U.S. creators digital platform earnings 2017

In 2017, it was estimated that independent U.S. creators had generated total earnings of 1.46 billion U.S. dollars via Etsy. In comparison the total creator earnings on YouTube amounted to more than double the amount of Etsy's, with estimated total earnings of over 4 billion U.S. dollars. In the most recently measured year, it was estimated that indie creators in the United States had earned almost 6.8 billion U.S. dollars via the nine measured major platforms.

Estimated total earnings of creators in the United States on selected online platforms in 2016 and 2017 (in million U.S. dollars)

Characteristic	2016	2017
YouTube	3,307.33	4,004
Etsy	1,286.15	1,458.51
Instagram	307.79	460.1
WordPress	439.26	347.74
Amazon Publishing	216.87	220.45
Tumblr	145.21	178
Twitch	67.04	87.15
eBay	35.71	36.97
Shapeways	1.39	1.7
Total	5,806.76	6,794.63

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Release date

February 2019

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Region

United States

Survey time period

2016 to 2017

Supplementary notes

In 2017, an estimated 16.98 million Americans used the following platforms to earn income from their independent, personal creations.
According to the source, "Given the availability of data, we assume for purposes of this analysis that each account, channel, or store on the nine platforms is affiliated with only one creator, when multiple creators are involved in many cases. This further understates the number of creators. The data also limit our analysis of creators’ earnings to the most prominent source of their earnings on each platform. In many cases, creators earn income in multiple ways, including website ads, sponsorships and influencer compensation, revenue from social media traffic, gifts from fans and direct sales."

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