# Sponsored posts on X: the 2026 data from 309,000 accounts and 23,000 paid-partnership posts

> How many X creators do sponsored posts, how their reach and engagement change with size, and how fast X's Paid partnership label is being adopted. Counts and medians by follower tier from Transformer.gg's index of 309,143 X accounts and 23,326 disclosed paid-partnership posts, as of November 14, 2026.

**In Transformer.gg's index of 309,143 X accounts, we've found 23,326 disclosed paid-partnership posts since January 2024, from 7,439 creators. Most sponsored posts on X still disclose with a hashtag rather than X's Paid partnership label, and a typical post from an account with 10,000 to 50,000 followers gets about 1,800 views and about 1% engagement.**

These are our own numbers, from the index we use to suggest creators to brands, as of November 14, 2026. They're aggregates only: no individual account is named or described here. We'll update this page monthly.

## How many X creators do sponsored posts?

We can't measure that share precisely from our data, and the reason matters for anyone citing it: 96% of the accounts where we've found a disclosed paid partnership came into our index through our search for sponsored posts. So the share among all indexed accounts mostly reflects how we searched.

The fairer number is the share among accounts we found some other way (brands adding them, creators signing in, our general crawl). It's a floor, because we haven't checked every account's full history:

| Followers | Accounts in our index | Median followers | Found other ways | Of those, with a disclosed paid partnership we found | Of those, bio says open to sponsorships or collabs |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1,000–10,000 | 17,201 | 2,662 | 15,238 | 0.5% | 2.2% |
| 10,000–50,000 | 6,430 | 18,898 | 5,626 | 2.3% | 7.9% |
| 50,000–100,000 | 1,393 | 66,281 | 1,195 | 2.6% | 4.6% |
| 100,000–250,000 | 1,186 | 150,804 | 1,036 | 2.5% | 3.7% |
| 250,000–1 million | 906 | 419,372 | 825 | 2.2% | 2.2% |
| 1 million+ | 585 | 2,406,954 | 550 | 1.6% | 1.5% |

What stands out:

- **Sponsored posts are rarer than they look.** Among accounts we didn't find through sponsored posts, we've seen a disclosed paid partnership from about 1–3%, lowest under 10,000 followers.
- **Few creators advertise that they take sponsors.** Under 8% in any tier have a bio that says they're open to sponsorships or collabs, which is one reason brands find it hard to tell who's available.
- **The long tail is large.** 26,210 accounts in the index have between 1,000 and 250,000 followers, against 1,491 above 250,000.

## How do reach and engagement change with size?

From a sample of 432 creators whose ~20 most recent original posts we've read (no replies or reposts), selected for our niches and for being active, so it leans toward AI, developer tools and tech, and toward larger, busier accounts:

| Followers | Creators sampled | Median followers | Median views per post | Views as % of followers | Median engagement per view | Posts per week |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1,000–10,000 | 116 | 6,582 | 540 | 8.6% | 1.19% | 8.9 |
| 10,000–50,000 | 181 | 20,310 | 1,767 | 7.9% | 0.98% | 11.5 |
| 50,000–100,000 | 61 | 65,125 | 4,089 | 6.3% | 1.08% | 17.3 |
| 100,000–250,000 | 43 | 136,837 | 10,994 | 6.9% | 1.08% | 18.1 |
| 250,000+ | 31 | 394,350 | 14,260 | 5.1% | 0.87% | 11.3 |

- **Views grow more slowly than followers.** A typical post reaches 5–9% of an account's follower count, and the share is highest for the smallest accounts.
- **Engagement per view stays around 1%** across tiers, slightly lower for the largest accounts.
- **Bigger accounts post more often,** up to about 18 times a week, before dropping off at the top.

Engagement per view is (likes + replies + reposts + quotes) ÷ views for each post; we take each creator's median, then the median across creators. For engagement benchmarks by followers, see [What is a good engagement rate?](/blog/what-is-a-good-engagement-rate)

## Which niches do sponsored posts the most?

Accounts with 1,000 to 250,000 followers that we found other than by searching for sponsored posts, by their main topic (from the topic labels we use to suggest creators to brands):

| Main topic | Accounts | Median followers | With a disclosed paid partnership we found | Bio says open to sponsorships or collabs |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Security | 421 | 7,125 | 3.3% | 0.0% |
| AI apps | 2,142 | 8,228 | 2.4% | 26.0% |
| AI DevOps and SRE | 439 | 3,376 | 2.3% | 1.1% |
| Devtools | 569 | 5,743 | 2.1% | 0.9% |
| Crypto and web3 | 676 | 7,292 | 1.8% | 6.1% |
| Web development | 498 | 5,008 | 1.6% | 2.6% |
| Marketing and growth | 1,115 | 3,720 | 1.4% | 5.2% |
| AI agents | 1,072 | 4,672 | 1.4% | 2.3% |
| AI research | 1,417 | 5,098 | 1.1% | 1.6% |
| Founders | 2,713 | 4,914 | 0.9% | 0.4% |
| Investors | 795 | 7,388 | 0.9% | 0.1% |
| Media and creators | 1,291 | 7,107 | 0.6% | 3.3% |
| Other tech | 1,387 | 3,308 | 0.5% | 0.8% |
| Non-tech | 1,721 | 4,115 | 0.2% | 0.2% |

The differences are small and the samples modest, so treat the ranking as rough. Including the accounts found through our sponsored-post search would put gaming and crypto on top (over 40%), but that mostly reflects where we searched. For what each niche pays per view, see [Which influencer niches pay the most?](/blog/influencer-niches-that-pay-most)

## How common is X's Paid partnership label?


X added a Paid partnership label in early 2026. Of the 23,326 disclosed paid-partnership posts we've recorded:

- **2,293 carry X's Paid partnership label** (the first we saw was on February 20, 2026), from 531 creators.
- **21,033 are disclosed in the text only,** with an ad or sponsored hashtag (such as #sponsored) or the words "paid partnership".

