonate
Audience Building – Podpage; Spoon; Listenapp
Investment – Podfund
Marketplace – Podcast rental; Peerspace
Data & Analytics – Podtrac; Pinecast; Bcast
Monetization
Yes, there may be 50M creators online. But 47 million of them believe themselves to be amateurs. And a large part of this reason is that they are not making money with their creations just yet. Although two million creators are already making 6 figure incomes, 97.5% of YouTubers don’t make enough to reach the US poverty line.
These platforms are trying to shift that narrative for creators:
Project-based funding – Kickstarter; Indiegogo
Subscription-based – Buy me a coffee; Fanhouse; Special.tv; Memberstack
Tip Jar – Ko-fi; Frada
Digital downloads – Selz; Payhip; Sendowl; Samcart
Online Courses – Monthly; Knowable; Thinkfic; Uscreen
For course Creators – Maven; Disco
For Fitness Creators – Playbook; Arketa; wofh; Superset
Sell Merchandise – Fanjoy; Cala; Bigcartel; Offscript; Pietra
Live Selling – bambuser; Popshop; Performlive; Supergreat
Fashion Marketplace – Depop; Curtsy; Tradesy
Community
In a post r/wallstreetbets world, where a URL community can have $8 billion worth of IRL significance, the world has come to acknowledge the power of internet communities. People have such strong connections with their online communities because unlike offline ones, they aren’t boxed in by geography to find people who share the same interest they do.
Here are some of the best community builders available today:
Chat Platforms – Geneva; Disciple; Bunches; Salut
Forum Platforms – Circle; Tribe; Group; Peerboard
Monetize – Launchpass; Fancircles; Hiven; Comonetize
Engagement – Community; DSM; Meetsy; Lowdown; Intros
Custom Apps – HoneyCommb; TokyWoky
Voice Platforms – Airtime; Voiceher; Clubhouse
Manage – Threado; Commsor; Orbit;
Data & Analytics – Community Copilot; Chainfuel; Magik
Fan interaction
Yes, the next generation of creator platforms is empowering creators. But they are simultaneously empowering a creator’s fans as well. Fans today are getting more ways to showcase their love for a creator-likes, shares, and subscribe is old news.
Here are the platforms driving that change:
Virtual Events – Airmeet; Gatheround; Here; Gather; Moment House
Event Management – Mixiliy; Hologram; Hubb; Splash
Webinar – On24; ClickMeeting; Demio
Fan Access & Interaction – Vibely; Looped; Fanhouse; fave; memmo; Fanmio
Website builder
Websites are the business cards of the internet. Except, it can do a whole lot more than storing a name and a phone number. The next generation of website builders have drag and drop features; easy integrations; simple payment options and professional CRM capabilities.
Here are some of our favourite ones:
Links – Koji; Jemi; Beacons;
Website Builder – Universe; Milkshake; Tellie
Store Builder– Fourth Wall; Easol; Big Cartel
Partnerships
Creators make content. Content brings audiences. And audiences attract brands. This threeway dance between creators, audiences and brands is one that has existed almost as long as the creator economy itself. And for good reason-brand partnerships have been the biggest chunk of revenue for creators in the last decade.
These platforms have broken down the process of finding creator-brand fit for the benefit of all parties involved:
Marketplaces – Favikon; Collabstr; Hypertrace; Hypeauditor
Affiliate – Kit; LTK; Geniuslink
Analytics & Reporting – Tokfluence; Statsocial; Influencity
Enterprise SaaS – Upfluence; Grin; CreatorIQ; Famepick; Hivency
Content & Licensing – SocialNative
Manage
Building a creative business on the web is one thing. But managing it is another thing completely.
These platforms allow creators get funded; get in-depth data analytics; find talent managers and even copyright protection:
Business Management – InfluenceKit; Crevy; Lumanu; Harvel; Smooth Ops
Analytics & Reporting – Mention; Contenda; Quintly; Flick; NEWSWHIP
Finance – Karat; Stir; Scale; Encore; Lance; Earnr
Planning – CoSchedule; Preview; Mav Social
Funding – Royalty Exchange; Creative Juice; Royal; Flowbo; Spotter; HumanIPO
Gaming
The global gaming market is estimated to hit $256 billion by 2025. In an industry as huge as that, there are several ways an individual creator stands to profit off their talents. From more traditional ways of creating gaming content like streaming and game creation to newer forms like game coaching and e-sports news, it’s an exciting industry to be a part of.
Monetization– inSTREAMLY; loots; Streamloots; Nexus; 1v1ME
Coaching – YomiHQ; GamerzClass; TheMeta; Mobalytics; Metafy
Game Development – Roblox
Game Distribution – GOG
Engagement – Stadium Live; Streamloots
Gaming News & Reviews – The ESports Observer; ESports Insider
Analytics & Stats – StreamBee; Esports Charts
Community – Beam
Content Creation Tool – Combo; Eternal; Hover; VoiceMod
Audience Building – Medal.tv; Melon; Streamlabs
Manage – StreamElements; XSplit; Mobcrush
Funding – Republic
