Influencer marketing: a 425 million market in Italia, with fees for celebrities on the decline

The Italian influencer marketing market is set to reach €425 million in 2026, representing an increase of +10.4% compared with last year’s figure of €385 million. This is the highest growth rate since 2023, almost three times that recorded in 2025 (+4.05%), whilst celebrities – that is, influencers and creators with over 3 million followers on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and over 1 million on YouTube – are seeing their earnings fall for the third consecutive year, and 63.2% are facing a loss of followers on Instagram.

These are the figures contained in the new report on the remuneration lists for iinfluencers and creators in Italia published by DeRev, a strategy, communications and digital marketing firm. According to the survey – now in its sixth edition and based on an analysis of around 5,000 profiles of Italian creators and influencers between 15 June 2025 and 15 June 2026 – the increase in the market’s overall value stems primarily from the rise in the number of campaigns, the involvement of a higher number of creators and the growth in ongoing collaborations throughout the year. This trend is not automatically reflected in a generalised increase in remuneration per piece of content, which on Facebook continues to fall (-12.23%), remain essentially flat on TikTok (-0.33%), whilst on Instagram and YouTube they are growing by 2.45% and 1.23% on average respectively, though this growth is particularly pronounced only for certain categories of creators.

For the third year running, the DeRev Price List has again recorded a fall in earnings of celebrities across all four platforms considered: -18.8% on Facebook, -9.5% on Instagram, -8.6% on TikTok, -2.4% on YouTube. But how much can you earn on social media? According to DeRev’s price list, to give a few examples, rates range from a minimum of 100–300 euros per post on Instagram for nano-influencers (i.e. those with 5–10 thousand followers) to 5,400 euros on TikTok for a post by a macro-influencer (with between 300,000 and 1 million followers) and €58,000 for a video by a celebrity on YouTube.

The report explains that the decline in remuneration “reflects a growing lack of interest on the part of most brands in ultra-generalist communities, where the return on investment is difficult to measure and the risk of reputational damage is ever-present”. This trend is also confirmed by the fact that users are increasingly shifting their attention towards creators who feel more ‘relatable’, who discuss topics of interest to them and who portray lives that are not out of reach: 63.2 per cent of celebrities, in fact, have lost followers on Instagram this year, whilst mid-tier communities (creators with between 50,000 and 300,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok, 100,000 – 300,000 on Facebook and 50,000–100,000 on YouTube) and Micro (between 10,000 and 50,000 followers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and between 50,000 and 100,000 on Facebook) have grown by an average of 17.7% and 16.9% respectively.

This also applies to the consequences of the “Pandoro Gate” involving Chiara Ferragni, “at the moment, the Italian market is much more mindful of reputational risk than it was three years ago”, emphasises DeRev’s CEO, Roberto Esposito, who explains: “The Ferragni case is not the cause of the decline of influencers, but it has acted as a catalyst because it has highlighted just how burdensome a link with a highly visible figure can be for a company.” “A creator’s credibility,” he adds, “is based on the trust placed in them by those who choose to follow them, and when that trust is lost, brands withdraw quickly – and they do so to a far greater extent than the mere loss of followers would suggest.”