Kenya’s top social media influencers earned a combined Sh296 million in 2025 from brand-sponsored posts, pushing total creator economy payouts past the Sh1 billion mark, a new report shows.
The study by Nairobi-based research and data analytics firm OdipoDev estimates that influencers collectively earned about Sh1.07 billion last year, reflecting the growing commercial weight of digital content as brands shift advertising budgets online.
Top earners were led by comedian Eric Omondi, who made an estimated Sh57 million, followed by socialite Amber Ray (Sh44 million), and comedians Dem wa Facebook (Sh34 million), Jaymo Decin (Sh25 million), and Tom Daktari (Sh25 million).
“Entertainment dominates what Kenyans consume online, with comedy being by far the most dominant content category,” the report says.
Brand shift
Among the most active brands partnering with creators were multinational beverage maker Coca-Cola, consumer goods firm Unilever, Kenyan telco Safaricom, East African Breweries Limited, and processed meat company Farmer’s Choice.
Companies generating the highest video views through influencer campaigns included real estate firm Fanaka Real Estate, mobile game Block Blast, Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Chinese smartphone maker Infinix.
Beauty and personal care emerged as the leading sector for influencer marketing, driven by 174 companies in the sample, followed by food and beverage, as well as telecommunications and financial services. Other key categories included consumer electronics and fashion.
While small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) accounted for the majority of deals, the report notes that large corporations still command the highest-value partnerships.
SMEs accounted for roughly 80 percent of brand partnerships across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube.
OdipoDev also points to a growing divide between audience reach and monetisation across platforms. Instagram remains the most lucrative platform for Kenyan creators, despite TikTok dominating total views.
An analysis of the top 10 creators on Instagram shows that 40.8 percent of their views in 2025 were commercialised, compared with 59.2 percent that were organic, making it the most effective platform for converting content into revenue.
In contrast, only 12.1 percent of views on TikTok were monetised, with 87.9 percent remaining unpaid. Among top creators such as ‘Funny Team’, ‘Hilarious Kiragu’, and ‘Diana Marua’, just 4.3 percent of their combined 2.5 billion views were tied to paid partnerships.
“TikTok is an attention monster, but most creators struggle to monetise this attention,” the report says. It also flags a significant “discovery gap” on the Chinese platform, where some creators generate billions of views without attracting meaningful brand deals.
The study is based on an analysis of more than 35,000 Kenyan creators’ video views between January and December 2025.
Following the Covid pandemic, content creation has shifted from a hobby to a primary source of income for many, as brands move away from traditional advertising to influencer-led campaigns.
Creators are producing brand-sponsored photos and videos, embedding product links in posts, and directly selling physical or digital goods through their pages for a fee.
This has driven rapid growth in Kenya’s creator economy, supported by a young, tech-savvy population and rising smartphone penetration, which stood at 83.5 percent as of June 2025, according to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA).
