DataAtScale Study of 713,106 YouTube Channels Finds Sponsored Creators Get 1.5x the Views per Subscriber

The AI influencer discovery platform's data shows that brands choosing creators for sponsorships should favor channels that have worked with sponsors before.

DE, UNITED STATES, November 2, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- DataAtScale, an AI influencer discovery platform that finds YouTube, TikTok and Instagram creators and the business emails they publish, today released a study of 713,106 YouTube channels. It found that channels with sponsors get about 41 views per 100 subscribers on a recent long video, while channels without sponsors get about 26.

The study covers English-language YouTube channels in the US, UK, Canada and Australia with at least 1,000 subscribers, read in October 2026. A channel counted as sponsored when its recent video descriptions showed sponsor or affiliate signals.

Key findings

Sponsored channels get about 1.5 times the views per subscriber of other channels.
The gap grows with channel size, to more than 2.5 times for channels with a million or more subscribers.
The weakest tenth of sponsored channels get more than twice the views per subscriber of the weakest tenth of other channels.
About one channel in seven shows sponsor or affiliate signals, and about one in eight of the smallest channels does.
vidIQ is the paid sponsor named by the most channels, 613 of them.
Three in four sponsored channels list a business email on their About page.

A companion study by DataAtScale set benchmarks for the same channels. The median channel gets about 29 views per 100 subscribers on a recent long video, and channels with 10,000 to 25,000 subscribers get the most views per subscriber of any size.

What this means for agencies and brands

Subscriber counts overstate reach, and more so as channels grow. A creator who has already run sponsorships tends to hold a larger share of their audience, so past sponsorship work is a useful first screen when building a shortlist.

Because most sponsored channels publish a business email, agencies can usually reach them directly. DataAtScale's influencer database lets marketers set filters such as past sponsorships, channel size, country and a listed email before they search, and its tools find YouTube creators' emails that creators publish on their own channels.

"Agencies spend a lot of time guessing which creators will deliver. In our data, creators who already work with sponsors keep more of their audience watching, so it's a good place to start a shortlist," said Sana Mohammadi, CMO of DataAtScale.

Methodology

For each channel, DataAtScale took the median views on its recent long videos (14 to 60 days old) and divided by its subscribers, then compared sponsored and other channels within eight size bands. Because the study compares channels with each other, it does not show what a sponsorship does to a channel's views. The full study, with charts by channel size, is published on the DataAtScale blog under the title "YouTube Sponsorships: Top Sponsorship Companies and Stats."

About DataAtScale

DataAtScale is an AI influencer discovery platform that finds YouTube, TikTok and Instagram creators and the business emails they publish. Marketers and agencies search by topic, by similar creators or by niche, and set filters such as past sponsorships, audience size, country and contact email before they search. Sign up for free at dataatscale.com.

Sana Mohammadi
Data At Scale LLC