Influencers' fees down, small creators grow. The market is worth 370 million

The market for digital content on social continues to grow, but influencers' fees will slow down in 2025. Brands and users are increasingly attentive to the quality and authoritativeness of the content produced by the platforms' "stars" and, in general, in spite of the number of followers, mid-range creators are growing with specific skills and solid communities. These are the main results of the 2025 List dedicated to the Italian context, published annually by the strategy, communication and digital marketing company DeRev. The market closes 2024 with an induced revenue of 370 million euro, which, according to estimates, will rise to 385 million (+4.05%) in 2025, while the value of the content produced by influencers on almost all platforms is shrinking. Specifically, compared to 2024, DeRev averages -5.5% on Facebook, -2.03% on TikTok, and -6.55% on YouTube, while Instagram remains roughly stable at +0.43%.

"It is, however, a moderate drop," explains DeRev's CEO Roberto Esposito, "well below the shocks recorded last year, when fees had reached -47.4% on Facebook, -21% on YouTube, and -19% on TikTok. Esposito emphasises that 'the tool remains one of the most effective, but users are starting to evaluate more critically the content they see on social networks and are increasingly careful to verify that there is authenticity and fairness in the work of influencers'.

The new ranges, also derived in 2025 for each category of creator on the four platforms - Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Youtube - see the remuneration of Micro influencers (from 10,000 to 50,000 followers) on Instagram increase by 33% and that of Mid-Tier (from 50,000 to 300,000 followers) by 8.3%: for them the maximum and minimum value per content rises from 1,000 to 1,500 euros respectively. Similar scenario on TikTok, where the positive increase compared to 2024 is found next to the remuneration of Mid-Tier and Macro influencers (from 300,000 to 1 million followers): in this case, the increase is 13.3% for the former and 6.2% for the latter, with a maximum value per content that rises from 3,000 to 3,500 euros for the Mid-Tier and remains unchanged for the Macro, who however increase the threshold of the minimum remuneration: from 3,000 to 3,500 euros.

On YouTube, finally, it is the Macros (here from 100,000 to 500,000 followers) and the Mega (from 500,000 to 1 million) that are growing because 'producing videos for the platform is more complex', explains DeRev, and 'brands need more professionalisation'. The increases, however, are less conspicuous because YouTube already starts from a significantly higher cachet base than the other platforms: the Macros earn 5% (going from a range of fees between 7,500 and 12,500 euros per video to the new 7,500-13,500 euros), the Mega gain +2.7% by increasing the minimum fee from 12,500 to 13,500 euros and keeping the maximum unchanged at 25,000 euros. Of course, the report explains, it is not enough to have a certain amount of followers to be included in the list categories and to be able to ask for these fees: engagement and average views of content also play a role, which the DeRev Report makes explicit for each influencer category.

The CEO of DeRev Esposito explains that in 2025 the decline in influencer fees "is contained, well below the shocks recorded last year, when fees had reached -47.4% on Facebook, -21% on YouTube and -19% on TikTok. At that time we were in the midst of a substantial turnaround, with brands increasingly aware of the tool and a growing choice of creators'. And then "2024 was also the year of the fall of Celebrity," the CEO continues, "with a beginning of a trend towards smaller creators. There remains a substantial move away from celebrities who owe everything to fame, but there is also a bit of a retreat from the Nano and, on some socials, even Micro influencers who dedicate a marginal portion of their time to the business". "The preference of investors is, therefore, shifting towards the middle categories," concludes Esposito, "where they find digital native creators, with specific skills, experts in the medium and structured from a professional point of view.