The niche itself couldn't support them, not the content quality, not the consistency, not the work ethic.
Meanwhile, a creator we scored with 20K followers across multiple niches (no breakout hits, nothing "impressive" if you're scanning follower counts) is generating thousands in monthly revenue. Consistent brand deals. Higher CPMs. A niche where sponsors actively want to spend.
The 90K creator scored a 141 in our system. The 20K creator? 165. Higher commercial value, despite being roughly 4x smaller in audience.
The niche economics problem nobody talks about
Art and design content lives in a CPM desert. Advertisers don't bid aggressively for that audience. Brand deals in that space are rare, low-paying, and inconsistent. So even with solid viewership, the revenue per view is a fraction of what creators in other verticals earn.
This is a market structure problem, not a quality problem. The same effort, skill, and consistency applied in a different niche produces completely different financial outcomes.
Why this matters if you're a brand
When brands evaluate creators for campaigns, subscriber count is usually the first filter, sometimes the only filter. More followers suggests more reach and more impact. The logic is clean and wrong.
A subscriber in the finance niche is worth substantially more to advertisers than a subscriber in the art niche. The purchase intent is different. The advertiser demand is different. The CPM structure is different.
90K Creator (Art Niche)
- 90K subscribers
- 50–100K views per video
- 1M+ video in catalog
- Low CPMs, sparse sponsors
- Score: 141
- Went back to school
20K Creator (High-CPM Niche)
- 20K followers
- No breakout hits
- Consistent, not viral
- Higher CPMs, active sponsors
- Score: 165
- Thousands in monthly revenue
Picking a 90K art creator over a 20K finance creator because the audience is larger ignores everything that determines whether the campaign pays back. The scoring reflects this: 141 vs. 165 in our system, with the smaller creator scoring higher on commercial value because the niche economics are in a different category.
What we do differently
At Not Average, we map the real economics of each niche before recommending creator partnerships. We look at CPM ranges, sponsor density, audience purchase behavior, and category alignment.
CPM ranges vary wildly by niche
Finance, tech, and business niches can command 5–10x the CPMs of art, gaming, or entertainment. Same view count, radically different revenue.
Sponsor density determines deal flow
Some niches have dozens of brands actively competing for creator slots. Others have one or two, maybe. The creator's ability to monetize is capped by how many sponsors exist in their space.
Audience purchase behavior is the hidden variable
A viewer watching art tutorials has different purchase intent than a viewer watching business strategy. The latter is more likely to buy software, courses, or services: the exact things sponsors want to sell.
Because a creator who looks "small" on paper can deliver 3-5x the ROI of a larger creator in the wrong niche, as the scoring gap between these two cases shows.
The takeaway
The question isn't "how many people follow this creator?" It's "does this creator's niche economics match your brand's category?"
Sort by niche-brand fit, not size. The brands that do this consistently outperform the ones still filtering by subscriber count.
What's the biggest gap you've seen between a creator's audience size and their actual business results?