DTC Creator Spend Index: Q1 2026
What 200+ DTC brands spent on US creators in Q1 2026. Aggregated, anonymized data from 47,840 verified creator deals across 8 DTC verticals. Free PDF download below.
Six things 200+ DTC brands taught us in Q1 2026.
- DTC creator spend grew 34% year over year.
$182M in Q1 2026 vs $136M in Q1 2025 across 200+ tracked brands. Growth outpaced the broader IAB-reported creator ad spend by 8 percentage points.
- Supplements is the fastest growing DTC vertical.
Supplement brand creator spend grew 58% YoY in Q1, the highest of any of the 8 DTC verticals we tracked. Beauty is the largest by absolute dollars but supplements is the most accelerating.
- Fashion DTC creator spend declined 12% YoY.
Fashion was the only major DTC vertical to contract in Q1 2026. Brands cited rising creator rates and softening conversion. Several brands moved budget into pet (+42%) and supplements (+58%).
- Mid-tier creators (100K-1M) now drive 32% of DTC creator spend.
Up from 24% in Q1 2025. The mid-tier is the only creator band where spend growth outpaced deal-count growth. Brands are paying more per creator not just running more campaigns.
- TikTok overtook Instagram in DTC creator spend share.
TikTok: 41%. Instagram: 38%. YouTube: 17%. Other (LinkedIn, Reddit, podcasts): 4%. Q1 2025 was a 36/42/18/4 split with Instagram leading.
- Repeat partnership rates climbed across every creator tier.
38% of all creators activated in Q1 were re-booked by the same brand within 90 days, up from 29% a year ago. The biggest jump was at the macro tier (61% vs 47% YoY).
How we collected this data
Data source
KALO IQ platform activity across 200+ US-based DTC brand customers from January 1, 2026 through March 31, 2026. 47,840 discrete creator-brand deals.
Anonymization protocol
Aggregate only. Minimum bucket size N≥10 brands (or N≥40 creators) before any statistic is published. No individual brand or creator is identifiable.
Year-over-year comparability
YoY comparisons use the same cohort of brands measured in both periods. New platform additions excluded from YoY to avoid composition bias.
What is not in this report
No brand names. No creator names or handles. No deal-level data. No data younger than 30 days. No bucket under N≥10 entities. Same standard as HubSpot State of Marketing, Gartner Magic Quadrants.
For journalists
This report is published for industry citation. Use any data point in the report with the attribution Source: KALO IQ DTC Creator Spend Index, Q1 2026. No prior permission needed.
Press contact for additional data slices, interviews with James Carter (CEO) or custom cuts not in the public report: press@kaloiq.com. 24-hour response window during US business hours.
What's coming next
We publish the DTC Creator Spend Index quarterly. Q2 2026 data drops the second week of July. Sign up to get the embargo copy 48 hours before public release.
Other research in the pipeline: US Creator Verification Report (Q3 2026), Beauty Creator Pricing Index (Q3 2026), DTC Brand Creator ROI Benchmarks (Q4 2026).