Top 10 Promising Platforms For Making Money From Your Content

The creative economy is booming and more people are joining the industry, making it their real job.  

According to Yuanling Yan, there are 50M creators around the world, of which 2M are able to make a full-time living. People are selling their photos or video content, storytelling, online courses and skills, and much more.

However, it’s not as easy as it sounds. The main issue is that the options to monetize your content are limited, mostly by the mainstream social media platforms and their algorithms. Big players basically own the audience and sometimes even the content that the artists produce. Moreover, in order to start making money on your digital products, you have to invest first in ads and audience growth. 

It seems only fair that platforms should be honest and treat creators as co-founders, as they are basically developing them. In addition, writers, bloggers, thinkers, and creatives of every background should be able to stay in a creative circle, generating income directly from their own audiences and on their own terms.

In this article we want to list the top 10 platforms for promoting your digital products using transparent monetization tools. 

Giphy is a major platform on the web to search, share, and create GIF images, along with content created by talented GIF artists and popular brands. The platform has 700 million users accessing more than 10 billion GIFs per day as of May 2020. Even though the platform is free for everyone and not making money from its users, it allows artists to earn their commissions and work with brands and professionals directly through GIPHY Arts and their new Hire Me Button. Pricing and financial terms are set directly by the artists and their clients. 

Patreon is a platform where 200,000 + creators get paid for their videos, paintings, songs and other work directly from their fans. The monetization system is simple: if people love your art, they can support your creative work with a monthly membership. Thus, artists can focus on the creative process and connect with their patrons without the hassle of paying first to grow their audience.   

Vimeo is a video hosting platform for creators that also allows artists to sell their videos directly to consumers using Vimeo OTT and Vimeo On Demand services. There are about 230 million users, and the content creators take home more than 90% of the revenue earned on the platform (the other 10% goes to maintain their accounts). Users also can become affiliate partners and receive commissions when someone joins the platform through their referrals. 

Yepp is a new user-generated platform focused on entertainment and memes. On the platform anyone can create a meme without specific skills. ML recognition technology allows for editing any text and font, and a Face Swap algorithm can replace a face on a meme with those of your friends. Funny content goes viral and collects hundreds of thousands of views in the feed. The platform treats their users as co-founders and shares 50% of weekly revenue that comes from advertising. Specifically, 30% goes to the friends that users invite to the app, 17% to the creators, and 3% to the users who are just watching memes. 

Twitch is a live streaming service and global community for gaming, entertainment, music, and more in real time. In 2021, about 15 million people decided to stream for the first time on Twitch, which makes it tempting to try. Besides, Twitch has all kinds of tools that can help creatives start making money, such as subscriptions, donations, bits, ads and affiliates. Their partner program allows popular content creators to share in the advertisement revenue generated from their streams. The platform claims that 5-10 average views per stream allows users to earn $50-$200 per month. And if the number of views rises up to 50,000 per stream, the budget jumps to $100,000-$200,000+ per month. 

Thinkific is an online learning platform with a lot to offer for people creating and selling online courses. The platform now has a 51,000 + active course creator network, which has collectively  earned $650 million to date. To monetize their content, teachers can choose between third-party advertising, selling premium content or allowing YouTube and Facebook to serve ads to their audience. 

Creativelive is the go-to community for 10+ million creators who earn a living on online education, photography, crafting, music, business, and training tools. Their affiliate partners serve an audience looking for creative education and the ability to earn a living from their craft. The platform shares 30% of the revenue for new customer sales.

Substack is a platform that helps anyone set up a blog and email newsletter and start making money on writing without ads or algorithms getting in the way. Here writers can be paid directly by readers based on a subscription model, keeping 90% of their revenue minus credit card fees. If you start with the minimum number of 50 paid subscribers at $5 per month, your estimated earnings will be around $203 per month. Authors with subscribers in the tens of thousands earn significant incomes on Substack.

Teachable allows you to build and publish multiple online courses and start earning money from them. With a community of more than 100,000 creators and half a million students online, teachers can sell their courses from $49-$249 per month. Teacher entrepreneurs can charge a subscription fee or a one-off payment, or they can give their students a plan with a fixed number of payments.

Kajabi is an online business platform for entrepreneurs, experts, and influencers that offers them business tools to sell their digital products. More than 50,000 entrepreneurs sell online courses, coaching programs, podcasts and memberships here. A nice benefit is that you decide the price yourself. The creators can build a landing page here, sell through the platform and get statistics. 

Because creators are now becoming small business owners, they don’t necessarily need to play by the rules of social media to succeed. The big trend we see these days is that artists, authors, teachers, and other professionals can use and benefit from a variety of platforms rather than depending on only one. In this way, they can build a closer relationship with their fans and earn money directly from them.