Creators eye Snapchat as a reliable income alternative to TikTok and YouTube

Unlike YouTube’s ad-driven, long-form model or TikTok’s viral, algorithm-heavy payouts, Snapchat has quietly evolved into a platform that rewards consistent, direct-to-fan engagement, creators told Digiday.

Followers get near-constant, intimate content from their favorite creators, and the chance to directly interact with them through story replies.

Horton conceded that there are some RPM (revenue per thousand views) fluctuations on Snapchat, but they are “more clear cut” than on other platforms — where competitors pay out a million views with $70 or over $1,000, he said.

Lifestyle creator Abby Berner, who has 3.2 million followers on Snapchat, said the platform pays her the most compared to other platforms, despite having nearly 7 million followers on TikTok. In 2025, she said she earned over half a million dollars on Snapchat and reached 5.3 billion people.

Snapchat has over 946 million monthly global users, up 6 percent from last year, according to the latest earnings report provided by the company, Though that’s lower than some other major social networks (Statista reported TikTok had 1.9 billion monthly active as of February 2025), the smaller revenue pool can be a boon for already-established creators who say they are making the most of a less-saturated space.

The platform paid out half a billion dollars to its creators last year, according to an official Snapchat spokesperson.

Reality TV star Cheyenne Davis became a “Snap Star” in 2023, and uses the app like a daily vlog that’s an alternative to her more manicured, edited posts on Instagram and TikTok. Last year, she made $35,000 in a single month on that platform.

“I started to monetize on Snapchat around the same time that I stopped filming my last show, and I was so nervous about how I was going to make [an] income after not doing TV anymore. Snap completely covers the same lifestyle that my family had from TV, which is crazy,” said Davis. 

Fostering a Snap community

Over the last several years, Snapchat has tried to retain creators by releasing tools like the Instagram-like stories, the TikTok-like Spotlight videos, and Quick Cut, an AI-powered in-app video editor. It’s boosted discoverability in-app to help promote “homegrown” creators and offered mid-story ad rolls to boost revenue.

And the remnants of the more intimate, personal app of the 2010s — friends messaging each other blurry pictures and silly video clips — linger.

For creators, the intimacy of Snapchat content stands out from other platforms.

Kaylee Rosie, a 22-year-old nursing student, grew her Snapchat following from 2,000 to 100,000 in just six months — all from posting her daily life as a nursing student. “Snapchat brings my audience with me throughout the day,” Kaylee, who asked to be referred to by her social media handle said. “From getting ready with me to my hospital clinicals, all aspects of my difficult academic journey. There are serious high stakes in nursing school and I share all of that.”

She credits Snapchat’s mid-roll ads as the best source of revenue. So good, in fact, that she no longer works a second service industry job to help pay for tuition (she declined to share exact figures).

A February 2024 study from Snapchat for Business said that 60 percent of users wanted to see creators “share mistakes and lessons learned,” while 57 percent wanted to see more realistic daily lives. 

“I’ve done YouTube channels, I’m on Instagram, I’m on TikTok, but I never felt like I was getting paid the way that I felt like I should be paid with the content I’m putting out,” Davis said. “That’s what divides Snapchat from all other platforms… some people are like, ‘I make great money on TikTok.’ Yeah, well, I made $35K on Snap last month, and I was just cooking in my kitchen and hanging out with my kids.”

Figuring out the Snapchat formula

Snapchat is still a relatively small platform compared to the monoliths that are YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. And marketers like Natalie Silverstein, chief innovation officer at influencer marketing agency Collectively, concede they haven’t yet cracked how best to advertise on the platform.

“It is less crowded from a brand perspective, it isn’t as saturated from an ad perspective… it does present an opportunity to stand out,” she said. “But if you’re not spending a ton of time on the platform, I think it’s tricky to be able to see the opportunities.”

For the creators on those platforms, the opportunities are aplenty — if they can figure out the Snapchat formula, which rewards volume and consistency, and if they’re the kind of creator who can thrive on the platform.

“It’s a very different code to crack,” Horton explained. “I think you need to have a couple different pieces of the formula for it to work, and I don’t think every creator has that. It’s not going to work for some creators… I’ve been on Snapchat for forever, and I actually hadn’t made any money until this last year on Snapchat where I finally committed to the formula.”

For Horton, that formula involved daily story uploads, which he believes would work for other creators if they’re comfortable with their content taking some time to blow up. He posts close “Someone was like ‘you just need to commit and try it for 30 days,’ and on my 31st day was my first time my story hit a million views and it hasn’t gone down since. I’ve never been more consistent with anything in my career on social media.”