Interactive model
Global content payout calculator
Set the yearly volume, revenue per thousand uses and creator payout share for each stream, then weight the audience by region. The model shows how much value the world's creations generate — and how much of it never reaches the people who made them.
Value generated
$230.5B
Per year, all enabled streams.
Paid to creators today
$24.2B
10.5% of generated value.
Never paid out
$206.3B
89.5% leaks away annually.
Net after 6% commission
$193.9B
What tracked remittance could return to creators.
Content mix
Highest volume stream on earth; most reposts are never attributed.
Residuals and reuse rights lapse across borders and re-uploads.
Unmatched recordings sit in black-box royalty pools.
Syndication and aggregation rarely pay the original byline.
Reproduction and resale value almost never returns to the maker.
Citation and reuse value is captured almost entirely by publishers.
Works absorbed into training sets with effectively no creator payout.
Ordinary posts generate ad value the poster never sees.
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https://earnintracker.com/calculator?s=W1tbInNob3J0LXZpZGVvIiwyNDAwMCwxLjIsOSwxXSxbImxvbmctdmlkZW8iLDM2MDAsNywyMiwxXSxbIm11c2ljIiw3MDAwLDMuNSwyNiwxXSxbInRleHQiLDEyMDAwLDAuOSw3LDFdLFsiaW1hZ2VzIiw5MDAwLDEuNiw2LDFdLFsiYWNhZGVtaWMiLDI2MCwxNCwyLDFdLFsiYWkiLDE4MDAsMjIsMSwxXSxbInNvY2lhbCIsNDAwMDAsMC4zNSwyLDFdXSxbMjIsMTksMzYsMTEsMTJdLDZd
Stream breakdown
| Stream | Generated | Paid today | Never paid | Share of leak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short video & reels | $41.2B | $3.7B | $37.5B | 18.2% |
| Long-form video & film | $36.1B | $7.9B | $28.1B | 13.6% |
| Music & audio | $35.1B | $9.1B | $26.0B | 12.6% |
| Text, news & publishing | $15.5B | $1.1B | $14.4B | 7.0% |
| Art, design & photography | $20.6B | $1.2B | $19.4B | 9.4% |
| Academic & research works | $5.2B | $104.2M | $5.1B | 2.5% |
| AI training ingestion | $56.7B | $567.1M | $56.1B | 27.2% |
| Everyday social posts | $20.0B | $401.0M | $19.6B | 9.5% |
Defaults are modelled from published RPM and royalty benchmarks referenced in our research posts. They are estimates, not reported platform payouts.
Frequently asked
- How does the global content payout calculator work?
- You set the yearly volume of content in each stream, the revenue per thousand uses (RPM), a regional multiplier for where the audience sits, and the share creators actually receive. The calculator multiplies volume by RPM, applies the multiplier, then splits the result into paid and unpaid value.
- What is RPM in creator payouts?
- RPM is revenue per one thousand uses, views, reads or reuses. Published benchmarks put short video RPM near $0.50–$4, long-form video near $2–$20, and text syndication far lower per use but far higher in volume.
- Why is the unpaid share so high?
- Most reuse happens off-platform: reposts, embeds, aggregation, syndication, dataset ingestion and offline reproduction. None of it is metered against the original creator, so the value is generated but never attributed.
- Does the calculator include AI training data?
- Yes. The AI training ingestion stream models the value of works absorbed into model training sets, where creator payout rates today are effectively near zero.