YouTube Sponsorships: Top Sponsorship Companies and Stats

We analyzed 713,106 YouTube channels to see how creators with sponsors compare with everyone else.

Specifically, we looked at views, how many channels have sponsors, which brands pay them and who lists an email.

The views were the surprise. Channels with sponsors get about 41 views per 100 subscribers, while the rest get about 26.

So if you're choosing creators for a brand deal, don't skip the ones who have done sponsorships before.

By "sponsored" we mean a channel whose recent video descriptions show sponsor or affiliate signals. Method and limits covers how we decide that and how often we get it wrong.

Since we're comparing channels with each other, none of this says what a sponsor does to a channel's views. Our benchmarks by channel size has the general figures.

Key takeaways

Source: our data on 713,106 English-language YouTube channels with 1,000+ subscribers in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, read 6-10 October 2026.

Here is a summary of our key findings:

1. A YouTube channel with sponsor or affiliate signals gets about 1.5 times the views per subscriber of a channel without them.
2. The gap grows with channel size and is largest, at more than 2.5 times, for YouTube channels with a million or more subscribers.
3. The weakest tenth of sponsored YouTube channels get more than twice the views per subscriber of the weakest tenth of the rest.
4. vidIQ is the paid sponsor named by the most YouTube channels, 613 of them.
5. About one YouTube channel in seven has sponsor or affiliate signals.
6. Among the smallest YouTube channels in our data, about one in eight has sponsor or affiliate signals.
7. Three in four sponsored YouTube channels list a business email on their About page.

We have the detailed data and charts for each finding below.

YouTube sponsorships go with more views per subscriber

Sponsored channels get more views per subscriber than the rest in all eight size bands.

For each channel we took its median views on recent long videos and divided by its subscribers. Then we found the median of those within each size band, once for sponsored channels and once for the rest.

Our data shows the gap is smallest for small channels, at about 1.6 times. It grows steadily with size, and for channels with a million or more subscribers it is more than 2.5 times.

Raw views tell the same story. Among mid-sized channels, the median sponsored channel gets about twice the views of the median other channel on a long video.

Sponsored channels are also bigger on average, which is why we compare them within size bands.

A July study by Creators Agency points the same way for single videos. It compared 3,170 sponsored videos with their channels' usual views.

In that study, the median sponsored video reached about 106% of the channel's usual views.

Key takeaway: Put creators with sponsor signals first on your list, and compare them with channels of the same size.

Sponsored channels have fewer weak performers

Sponsor signals are a decent way to avoid creators whose videos land flat.

We lined the channels up by views per subscriber and looked at the bottom tenth of each group. The bottom tenth of sponsored channels get about 4 views per 100 subscribers. The bottom tenth of the others get about 1.5.

In other words, the weak end is more than twice as strong for sponsored channels. The gap grows with size, and for channels with a million or more subscribers it is about 9.5 times.

The top end looks different. Under 100K subscribers, the best tenth of sponsored and other channels are nearly the same.

Above that size, sponsored channels lead at the top as well.

Across all sizes the top tenth looks slightly lower for sponsored channels. That's because more of them are large channels, and large channels get fewer views per subscriber.

Key takeaway: Sponsor signals lower your odds of a flop, but under 100K subscribers they don't raise your odds of a big hit.

YouTube sponsorship companies: the sponsors list

Before you pitch a channel, find out which advertisers already pay creators like it.

Each count is the number of channels whose recent video descriptions name the brand as a sponsor or affiliate signal. Amazon storefronts, Etsy, eBay and ShopMy turned up a lot as well, but those are shops and link tools rather than sponsors, so we dropped them and kept sponsor brands.

As you can see in the chart below, vidIQ comes first, named by 613 channels. Temu, Skool and Dubby follow.

Some sponsors lead in one size band. Dubby and Uppbeat are named most by the smallest channels, while Zocdoc is named most by the biggest.

FanDuel and PrizePicks lead among channels in the tens of thousands of subscribers. Skool and FlexiSpot lead in the two bands above them.

Affiliate programs are a separate list. Of the 9,802 channels that link one, almost half link Impact.

RewardStyle, Gleam, AliExpress, MagicLinks and ShareASale follow, and the counts are in the Full data section.

Key takeaway: Use this list to see which advertisers already work with creators at your size.

