How to Get Sponsors on YouTube in 2026: What 1.6M Real Deals Say

The five steps, in one screen

1. Build a target list from real sponsor activity. Brands that sponsored a creator in your niche last month have a budget and a person whose job is to do more deals. Step 1.
2. Filter to brands that work with channels your size. A brand that only buys 1M-subscriber channels will not answer a 20K channel. Step 2.
3. Know your rate before anyone asks. Median views times niche CPM. Step 3.
4. Pitch the person who buys, with proof. Short, specific, referencing their recent deals. Step 4.
5. Follow up, deliver, and report. Most deals close after a nudge, and renewals are where the money is. Step 5.

The rest of this page is the evidence: who sponsors YouTube channels, at what size, what they pay, and where the deals are. Every number comes from deals SponsorRadar detected in the videos themselves, updated nightly.

Do you need a big channel? What the data says

The most common reason creators never pitch is the belief that sponsors only want large channels. The deals say otherwise. In the last 12 months, channels under 50K subscribers landed 11,800 detected deals across 994 channels, and channels over 1M subscribers took 19% of all deals, not the majority.

What sponsors buy is views and fit. Subscriber count sets the tier a brand puts you in; median views set the price. The table below shows what a sponsored long-form video gets at each tier and what that is worth at a typical $15 to $50 CPM.

Two things follow. If you are under 10K subscribers, a first deal is realistic once you have a stable audience and a clear niche, but the money is small and product-only offers will be common. Between 10K and 250K is where most brands run their creator programs, and where a channel with above-median views in a valuable niche can out-earn a bigger channel in a cheap one.

Which brands sponsor YouTube channels right now

The buyer pool is far larger than the VPNs and meal kits everyone can name. 49,610 brands sponsored at least one video in the last 12 months, and 30,881 of them ran their first-ever detected placement in that window (part of that is our own coverage growing, so treat it as an upper bound). Sponsorship on YouTube is a market with new buyers entering every day, not a fixed list.

The most active brands are not always the best first pitch. They get the most emails, and many of them buy through agencies. The better list for a channel under 50K subscribers is the brands with a documented habit of paying small channels.

Sponsors repeat, which is why you pitch brands that already buy

Most brands that sponsor a YouTube video in a given year do it once. The ones that do it again are the ones with a program: 12,085 brands sponsored two or more different channels in the last 12 months, and 949 ran deals across twenty channels or more. Pitching a brand with a pattern means asking to be the next deal in a process that exists, not convincing a marketing team that creator sponsorship works.

The one-channel brands matter too. 6,346 brands ran their first-ever detected YouTube deal in the last 90 days. A brand on its first deal is deciding whether to do a second one, and the creator who shows up with a relevant audience and a clean pitch is often that second deal.

Where the deals are, by niche

Deal volume and deal value run in opposite directions. Gaming and entertainment move the most deals at the lowest rates; finance and technology move fewer deals at the highest rates. Knowing where your niche sits tells you how many brands to expect on your list and what to charge them.

Step 1: Build a target list from real sponsor activity

The biggest mistake in creator outreach is pitching brands that have never sponsored a YouTube video. A brand with no creator budget is a numbers game you lose by default. Start instead from brands with recent, verifiable deals in your content category.

The fastest way is to look at the data directly. The YouTube sponsors list ranks brands by activity, the category pages narrow it to your niche, and every brand page shows which channels it paid and when. Twenty minutes there gives you a list that used to take a week of watching mid-rolls.

The manual version still works. Pick five to ten channels one or two steps ahead of yours in the same niche. Watch the first 90 seconds and the mid-roll of their last ten videos and write down every brand. Repetition is the signal: a brand that appears across three similar channels has approved your creator type. One-off placements can be test budgets or agency experiments.

Step 2: Check that the brand works with channels your size

Before a brand goes on the list, check who it sponsors. If its roster includes channels within roughly 5x of your size in either direction, you are a realistic candidate. If every channel it has paid is twenty times larger than yours, move on; a great pitch does not change a brand's buying tier.

Each brand's get sponsored page on SponsorRadar shows the size distribution of its last 12 months of deals, so this check takes seconds. For creators under 100K subscribers, the small-channel sponsors list is the shortcut, and the small-channel sponsors guide explains how those brands like to be pitched.

Step 3: Know your rate before anyone asks

“What are your rates?” is usually the first reply you get. Creators who answer with a defensible number close deals; creators who ask “what's your budget?” signal inexperience. Rates are driven by average views and niche, not subscriber count.

Take the median views of your last ten long-form videos (not your best one), divide by 1,000, and multiply by your niche CPM. A tech channel averaging 20,000 views at $40 CPM starts around $800 per integration. Dedicated videos run 1.5x to 2x an integration.

Step 4: Pitch the person who buys, with proof

Sponsorships are bought by people: usually someone in influencer marketing, partnerships or growth. Contact forms and support inboxes go nowhere. Find the person who runs creator deals and write to them directly; the contact guide covers how to find them and includes templates.

