Yahoo Creators platform hits record revenue as publisher bets big on influencer-led content

Yahoo’s bet on creator-led content appears to be paying off. Yahoo Creators, the media company’s publishing platform for creators, had its most lucrative month yet in June.

Launched in March 2024, Yahoo Creators was built to capitalize on the growing appetite for personality-driven content. Now, a little more than a year in, the platform is gaining momentum: Last month marked its highest revenue and engagement levels since launch, a spokesperson told Digiday.

Historically, Yahoo has aggregated stories from around the web and produced original journalism through its in-house newsroom. Now it’s also staking its claim in the creator economy.

According to Digiday, the program currently includes 135 lifestyle-focused creators, whose work is featured prominently on Yahoo’s homepage. There’s a dedicated creator vertical, and creator content is woven throughout the Yahoo app and newsletters, appearing alongside articles from traditional publishers. There’s even a waiting list of influencers eager to join.

Selected creators have access to monetization tools, affiliate commerce, and audience analytics in exchange for posting on the platform. While the program focuses mainly on written content, creators can embed audio and video. Yahoo offers a 50-50 split on ad revenue—comparable to platforms like Substack and YouTube.

“We hear consistently that people want to get their news from other people,” Kat Downs Mulder, senior vice president and general manager of Yahoo News, previously told Fast Company. “They have institutions they trust, but they also really want connections. . . . In addition to the publisher network that we have, and the journalists that we have in-house, creators would add an additional dimension to that content. And so it would really help us to flesh out that whole ecosystem of content as we really look to become the world’s best guide to the internet.”

Since launch, revenue, engagement, and feedback have all been positive. “Yahoo’s new media model is wild (and maybe genius),” Michelle Songy, founder of Press Hook, posted on LinkedIn last month. “Legacy media is finally taking notes from creators, and honestly, I’m here for it.”

As journalist Mike Hume put it in a Substack post last year, “To me, this is a low-risk, high-reward bet, which is usually a smart bet to make.”