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SponsorRadar/State of YouTube Sponsorships

The State of YouTube Sponsorships 2026

Most reporting on creator sponsorships is survey-based. This report is measured from the videos themselves: SponsorRadar detects sponsor placements across 129,386 tracked channels. Below is what 1,154,183 detected deals say about who is buying on YouTube and what they pay.

Data as of August 2026. Free to cite with a link to this page.

1.2M
tracked deals
74,739
sponsoring brands
38,059
sponsored channels
~15 min
between new brands entering

Five things the data says

  1. The buyer pool is far bigger than the famous names. 74,739 distinct brands have sponsored a YouTube video in our data. The VPNs and meal kits everyone can name are a rounding error of that list.
  2. A new brand enters YouTube sponsorship roughly every 15 minutes. 36,120 brands ran their first-ever detected placement in the 12 months through January 2026.
  3. Gaming moves the most deals, finance moves the most money per view. Gaming accounts for 22% of detected deal volume, but pays some of the lowest rates. Finance pays up to $80 per 1,000 views at a fraction of the volume.
  4. Sponsorship is not reserved for huge channels. Channels between 50K and 250K subscribers account for roughly the same share of detected deals as channels between 250K and 1M. The over-1M tier is a minority of the market.
  5. The most active sponsors are not household names. The single most active brand in our data is Gamersupps, with 14,331 detected placements. Creator-first brands out-buy the global names by sponsoring constantly.

Deal volume, month by month

Sponsorship placements detected per month, February 2025 through January 2026 (660,985 deals). Growth in this chart reflects both market activity and our expanding channel coverage; see methodology.

Feb 25
Mar 25
Apr 25
May 25
Jun 25
Jul 25
Aug 25
Sep 25
Oct 25
Nov 25
Dec 25
Jan 26

Where the deals happen

Detected deals by channel niche over the same 12 months. Click a niche for the brands behind the number.

Gaming
147,964 · 22.4%
Entertainment
89,298 · 13.5%
Education
66,217 · 10.0%
Lifestyle & Vlog
55,438 · 8.4%
Finance & Business
51,743 · 7.8%
Technology
42,694 · 6.5%
Sports
40,217 · 6.1%
Automotive
33,483 · 5.1%
Music
25,633 · 3.9%
News & Politics
24,747 · 3.7%
DIY & Crafts
22,200 · 3.4%
Travel
17,880 · 2.7%
Health & Fitness
13,422 · 2.0%
Beauty & Fashion
10,272 · 1.6%
Food & Cooking
9,000 · 1.4%
Science
6,447 · 1.0%
Pets & Animals
2,706 · 0.4%
AI
1,624 · 0.2%

What sponsorships pay in 2026

Sponsorships are priced per 1,000 average views, and the niche sets the range. Deal volume and deal value run in opposite directions: the biggest niches pay the least per view.

NicheCPM rangePer video at 50K views
Finance & Business$40–$80$2,000–$4,000
Technology$30–$60$1,500–$3,000
Automotive$25–$50$1,250–$2,500
Health & Fitness$25–$45$1,250–$2,250
Beauty & Fashion$20–$40$1,000–$2,000
Travel$20–$40$1,000–$2,000
Education$20–$40$1,000–$2,000
Science$20–$40$1,000–$2,000
Food & Cooking$18–$35$900–$1,750
Lifestyle & Vlog$15–$30$750–$1,500
DIY & Crafts$15–$30$750–$1,500
News & Politics$12–$25$600–$1,250
Sports$12–$25$600–$1,250
Pets & Animals$12–$25$600–$1,250
Gaming$10–$25$500–$1,250
Entertainment$10–$20$500–$1,000
Music$8–$18$400–$900

Full breakdowns by channel size are on the sponsorship rates pages, and the rate calculator prices a specific channel.

Deals by channel size

Share of detected deals by the sponsored channel's subscriber count, same 12 months. The under-50K rows understate reality: our corpus covers larger channels more densely, and small-channel deals are the hardest to detect.

Under 10K subs
5,674 · 0.8%
10K to 50K subs
7,232 · 1.1%
50K to 250K subs
296,104 · 43.1%
250K to 1M subs
239,495 · 34.9%
Over 1M subs
138,627 · 20.2%

Brands with a track record below 100K subscribers are listed at sponsors for small channels.

The 25 most active YouTube sponsors

Ranked by total detected placements, all time. Click a brand to see exactly which creators it sponsors.

#BrandMain nicheCreatorsDeals
1GamersuppsGaming36114,331
2SquarespaceLifestyle & Vlog4388,436
3StreamyardEducation7037,881
4AmazonEntertainment6906,435
5EnebaGaming1396,395
6GfuelGaming1226,302
7BetterHelpEntertainment1,4006,148
8Instant GamingGaming1346,021
9WhatnotEntertainment3105,900
10NordVPNGaming6475,382
11PrizepicksSports1915,066
12UnacademyEducation814,296
13CarverticalAutomotive1463,510
14SurfsharkLifestyle & Vlog9053,438
15RestreamGaming2443,391
16PatreonEntertainment3533,362
17FactorEntertainment1,1803,308
18Underdog FantasySports843,131
19IncogniEducation9693,089
20SupercellGaming503,074
21EpicGamesGaming1923,034
22SeatgeekSports2393,002
23HostingerEducation4582,929
24BybitFinance & Business952,897
25Epidemic SoundGaming3142,716

Methodology

SponsorRadar monitors 129,386 YouTube channels and detects sponsorship placements from the videos themselves: sponsor segments, description disclosures, and promo links, resolved to 74,739 distinct brands. A "deal" is one detected sponsorship placement in one video.

Charts cover February 2025 through January 2026, the most recent 12 months where detection has fully caught up (placements in newer videos are still being processed, so later months would undercount). Deals are dated by the video's publish date.

Two known biases: our channel coverage grew during the measurement window, so month-over-month growth partly reflects expanded coverage; and coverage is densest above 50K subscribers, so small-channel volume is understated. Rate benchmarks come from 2025–2026 industry rate research rather than detected deals.

This data is free to cite with a link to this page. For custom cuts of the dataset, email david@sponsorradar.com.

See the deals behind these numbers

Every stat above rolls up from individual deals you can inspect down to the exact video. Connect your channel to see the sponsors active in your niche and size range.

Find sponsors for your channel
The most active YouTube sponsorsSponsorship rates by nicheHow to get YouTube sponsors