YouTube sponsorship for small channels is rarer

If your budget points at small channels, you'll have fewer to choose from.

About one in eight of the smallest channels has sponsor signals. The share climbs with channel size and peaks at about 27% for channels just under a million subscribers.

Over all sizes, about one channel in seven has sponsor or affiliate signals.

Where a creator lives makes little difference, since all four countries sit close to one in seven.

Key takeaway: For small channels, expect a shorter list and widen the size range if you need more options.

Sponsored channels list a business email more often, so they are easier to reach

Start your outreach with the channels that have sponsor signals, because about three in four of them list an address.

About 77% of sponsored channels list a business email on their About page. Among the rest, about 54% do.

YouTube shows that address only when the channel owner provides one.

In fact, sponsored channels are ahead by roughly 20 percentage points in each size band.

Key takeaway: Filter for a listed email and sponsor signals together, and you get a list you can contact right away.

Posting less often lines up with more views per subscriber

Channels that post fewer than two long videos a month get about 38 views per 100 subscribers. Channels that post weekly or more get about 25.

Channels that post only long videos get about 39 per 100 subscribers. Channels that also post Shorts get about 26.

Above 250K subscribers that flips, and the channels posting both lead. Long-only channels there get about three-quarters to four-fifths of their median.

These figures cover sponsored and unsponsored channels together, and the benchmarks page breaks them down by size.

Key takeaway: A creator who posts less often can still be a strong pick, so don't rank on posting rate alone.

Find YouTube channels that take sponsorships

If you'd rather skip the spreadsheet work, Search by topic and Find similar channels let you set sponsored posts, has email and a subscriber range before you search, so the list that comes back is sponsored creators at the size you want. Get channel emails returns the business email behind YouTube's "View email address" button for channels you already have. You can sign up for free to try them.

Full data

The exact values behind the charts above. Channel counts are given beside each figure.

Views per subscriber by channel size

The same channels in counts and raw views:

Over all sizes the median sponsored channel gets 6,650 views on a long video. The median other channel gets 1,800.

Sponsored channels are also bigger on average, which inflates that last pair.

The Creators Agency study was published in July 2026. Its 3,170 comparable sponsored videos reached a median of 105.8% of the channel's usual views.

Of those videos, 53.5% got at least the usual views. Nearly 16% got less than half.

Weak and strong performers by channel size

The bottom tenth of sponsored channels gets 2.4 times the views per subscriber of the bottom tenth of the others.

That multiple climbs from 1.9 at the smallest size to 9.5 at the largest.

Paid sponsors named by the most channels

Sponsors that lead a size band

Affiliate programs

Of the 9,802 channels that link an affiliate program, these turn up most:

Share of channels with sponsor or affiliate signals

By country, the share is 14.2% in Australia.

It is 15.9% in the UK.

Business email listed on the About page

Posting rhythm (sponsored and unsponsored together)

Above 250K subscribers the long-only channels sit at 0.73 to 0.82 times the median of channels posting both.

The sponsored and unsponsored groups are combined here.

Method and limits

We find channels by searching YouTube across a large and growing list of topics. Then we read each channel's public page, its About page and its recent uploads.

Only English-language channels with 1,000+ subscribers in the US, UK, Canada and Australia are in. We read their stats between 6 and 10 October 2026.

That gives 713,106 channels. For the view figures we kept long videos that were 14 to 60 days old when we read them.

Each had at least two weeks to collect views, and that leaves 344,598 of the channels.

The sponsorship shares, email shares and sponsor counts don't depend on video age, so they cover all 713,106.

A channel counts as sponsored when the descriptions of its 10 most recent videos show a paid deal. That means sponsor disclosure wording, a promo code next to a brand link, or an affiliate arrangement. Self-promotion and "not paid" disclaimers don't count.

YouTube asks creators to flag paid promotion with a button in the video details, but we don't use that label.

We checked a sample by hand. A channel we marked sponsored was right 58.7% of the time (F1 0.74), and that is why we call the group channels with sponsor or affiliate signals.

Comparing channels can show what goes together and can't show cause. Sponsored channels differ in other ways as well.

For one, 44.0% of them are monetized, against 27.5% of the rest. Their median join year is also one to two years earlier in all eight bands.

Medians leave out channels whose average is zero.

FAQ