The email that works is short and does three jobs:

• Shows fit in one sentence. Who you help, what your audience cares about, why it matches their customer.
• Proves research. Name a recent creator deal of theirs. It frames you as the next logical deal rather than a cold ask.
• Makes the next step easy. Your numbers (median views, audience profile, rate), a one-page media kit, and one specific integration idea.

Lead with audience and views, not subscriber count. “I have X subscribers” frames the conversation around a number that may not impress them; “my last ten videos median 22K views from people shopping for their first standing desk” tells a desk brand what it is buying.

Step 5: Follow up, deliver, and get the renewal

A non-response usually means “not now.” Two short follow-ups a few days apart, each adding one thing (a content example, a campaign idea, a cleaner statement of fit), is standard practice. Most deals close after a nudge, not the first email.

Once a deal is live, run it like someone who wants the second one: confirm scope in writing, ask for links and codes early, publish on time with a clear disclosure, and send a results recap before the brand asks. Brands renew with creators who make the campaign easy to manage. The brand deals playbook goes deeper on negotiation, usage rights and reporting.

Other ways sponsors find you

Direct outreach to proven buyers is the highest-leverage method, but three other channels bring deals over time.

Creator marketplaces

Platforms sit between brands and creators, take 10 to 20 percent, and bring campaigns to you instead of requiring outbound work. They are a reasonable way to get a first credit and a worse way to get your best deals, which come from direct relationships.

• Grapevine Village. YouTube-focused campaign board. Most campaigns want 10K+ subscribers.
• Channel Pages. Media-kit directory for YouTube. No strict minimum.
• Aspire. Cross-platform, strongest with mid-tier channels (10K to 500K).
• Creator.co. Takes smaller creators; heavy on product-seeding campaigns next to paid ones.

Being visible where marketing teams look

Many deals start on LinkedIn and X rather than through a pitch email. Follow the partnerships and influencer-marketing people at the brands on your list, engage with what they post, and show their product in your content when it is genuinely part of your process. When your email arrives later, you are not a stranger. Some managers post open calls for creators; a well-timed message to one of them skips weeks of cold outreach.

Events and creator referrals

VidCon, VidSummit and niche conferences put brands and creators in the same room, and a five-minute conversation at a booth has started plenty of deals. The bigger value is other creators. When a brand has a good experience it often asks “do you know anyone else who would fit?” Being in a creator community puts you in line for that referral.

Mistakes that kill deals

• Mass emails. Brands can tell when 200 companies got the same message. Twenty researched pitches beat two hundred generic ones.
• Leading with subscriber count. Lead with audience, views and fit.
• No media kit. The first thing an interested brand asks for. The free hosted kit is ready the day you connect your channel.
• Underpricing. Brands read a low rate as low quality. Price at market and negotiate from there.
• Giving up after one email. Two or three follow-ups is the norm, not spam.
• Pitching brands that do not buy creators. The list above exists so you never have to.

What to do this week

1. Pick 20 brands from the sponsors list or your niche page that sponsored channels within 5x of your size in the last few months.
2. Set your rate with the rate calculator and write it down.
3. Get your free hosted media kit, built from your channel, and read the media kit guide for what a strong one contains.
4. Spend 15 minutes per brand: recent deals, product, current campaigns, the person who runs partnerships.
5. Send five pitches a day using the contact guide, and follow up twice.

Questions creators ask

How many subscribers do you need to get sponsored on YouTube?

There is no fixed minimum. In the last 12 months 2,042 brands sponsored at least one channel under 50K subscribers, and 511 sponsored a channel under 10K. What decides a deal is average views and how closely your audience matches the brand's customer. Around 1,000 engaged subscribers is where pitching starts to make sense.

How do you find sponsors for a small YouTube channel?

Pitch brands with a track record of paying channels your size, not the famous advertisers everyone emails. The small-channel sponsors guide and the small-channel sponsors list name them, and the brand deals for small creators guide walks through the pitch.

How much do YouTube sponsors pay?

Sponsorships are priced per 1,000 views, usually $10 to $80 CPM depending on niche. Finance and technology audiences sit at the top, gaming and entertainment at the bottom. Multiply your median views by the niche CPM to get a per-video range, or use the rate calculator.

How do YouTube sponsorships work?

A brand pays for a placement inside your video: a 60 to 90 second integration, a dedicated video, or a mention with a tracked link or code. You agree deliverables, usage rights, exclusivity and payment terms in writing, publish with an FTC disclosure, and report results. Most deals are found by the creator pitching the brand, not the other way round.

What are the best websites to find YouTube sponsors?

Two kinds exist. Marketplaces (Grapevine Village, Channel Pages, Aspire, Creator.co) list you and wait for brands; they take a cut and skew to cheaper inventory. Research tools show which brands are already paying creators like you, so you go to them. SponsorRadar is the second kind; the sponsors list is free to browse.

How do you get sponsored on YouTube with a small channel?

Start with a narrow niche and a media kit with real numbers, pick 20 brands that sponsored channels within about 5x of your size in the last few months, and send short pitches that name those deals. Product-only offers are fine for a first credit, but treat them as a business decision, not proof you are ready.