Influencer Marketing Budget Planning for 2026: How Much Are Brands Actually Spending?

Why are influencer marketing budgets increasing in 2026?

Influencer marketing budgets are increasing in 2026 because consumer attention and commerce have shifted toward creator-driven content: Goldman Sachs Research estimated the creator economy’s total addressable market at roughly $250 billion, projecting it could nearly double to approximately $480 billion by 2027, with brand deals already accounting for about 70% of creator income (Goldman Sachs Research, “The creator economy could approach half-a-trillion dollars by 2027,” 2026).

That growth is uneven. Goldman Sachs Research also found that only about 4% of the roughly 50 million creators worldwide qualify as “professional,” earning more than $100,000 annually — a sign that spend is concentrating around a smaller pool of brand-ready creators rather than spreading evenly across the entire creator population. For budget owners, that concentration is exactly why planning has become more deliberate: more brands are chasing the same scarce supply of creators who can reliably deliver, which is part of what pushes rates and budgets upward.

How much of the 2026 budget increase is going to TikTok?

TikTok is capturing the largest share of the 2026 budget increase: the Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2026 Benchmark Report found TikTok included in 31% of surveyed brands’ influencer marketing plans, ahead of Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, which each cluster in the roughly 8-15% range (Influencer Marketing Hub, “Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2026”).

That platform split lines up with the broader growth story: short-form video monetization is the mechanism Goldman Sachs Research cites as the creator economy’s main growth driver, and TikTok is the platform where that monetization and brand spend are most concentrated right now. A 2026 budget that doesn’t already reflect a TikTok-heavy allocation is worth revisiting before the plan is finalized.

Are brands expanding nano and micro creator budgets, or scaling back?

Brands are expanding both nano and micro creator programs, not scaling back: the Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2026 Benchmark Report found 51.43% of surveyed brands plan to expand nano creator programs versus 10.00% planning to contract them, and 52.83% plan to expand micro creator programs versus 7.55% planning a decrease.

• Nano creators — 51.43% expansion intent vs. 10.00% contraction intent
• Micro creators — 52.83% expansion intent vs. 7.55% contraction intent

Both tiers show expansion outweighing contraction by roughly 5-to-1 or more. That changes the shape of a 2026 budget plan: instead of consolidating spend into a handful of macro creators, teams are adding more individual creator relationships — more line items, more individual contracts, and a stronger case for workflow and payment automation instead of managing dozens of relationships by spreadsheet.

What are brands trying to buy with the extra 2026 budget?

Brands increasing budgets by 50% or more are buying reach first: the Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2026 Benchmark Report found 89% of those brands prioritize brand awareness, 51% prioritize engagement, and 39% prioritize content quality, with lower-funnel, direct-response metrics ranking well below all three.

That KPI hierarchy is a useful gut check for a 2026 plan: a budget justification built entirely on last-click conversion or immediate ROAS is out of step with how the highest-growth budget teams are framing success. A measurement plan built purely around promo-code attribution will undersell a program’s actual value to leadership when awareness and engagement are the metrics the budget is actually funding.

What’s the biggest obstacle to spending the 2026 budget well?

Rising creator costs are the single largest reported obstacle to spending a 2026 budget well: the Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2026 Benchmark Report found 35.4% of surveyed brands cited rising costs as their top challenge, ahead of every other operational or measurement issue in the survey.

Rising costs connect directly to the scarcity point above: with only about 4% of creators considered “professional” and brand-ready, and with 87%+ of brands increasing budgets simultaneously, more dollars are chasing a supply of high-quality creators that isn’t growing nearly as fast as the spend is. A 2026 budget plan that doesn’t build in room for rate inflation — especially for the mid-tier and micro creators brands are actively expanding into — risks running out of budget before the campaign calendar does.

Is AI actually changing how 2026 creator marketing budgets get spent?

AI is already changing 2026 creator marketing budgets in one specific area: the Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2026 Benchmark Report found 36.67% of surveyed brands name creator discovery as their top AI use case, the single largest reported application, while 10.56% report using no AI in the workflow at all.

That gap matters for budget planning two ways. First, manual discovery is a slower, more expensive way to spend the same dollars when competitors are using AI to find creators faster — the labor cost of sourcing and vetting creators is part of what a budget needs to cover, even when it never shows up as its own line item. Second, discovery being the leading AI use case (rather than negotiation, content review, or reporting) suggests most of the category still has untapped efficiency in the workflow steps after a creator is found.

