Influencer Marketing spending in Italy will reach €425 million in 2026, up 10.4% from €385 million in 2025, according to the sixth annual “Influencer Compensation” report from Italian digital strategy firm DeRev. It is the fastest growth rate since 2023, nearly three times 2025’s 4.05% increase. But the market-wide gain obscures a sharper divide: celebrity influencers are earning less for the third consecutive year on every platform DeRev tracks, while mid-tier and macro creators are the only two tiers posting gains across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
The report is based on roughly 5,000 Italian creator profiles and 865,000 posts published between June 15, 2025, and June 15, 2026, across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Celebrity Pay Keeps Falling
DeRev defines celebrities as influencers with more than 3 million followers on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, and more than 1 million on YouTube. Their per-post compensation fell across every platform this year: down 18.8% on Facebook, 9.5% on Instagram, 8.6% on TikTok, and 2.4% on YouTube, the third straight year of declines on all four. Follower counts are falling too. 63.2% of celebrity accounts lost Instagram followers over the past year, and only 36.8% grew their following, compared with 76.7% of mid-tier creators and 68.5% of macro creators.
DeRev CEO Roberto Esposito told Il Sole 24 Ore that brands have grown warier of ultra-generalist audiences whose return is hard to measure and whose reputational exposure is constant. He pointed to the fallout from Chiara Ferragni’s “Pandoro Gate” scandal as an accelerant rather than a cause, arguing it exposed how costly a high-profile partnership becomes once a creator’s credibility is damaged, and that brands react to lost trust more severely than follower losses alone would suggest.
Mid-Tier and Macro Lead Across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube
Mid-tier creators, defined as those with 50,000 to 300,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok, saw pay rise 9.2% on Instagram, 7.1% on TikTok, and 2.9% on YouTube long-form video. Macro creators, roughly 300,000 to 1 million followers, gained 7.1% on Instagram, 7.6% on TikTok, and 5% on YouTube. They are the only two tiers to post increases on all three platforms this year. In currency terms, DeRev’s price list puts a TikTok post from a macro creator at up to €5,400, against as much as €58,000 for a single YouTube video from a celebrity.
Mid-tier posts also carry three times the engagement rate of celebrity content, 4.56% versus 1.61%, and mid-tier and micro follower counts grew 17.7% and 16.9%, respectively, over the year.
Platform by Platform
Facebook’s role in Influencer Marketing has become marginal, DeRev notes, now used more to redistribute content made for other platforms than to run native campaigns. Posting volume rose sharply among mid-tier (+105%) and macro creators (+159%), largely through reposts and low-effort, sometimes AI-assisted content with no commercial value. Compensation fell across nearly every tier: micro (-11.1%), mid-tier (-14.3%), macro (-13.6%), mega (-15.6%), and celebrity (-18.8%).
Instagram remains the leading platform, with posting volume up across nearly every segment except celebrities, who posted 16.5% less. Pay held flat at €100 to €300 per post for nano creators (5,000 to 10,000 followers) and rose for every other tier below celebrity: micro gained 5.6%, mid-tier 9.2%, macro 7.1%, and mega 2.3%, while celebrity pay fell 9.5%.
TikTok earnings are stabilizing after two years of steep declines, down 19% in 2024 and 2% in 2025, narrowing to a 0.33% dip in 2026. Micro creators gained 2.6%, mid-tier 7.1%, and macro 7.6%, while nano fell 10%, mega dipped 0.7%, and celebrity fell 8.6%.
YouTube commands the highest per-post value of any platform tracked. Shorts dominate volume, making up 96.6% of nano-tier content and 90% of macro-tier content, but campaign spending stays concentrated in long-form video. Mid-tier gained 2.9%, macro 5%, and mega 1.9%, while nano and micro held steady and celebrity pay fell 2.4%. DeRev added Shorts to its price list as a standalone format for the first time, valuing it at roughly a third of a standard video’s rate.
TikTok’s Disclosure Gap
Just 0.78% of TikTok’s most-engaged posts in Italy carried a sponsored content disclosure, DeRev found, compared with 4.46% on Instagram and 29% on YouTube long-form video. Esposito called the gap an anomaly set to draw more scrutiny now that Italy’s AGCOM code and its ATECO classification for influencers are in force, requiring brands to ensure their campaigns meet disclosure rules.
Where the Money Goes
Fashion & Beauty remains the top-spending category at 27% of Influencer Marketing investment, up one percentage point from 2025. Food & Beverage holds second place at 18%, unchanged. Gaming & Tech and Travel & Lifestyle each account for 13.5%. Sports & Leisure rose from 8% to 9%, and Business & Finance grew from 2.5% to 3%, a small but high-value niche where DeRev says the scarcity of qualified creators and the sector’s reputational sensitivity push rates higher.
Image source: DeRev The full DeRev report is available here
Dragomir is a Serbian freelance blog writer and translator. He is passionate about covering insightful stories and exploring topics such as influencer marketing, the creator economy, technology, business, and cyber fraud.
