2026 Creator Economy Report

The first member matters most

Of the communities started on Heartbeat this summer (July 1 to September 15, 2026), the ones that welcomed even one member in their first two weeks were 11x as likely to become paying businesses. Half of them did. Of the communities where the builder was still alone after two weeks, about 1 in 20 did.

The odds keep climbing with every early member, but the biggest jump is the first one. If you're starting, the most useful thing you can do this week is invite one person you know.

Small communities, real money

Zoom out to the communities themselves. 79% of communities on a paid Heartbeat plan have 100 members or fewer. The median has 23 members.

Plenty of small communities are already real businesses. 8% of communities on a paid plan collected $10,000 or more from their members in the past 12 months. 34% of them have 100 members or fewer, and 60% have 250 or fewer. The median $10K community has 157 members.

Small communities also get more of their members talking. In a typical community with 20 to 49 active members, 39% of them posted in the last 30 days. In communities with 1,000 or more, it was 15%. The bigger the room, the more people just read. (A post is a thread, a comment or a message in a group chat. Private messages don't count.)

Builders' own audiences are small too. 63% of the community builders we surveyed have an audience under 5,000 people outside their community. That includes 47% of those on track to make $5,000 or more this year.

Most build solo, a few hours a week

Most community builders work alone, on the side. 66% of those we surveyed run their community by themselves, and 50% of communities on a paid Heartbeat plan have a single admin. 75% spend under 10 hours a week on it, and 45% under 5.

52% call it a side income they'd like to grow, and 12% say it's their main income. The stack is crowded: the median builder pays for 5 tools besides their community platform, and 74% want to run on fewer.

Help and income go together. 54% of builders with any help (a VA, a contractor or a small team) clear $5,000 a year, against 28% of solo builders. Earning may be what pays for the help, so read it both ways.

Members pay for presence and access

We asked builders what their members value most. Live sessions and events came first (24%), then direct access to the builder (19%), accountability (12%) and the other members (11%).

Group the answers and 66% of builders say members value people and time together most. Only 9% say courses or templates.

What members ask for points the same way. The most common requests were more live time and personal attention, more connection with each other, and in-person meetups. On content, some members asked for less: less of it, shorter sessions, less time on Zoom.

The platform data backs this up. New members who RSVP to an event in their first month are nearly twice as likely to still be around six months later: 51% were still active, vs. 27% of those who didn't RSVP.

That's a correlation. The members quickest to RSVP may be the ones who would have stayed anyway. But the gap holds when we compare members who were equally active in their first month, and it held in 94% of the Heartbeat communities large enough to check on their own.

So don't spend your early months building a big content library. Your time is better spent on 1:1s, live events and finding new members. When a paying member does leave, the most common reason is that money got tight (21%), and 26% of the builders we surveyed haven't lost a paying member yet. A cancellation flow can save some of those exits while you spend your time on the people.

How communities make money

80% of the community builders we surveyed already make money from their community, most of them from more than one place: a recurring membership (62%), courses or programs (46%), coaching or services (43%) and paid live events (25%).

Sponsorships are the headline of most creator economy reports. Here they're a footnote: 8% of community builders we surveyed earn from brand deals. Members pay the bills.

Builders with three or more income streams were more likely to clear $5,000 a year (61% vs 28%). That's a correlation, not a recipe, but it matches what we see on the platform: 69% of communities on a paid Heartbeat plan have built a course and 78% have hosted an event.

Most community businesses are early

Nearly half (48%) of the builders who shared a 2026 figure expect to make under $5,000 from their community this year. A quarter expect $30,000 or more.

The number making real money keeps climbing. Communities collecting $10,000 or more a year from members through Heartbeat grew 59% from 2024 to 2025, and by October 2026 there were already more than in all of 2025, with two months still to go.

What a community costs

The typical community membership on Heartbeat costs $35 a month. A community's cheapest plan has a median price of $25, and 49% of communities offer an annual plan.

Prices are going up. In the last 12 months 27% of community builders we surveyed raised prices and 14% lowered them. The most common move was a founding-member or launch price (29%).

Want a number for your own community? Our membership pricing calculator suggests a price range from the same payment data.

Word of mouth beats the algorithm

Ask community builders where their newest members came from and the answer is people. Word of mouth and referrals lead (25%), then email lists (18%). Instagram is the top social channel at 12%.