Among the posts we found each month, the share with X's label has grown from about 5% in March 2026 to about 14% in October 2026. Counted by creator, which a few very active accounts can't skew: 531 of the 6,484 creators with a disclosed post since February 2026 used the label (8%), and 358 of 3,296 in October (11%). Most disclosed sponsored posts on X still rely on a hashtag in the text. X's own policy expects the label on paid posts; see [Paid partnership rules on X](/blog/ad-disclosure-rules-on-x).

Two more numbers:

- **Most creators have one or two:** the median creator in the data has 1 disclosed paid-partnership post, and 90% have 4 or fewer.
- **7,613 different accounts are tagged** as the brand in those posts.

## What does a sponsored post on X cost?

Our influencer value curve, which starts from these follower tiers and adjusts for views and engagement:

| Followers | Influencer value per sponsored X post |
| --- | --- |
| 1,000 | $50 |
| 5,000 | $125 |
| 25,000 | $400 |
| 100,000 | $1,200 |
| 500,000 | $5,000 |
| 1,000,000 | $10,000 |
| 5,000,000+ | $25,000 |

These are estimates, not offers and not what brands have paid. To see the estimate for one account, [check its influencer value](/value); for how prices vary, see [How much do influencers charge per post?](/blog/sponsored-post-rates-by-follower-count) and [Which influencer niches pay the most?](/blog/influencer-niches-that-pay-most)

## How we collected the data

- **The index** is the X accounts Transformer.gg has looked up: through X's API when searching for disclosed sponsored posts, when brands add creators, when creators sign in, and from our own crawl. It is not a random sample of X: it leans toward English-language accounts in technology, AI, SaaS, developer tools and the creator economy, which is where we look for creators.
- **Paid partnerships per account** count only what our searches found; 96% of accounts with one came into the index through the sponsored-post search, so shares are shown for accounts found other ways.
- **Paid-partnership posts** are English posts since January 2024 found by our searches (topic searches, the brands those posts tag, and checks of creators' own recent posts) that either carry X's Paid partnership label or disclose a sponsorship in the text (an ad hashtag, #sponsored, #paidpartnership, "paid partnership" or "sponsored by @"). Crypto promotions are left out. The monthly numbers depend on how much we searched that month, so they show the label's share, not market growth. A post with both counts once, as labelled. X's label reaches us through its API, so posts labelled before X exposed it there may be missing. Text disclosures can include some non-creator accounts, which is why we also give the label's share by creator.
- **Open to sponsorships or collabs** is a bio phrase match (for example "DM for collabs"), not a stated preference.
- **Main topic** is the first label from the fixed topic list our labeller assigns to each account; 98% of accounts with 1,000 to 250,000 followers have one.
- **Views and engagement** come from X's public metrics on each sampled creator's ~20 most recent original posts (no replies or reposts), read within the last 90 days.
- **Counts** exclude protected, suspended and deleted accounts (an account that exists hasn't necessarily posted recently). Snapshot: November 14, 2026.

You're welcome to cite these figures with a link to this page.

Transformer is the agentic influencer marketplace: real creators, paid on confirmed posts. Run it from the dashboard or from your agent. Browse [creators by influencer value](/value/creators).

## FAQ

### How many X creators do sponsored posts?
We can't say precisely. We've found disclosed paid-partnership posts from 7,439 of the 309,143 accounts in Transformer.gg's index, but most of those were found by searching for sponsored posts. Among accounts we found other ways, we've seen one from about 1–3% at most follower sizes, a floor since we haven't checked every account's history.

### How many views does a sponsored-size X account get per post?
In our sample, a typical post gets about 540 views at 1,000–10,000 followers, 1,800 at 10,000–50,000, 4,100 at 50,000–100,000 and 11,000 at 100,000–250,000: roughly 5–9% of the follower count.

### What is the average engagement rate on X?
About 1% of views across follower tiers in our sample of creators (likes, replies, reposts and quotes divided by views), slightly lower for accounts above 250,000 followers.

### How many sponsored posts on X use the Paid partnership label?
About 12% of the disclosed paid-partnership posts we've recorded since the label appeared in February 2026 (2,293 of 19,576); the share reached about 14% of the posts we found in October 2026. Most still disclose with a hashtag such as #sponsored in the text.

### Where does this data come from?
Transformer.gg's index of X accounts and disclosed paid-partnership posts, built from X's API for finding creators for brands. It leans toward English-language tech, AI and creator-economy accounts, and isn't a random sample of X.