Six focus drink brands, and nobody has built a roster yet

Nobody owns this category yet

Of the 524 creators paid by these six focus drink brands, only 2 have been paid by three of them, and none by four.

We measured the 6 brands competing for the same creator slot: Magic Mind, MUD\WTR, Everyday Dose, RYZE, Thesis and Feel Free. 524 sponsored creators and 1,521 sponsored videos since June 2021.

Five years in, and no name in this category has become the name you have to book. That is the whole story of this shelf, and it is a much better position to walk into than a crowded one.

Who says so: our own count of recorded paid YouTube deals across the six brands, pulled 19 August 2026.

Which of these brands actually pays creators

One brand is three quarters of the shelf, one is a considered second, and the other four are experiments.

The brand holding three quarters of this shelf books each creator 2.9 times, which is less often than a brand holding 5.8 percent of it.

Only Magic Mind clears the bar a pyramid chart needs, which is 100 creators and 2.2 average bookings together. MUD\WTR misses it by six creators, 94 against 100, and its chart is drawn below and shown for the shape rather than the certificate. Everyday Dose at 24 creators and RYZE at 30 are too small to draw at all, which is a fact about their size rather than a judgement on their choices. Set against every other category we track this year, this is one of the thinner shelves, which is visible in the brands paying YouTube creators most in 2026.

What each one took

The biggest buyer here has no preference at all, and the smallest has the sharpest one.

Everyday Dose bought where nobody was bidding

Everyday Dose took politics and religion, at eleven and nine times the average. 24 creators, 88 videos, 3.7 bookings each. A tiny budget aimed where nobody else is bidding.

That is 12 political deals at 10.9 times the shelf average and 9 religion deals at 9.2 times, with health still its largest block at 28. It started late, in July 2024, and it already books its people more often than the brand holding three quarters of the shelf. Two of its 24 creators have been booked ten or more times.

RYZE, Thesis and Feel Free are experiments rather than programmes. RYZE put 34 of its 59 deals on lifestyle and rebooked 27 percent, the lowest rate here, and has not been recorded buying since January 2026. Thesis has seven creators and ten videos. Feel Free has one creator and two videos, both from autumn 2024.

How much do these rosters overlap

Hardly at all, and on this shelf that is an opening rather than a warning.

Stack those 6 rosters and they hardly touch. 507 of the 524 creators were paid by exactly one brand. Only 2 were paid by three.

Nobody has built a category shortlist. The first brand to book the same fifty people repeatedly owns the recall for this whole product type.

Of the 524 creators on this shelf, 507 have been paid by exactly one of the six brands, and only 2 have been paid by three.

An audience remembers the brand it has heard four times from the same voice, and on this shelf nobody has bought that four times from anyone.

Two creators is the entire top of this shelf. Pete Holmes has taken 19 deals from two brands and André Duqum 18, which is real depth, but from two buyers rather than five.

The practical consequence is that the usual vetting question changes. On a mature shelf the work is finding out who is already carrying four rival codes and what that does to the quote. Here almost nobody is, so the question becomes whether a creator can sell a product whose benefit is subjective, and what they are willing to claim about it on camera. A focus drink is a hard thing to demonstrate and an easy thing to overpromise. Reading what somebody has already said on camera about a supplement, before they are on a shortlist, is most of what we do, and on this shelf it matters more than the price check does.

Which pockets are worn out, and which are empty

Entertainment is the only worn room here, and sports is the emptiest.

Entertainment is the worst. 51 creators carry 191 videos, 3.7 each, with 5 of the 6 brands already there. It is the default buy for a focus product and it costs what a default buy costs.

Lifestyle is next. It is 25% of every deal in the category, on 148 creators.

Lifestyle is wide rather than worn, at 2.6 deals per creator across 148 people, and most of it is Magic Mind. Entertainment is the room where the same 51 names keep coming back.

Now the other end.

Sports, 25 creators, only two brands, 2.1 videos each. The least contested pocket on the map. Technology, 16 creators, two brands. Media, 16 creators, four brands, 2.4 each.

There is one oddity worth naming. Literature has 7 creators carrying 61 deals, 8.7 each, and a single brand buying all of it. That is the highest repeat rate anywhere on the shelf, hidden inside a category most buyers would never open, and what a rate per creator can cost is set out in what YouTube sponsorship costs by niche.

What the numbers do not show

Every count here is a floor, it is one platform only, and this shelf is small enough that single creators move it.

These are recorded paid YouTube deals. Instagram, TikTok and podcast placements bought elsewhere are not in this pull, so a brand spending its budget off YouTube looks quieter here than it is. A zero means we have not recorded a deal.

The small numbers cut both ways. Literature at 7 creators and technology at 16 are pockets where one busy channel changes the average, so read them as a signal to look rather than as a market to buy. Everyday Dose's politics finding rests on 12 deals.

The no shortlist finding is about who has been booked repeatedly, not about who is any good. It says the category has not converged. It does not say the people who have taken one deal here were the wrong people.

Category labels come from what a channel mostly makes, so a comedy channel that also talks about health counts once.

A number this specific is only worth something if you also know what it cannot see.

What to do about it

Book fifty people repeatedly and you own a category nobody has claimed.

1. Do not open with entertainment creators. You would pay the busiest price in the category for an audience that has already heard four focus drinks pitched to it, and Magic Mind will outspend you there every time.

Entertainment runs at 3.7 deals per creator against 2.6 in lifestyle, and Magic Mind has 151 placements there on its own.

2. Pick one lane and buy it again and again instead of testing five. Everyday Dose proves the small version works: 24 creators, 3.7 videos each, where nobody was bidding. RYZE spent similar money on 30 creators at 2.0 each and rebooked 27%. Same budget, opposite result.

Everyday Dose holds 5.8 percent of the shelf and rebooks 58 percent of its list. RYZE holds 3.9 percent and rebooks 27 percent. The difference is not the money, it is whether anybody went back.

3. The cheap lanes are sports, technology and media, and nobody in focus drinks has planted a flag in any of them. Wider still: the whole non-alcoholic and functional brew format next door is 14 creators and 31 videos across six brands, two at zero.

Two to call: CHGO Sports and Cowboys Report by Chat Sports. Neither has taken money from this shelf.

That last step is the work we do. We pull the rival history on every name, cut the ones already carrying other codes, price the pocket nobody is bidding in, and write the briefs so the claims stay on the right side of the line. Tell us which shelf you are on and we will show you your own version of the picture above.

Keep reading

• The bigger picture. The brands paying YouTube creators most in 2026
• What a category looks like once it has converged. Thirteen supplement brands and the niches nobody sponsors
• Before you brief anyone on a focus claim. What the rules ask of you and of them