Together, word of mouth and email lists are the biggest source for 43% of builders. A social platform is the biggest source for 28%. And 24% don't use social media to find members at all.

For those who do, social is holding steady: 58% say it brings in about the same number of members as a year ago, 23% more and 19% fewer.

AI works backstage

88% of community builders we surveyed use AI, and 72% pay for an AI tool on its own. Mostly for work members never see: writing posts and emails (60%), planning (58%), building courses and pages (55%) and admin (51%).

Front of house stays human. Only 12% let AI answer their members, and 4% use it for moderation.

On Heartbeat, 73% of communities on a paid plan have used Pulse, our AI co-builder. In the last 30 days builders asked it to draft 6,800+ docs, courses, events and page changes.

For context, Adobe found 86% of creators use generative AI, and Epidemic Sound found 91%. Community builders are right there. The difference is where they point it.

The rhythm of a community

69% of active members now use Heartbeat on mobile, up every year since 2022.

Community is a weekday habit. Wednesday is the busiest day, and weekends run 29% below midweek. In a typical community, 56% of the month's active members come back within the same week.

The new-year jump

The year has a rhythm too. Member payments jumped 16% from December to January, the biggest monthly jump of the past year. Black Friday barely registered: November was up 2% on October. If you plan one big push a year, plan it for the new year.

How big is the creator economy?

Now zoom all the way out. How big the creator economy is depends on who's counting, so here are four estimates side by side. Market.us, Coherent Market Insights, Grand View Research and Precedence Research put it between $149 billion and $314 billion today. The midpoint is about $234 billion.

Their forecasts for the early 2030s run from $1.1 trillion to $2.1 trillion, with a midpoint around $1.3 trillion. Goldman Sachs counts about 67 million creators worldwide today and 107 million by 2030.

Two things in those reports matter for community builders. Subscriptions are the fastest-growing way creators earn, per Grand View. And the money is moving toward creators who own the relationship. Patreon has paid creators more than $10 billion since 2013. Substack passed 5 million paid subscriptions in 2025.

Community sits right in that shift: people paying, directly and every month, to belong to something.

Looking ahead

Community builders are optimistic. 77% expect revenue to grow in the next 12 months, and 46% expect it to grow a lot. 4% expect it to shrink.

The newest builders are the most optimistic: 59% of those in their first year expect to grow a lot. Among builders whose community existed a year ago, 39% grew revenue this year and 35% held steady. Expectations run ahead of last year's results, as you'd expect from a group this new to it.

The worries are practical. The economy and members' budgets lead (36%), then their own burnout (28%) and proving value to members (28%). AI changing what people will pay for is further down at 12%.

What builders would tell you

We asked: if you could tell someone starting a paid community today one thing, what would it be? The most common answers: play the long game, know exactly who it's for, put relationships ahead of content, and just start.

• Just start. Community is fluid/ever changing, so don't worry about getting it perfect because it will definitely change anyway.

  

  Heather AngelOnline Community Creators

• No matter what you do, the relationships still matter the most.

  

  Sandy StewartThe Allyance

• It takes time. Start with relationships over monetization.

  

  Laura DayThe Surf Société

• Make sure you have systems in place for running the community, not just recruiting members.

  

  Tristan RichardsUnfold Writing Community

• You can have 200 members and still be the only one posting.

  Community builder, surveyed

• Keep it simple to start with, with one level of membership.

  

  Ali WilliamsThe Healing Circle

• Consistency is key, be relatable and personable, and slow growth is okay if it's steady.

  

  Jackie BennettThe 11th House

• Less is more. The fatigue is real for everyone and although it's important to us we need to remember we're not the centre of everyone's world.

  

  Emily BraithwaiteYellow Tuxedo

• Don't mistake content for community.

  Community builder, surveyed

• My members really appreciate the opportunity to participate and they enjoy getting to know each other, which has turned out to be a bonus for me because I don't need to create so much content each week.

  

  Noreen KolesarVibrant Brain Club

The fun round

We also asked some questions just for fun. Community builders are readers: only 7% read no books last year. They're morning people (46%, with 34% night owls). 17% have run a half or full marathon, 40% play an instrument and 71% have a pet. And they're exactly as left-handed as everyone else.

None of it predicts who makes money. Tattoos, cats and coffee are equally common among the earners.

Common questions