A framework for building a 2026 influencer marketing budget

Based on the benchmarks above, here is a practical way to structure the 2026 planning conversation:

1. Start from the platform data, not last year's split — With TikTok capturing roughly a third of brand plans and other platforms trailing well behind, confirm the allocation reflects where the surveyed market is actually moving.
2. Budget for tier expansion, not just tier count — Since nano and micro programs are expanding at roughly 5-to-1 versus contracting, plan for more individual creator relationships and budget the operational overhead that comes with a larger roster.
3. Set KPIs before setting the budget number — If brand awareness and engagement are the priorities for the highest-growth budget teams, build the measurement plan and budget justification around those metrics from the start.
4. Build in a rate-inflation buffer — With rising creator costs cited as the top challenge by over a third of brands, a budget planned at last year's average rate card is likely to fall short by mid-year.
5. Account for the discovery-and-ops tax — Whether or not AI is already in the workflow, factor the real cost of finding, vetting, and managing a growing list of smaller creators into the total budget, not just the media and gifting line items.

How should budget pacing change if creator costs keep rising mid-year?

Budget pacing should shift from a single locked number to a range with a mid-year checkpoint: because the Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2026 Benchmark Report found rising creator costs are the top-cited obstacle (35.4% of respondents), teams that reforecast against actual rate movement at the midpoint catch budget gaps before Q4 campaigns are at risk.

• Front-load discovery, not spend — since AI-assisted discovery is already the leading AI use case in the category (36.67% of respondents), use the front end of the year to build a larger qualified creator bench than the plan intends to activate immediately.
• Reforecast at the midpoint — with expansion intent running well above contraction in both nano and micro tiers, assume other brands are competing for the same expanding pool of smaller creators throughout the year, not just at kickoff.
• Protect the awareness-and-engagement KPIs when costs bite — if costs force a scope cut, cutting volume while preserving the KPI mix that high-growth budget teams prioritize (89% brand awareness, 51% engagement) preserves more of a program’s reportable value than cutting the campaigns tied to those metrics first.

What does this mean for how 2026 creator marketing teams are staffed?

Expanding nano and micro creator programs means staffing for more individual relationships, not just more media spend: with nano and micro expansion outweighing contraction by roughly 5-to-1 in the Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2026 Benchmark Report, teams need capacity to source, contract, brief, ship product to, and pay a larger creator roster — even where total media and gifting spend grows more slowly than the creator count does.

“It’s still quite laborious to run an influencer marketing program at scale — everything from finding and vetting talent, pitching opportunities, educating them, getting the product to them and getting them paid.”— Lauren Sherman-Kaoud, Chief Marketing and Creative Officer, Ruggable, via Digiday+ Research, 2026

That operational load is where the AI-adoption gap matters most: with just over a third of brands using AI for discovery and roughly 1 in 10 not using AI anywhere in the workflow yet, teams that automate discovery, outreach, and payment tracking can absorb a larger creator roster within the same headcount — which changes how far the same budget dollar goes in practice, independent of the media and gifting rate itself.

Where does Storika fit?

Storika’s AI-powered creator discovery searches across 7M+ creator profiles, which is the direct product answer to the discovery-and-ops tax above: finding and vetting a larger nano and micro creator roster doesn’t have to scale headcount at the same rate the roster grows. Outreach, contracting, shipping coordination, and payment status stay attached to the same campaign record, so a bigger creator count doesn’t turn into a bigger spreadsheet-reconciliation problem.

The same underlying themes are covered in Storika’s guides to creator discovery software, payment automation, and ROI measurement. For a brand planning to expand its nano and micro roster in 2026, that single system of record is what keeps a growing creator count from becoming a growing operational cost.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

Sources

• Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2026 — Influencer Marketing Hub, 2026, source of the budget increase, platform allocation, tier expansion, KPI hierarchy, rising-cost, and AI-adoption figures
• The creator economy could approach half-a-trillion dollars by 2027 — Goldman Sachs Research, 2026, source of the creator economy TAM, brand-deal income share, and professional creator figures
• The Marketers’ 2026 Guide to Creator Marketing — Digiday+ Research, 2026, source of the Lauren Sherman-Kaoud (Ruggable) quotation