Influencer Marketing spending in Italy will reach €425 million in 2026, up 10.4% from €385 million in 2025, according to the sixth annual “Influencer Compensation” report from Italian digital strategy firm DeRev. It is the fastest growth rate since 2023, nearly three times 2025’s 4.05% increase. But the market-wide gain obscures a sharper divide: celebrity influencers are earning less for the third consecutive year on every platform DeRev tracks, while mid-tier and macro creators are the only two tiers posting gains across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
The report is based on roughly 5,000 Italian creator profiles and 865,000 posts published between June 15, 2025, and June 15, 2026, across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Celebrity Pay Keeps Falling
DeRev defines celebrities as influencers with more than 3 million followers on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, and more than 1 million on YouTube. Their per-post compensation fell across every platform this year: down 18.8% on Facebook, 9.5% on Instagram, 8.6% on TikTok, and 2.4% on YouTube, the third straight year of declines on all four. Follower counts are falling too. 63.2% of celebrity accounts lost Instagram followers over the past year, and only 36.8% grew their following, compared with 76.7% of mid-tier creators and 68.5% of macro creators.
DeRev CEO Roberto Esposito told Il Sole 24 Ore that brands have grown warier of ultra-generalist audiences whose return is hard to measure and whose reputational exposure is constant. He pointed to the fallout from Chiara Ferragni’s “Pandoro Gate” scandal as an accelerant rather than a cause, arguing it exposed how costly a high-profile partnership becomes once a creator’s credibility is damaged, and that brands react to lost trust more severely than follower losses alone would suggest.
Mid-Tier and Macro Lead Across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube
Mid-tier creators, defined as those with 50,000 to 300,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok, saw pay rise 9.2% on Instagram, 7.1% on TikTok, and 2.9% on YouTube long-form video. Macro creators, roughly 300,000 to 1 million followers, gained 7.1% on Instagram, 7.6% on TikTok, and 5% on YouTube. They are the only two tiers to post increases on all three platforms this year. In currency terms, DeRev’s price list puts a TikTok post from a macro creator at up to €5,400, against as much as €58,000 for a single YouTube video from a celebrity.
Mid-tier posts also carry three times the engagement rate of celebrity content, 4.56% versus 1.61%, and mid-tier and micro follower counts grew 17.7% and 16.9%, respectively, over the year.
Platform by Platform
Facebook’s role in Influencer Marketing has become marginal, DeRev notes, now used more to redistribute content made for other platforms than to run native campaigns. Posting volume rose sharply among mid-tier (+105%) and macro creators (+159%), largely through reposts and low-effort, sometimes AI-assisted content with no commercial value. Compensation fell across nearly every tier: micro (-11.1%), mid-tier (-14.3%), macro (-13.6%), mega (-15.6%), and celebrity (-18.8%).
Instagram remains the leading platform, with posting volume up across nearly every segment except celebrities, who posted 16.5% less. Pay held flat at €100 to €300 per post for nano creators (5,000 to 10,000 followers) and rose for every other tier below celebrity: micro gained 5.6%, mid-tier 9.2%, macro 7.1%, and mega 2.3%, while celebrity pay fell 9.5%.
TikTok earnings are stabilizing after two years of steep declines, down 19% in 2024 and 2% in 2025, narrowing to a 0.33% dip in 2026. Micro creators gained 2.6%, mid-tier 7.1%, and macro 7.6%, while nano fell 10%, mega dipped 0.7%, and celebrity fell 8.6%.
YouTube commands the highest per-post value of any platform tracked. Shorts dominate volume, making up 96.6% of nano-tier content and 90% of macro-tier content, but campaign spending stays concentrated in long-form video. Mid-tier gained 2.9%, macro 5%, and mega 1.9%, while nano and micro held steady and celebrity pay fell 2.4%. DeRev added Shorts to its price list as a standalone format for the first time, valuing it at roughly a third of a standard video’s rate.
TikTok’s Disclosure Gap
Just 0.78% of TikTok’s most-engaged posts in Italy carried a sponsored content disclosure, DeRev found, compared with 4.46% on Instagram and 29% on YouTube long-form video. Esposito called the gap an anomaly set to draw more scrutiny now that Italy’s AGCOM code and its ATECO classification for influencers are in force, requiring brands to ensure their campaigns meet disclosure rules.
Where the Money Goes
Fashion & Beauty remains the top-spending category at 27% of Influencer Marketing investment, up one percentage point from 2025. Food & Beverage holds second place at 18%, unchanged. Gaming & Tech and Travel & Lifestyle each account for 13.5%. Sports & Leisure rose from 8% to 9%, and Business & Finance grew from 2.5% to 3%, a small but high-value niche where DeRev says the scarcity of qualified creators and the sector’s reputational sensitivity push rates higher.
Image source: DeRev
The full DeRev report is available here
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