US creator ad spend is near $44 billion. More than half pays to run content as ads

The numbers

IAB, the US digital advertising trade group, puts creator ad spend at $29.5 billion in 2024 and estimates $37 billion for 2025 and about $44 billion for 2026. Its September event recap repeats that figure and compares it with $13.9 billion in 2021.

The full report splits the 2026 estimate of $43.9 billion into four parts:

• $13.2 billion for paid amplification on social media, up 19% from $11.2 billion in 2025.
• $11.6 billion for direct partnerships, where brands pay creators to produce and post, up 22% from $9.6 billion.
• $11.1 billion for paid amplification beyond social media, up 19% from $9.3 billion.
• $7.9 billion for ads placed next to creator content, up 12% from $7.1 billion.

IAB's figures are rounded, so the parts do not add up exactly. By our arithmetic, paid amplification is $24.3 billion of the total, or about 55%.

Read it with care. These are estimates published in November 2025, built on advertiser survey data from Advertiser Perceptions. They cover the US only, and creators of every size. Nothing here says UGC rates are rising, and we are not claiming that.

Why a UGC creator should care

Paid amplification means a brand paying to run content that came out of a creator partnership. IAB's framing centers on sponsored posts by creator partners, so a video a brand runs only from its own account may not be counted the same way. The point for you still holds: brands spend about twice as much putting this kind of content in front of people as they spend on the partnerships that produce it.

That paid life of a video is what usage rights and ad permissions control, and the industry knows it is unsettled. The September recap lists inconsistent usage rights, whitelisting, exclusivity and permissions in creator and brand agreements among the barriers to growth. Speakers there from YouTube, Spotter and dentsu recommended establishing usage rights and disclosure requirements in partnerships. IAB's January measurement paper lists usage rights and amplification permissions among the things that move creator pricing.

So raising this on a call is not you being difficult. It is a gap the brand's own industry has written down.

How to quote with this in mind

1. Split the fee. Show creating the video and using the video as two separate lines. A brand can then cut usage without cutting your work.
2. Name the channels. Organic posts on the brand's account and paid ads are different things. Write down which ones the fee covers.
3. Set an end date. Open-ended usage is the most expensive thing you can give away for free. Say how long it runs and that renewal is quoted separately.
4. Treat whitelisting as its own permission. Running ads from your handle is different from a brand running your file from its own account. It deserves its own line.
5. Price exclusivity separately. If a brand wants you away from competitors for a period, that costs you other work.

We are not giving you a percentage, because we have not found a public benchmark for usage fees that we trust.

In UGC Planner, each deal has a usage rights section where you can record the channels, the usage fee, and exclusivity and whitelisting with their own surcharges, so the terms stay next to the deal they belong to.