The supplement shelf, and the niches nobody sponsors
Thirteen supplement and greens brands have paid 2,411 YouTube creators since May 2021, and fifty eight of those creators have been paid by four or more of the thirteen. That short list is who a new brand ends up bidding against.
Senior Partnerships Manager · August 16, 2026 · 9 min read · Updated August 17, 2026
The shelf in one line
Thirteen supplement and greens brands have paid 2,411 YouTube creators, and only 58 of those creators have been paid by four or more of the thirteen.
That is 10,769 recorded paid deals, from a video uploaded on 16 May 2021 to one uploaded on 1 August 2026, and it averages 4.5 deals per creator. Three brands own most of it, AG1 on 28.9 percent of every deal, LMNT on 24.3 and Ritual on 16.2, so the other ten split about a third of the category between them.
The 58 names at the top are the interesting part. Every brand here built a shortlist, and the shortlists agree far more than anybody intends, which is why one creator can carry five rival codes and quote you a price built on all five.
Who says so: our own count of recorded paid YouTube deals across the thirteen brands, pulled 4 August 2026. These figures are one pull newer than the version that went out on LinkedIn, where the filter for one brand was also catching a couples app and a chewing tobacco company. Taking those videos out moved the totals down slightly and moved the shared list from sixty names to fifty eight, and the finding held either way.
Which of these brands actually pays creators
Two brands are buying seriously, three more are buying steadily, and the last eight barely register.
Roster size is the number everyone quotes and it is the least useful one. What separates these thirteen is who they bought and how many times they went back.
| Brand | Creators | Deals | Booked each | Rebooked | Share of shelf |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AG1 | 1,101 | 3,114 | 2.8 | 46% | 28.9% |
| LMNT | 413 | 2,622 | 6.3 | 64% | 24.3% |
| Ritual | 806 | 1,741 | 2.2 | 45% | 16.2% |
| Huel | 396 | 1,086 | 2.7 | 52% | 10.1% |
| Seed | 204 | 834 | 4.1 | 52% | 7.7% |
| Armra | 144 | 546 | 3.8 | 75% | 5.1% |
| Momentous | 97 | 404 | 4.2 | 70% | 3.8% |
| Ka'Chava | 33 | 120 | 3.6 | 73% | 1.1% |
| Live it Up | 49 | 106 | 2.2 | 65% | 1.0% |
| Thorne | 17 | 83 | 4.9 | 47% | 0.8% |
| Field of Greens | 21 | 61 | 2.9 | 62% | 0.6% |
| Bloom Nutrition | 18 | 27 | 1.5 | 33% | 0.3% |
| Bulletproof | 7 | 25 | 3.6 | 43% | 0.2% |
The two widest rosters here are also the two that rebook the least, AG1 at 46 percent of 1,101 creators and Ritual at 45 percent of 806.
Only five of the thirteen have enough people and enough repeat buying for a pyramid chart to show a shape at all, which is AG1, LMNT, Huel, Seed and Armra. Ritual misses on repeat rate, Momentous misses by three creators, and the rest are too small to draw. For the wider picture of who pays creators across every category this year, that is the brands paying YouTube creators most in 2026.
What did each brand actually buy
Each of these brands picked a different audience, and the picks are far more deliberate than the category admits.
AG1 bought travel and cars
AG1 took travel and cars. 15% travel and 7% automotive, nearly three times the average on cars. The widest net at 1,101 creators, but fewer than half were rebooked.
Lifestyle took 667 deals and travel took 463, twice the shelf average. Automotive took 218, which is 2.8 times the average, and no other brand here has gone near car channels in any volume.
There is a core in there, 58 creators booked ten or more times. The other thousand names look like an enormous test that never got a second round.
LMNT bought health and sports, then bought them again
LMNT took health and sports. 413 creators, 2,622 deals, 6.3 bookings per creator, double AG1. Sixty six creators were paid ten or more times.
That is more creators booked ten or more times than AG1 managed on a roster nearly three times the size.
Health took 983 deals at 37 percent of its spend, twice the shelf average, lifestyle took 459 and sports took 375. LMNT holds a quarter of the shelf with a third of AG1's names.
It is the same pattern we found next door among the wellness drink brands that rebook their creators. Nobody rebooks a placement six times because it felt nice.
Ritual bought women's lifestyle, and got no pyramid for it
Ritual took women's lifestyle and fashion. 57% lifestyle and nearly four times the average in fashion.
That is 985 lifestyle deals and 94 fashion deals on the second widest roster here. Ritual is the one brand that gets no chart despite the size, because 2.2 bookings each is under the repeat rate a pyramid needs. Only 18 creators were booked ten or more times, which means a lot of money spent introducing yourself.
Huel bought sports and entertainment, and skipped health
Huel took sports and entertainment. 31% and 26%, four times the average, and almost no health channels.
Sports took 340 deals and entertainment took 284, out of 1,086. Only 13 creators were booked ten or more times, so the depth is thin. The category mix is still the least contested thing any of these thirteen brands has done.
Seed bought finance podcasts
Seed took finance. 17% of its deals on finance channels, 9.5 times the average. Effectively business podcasts selling a gut probiotic.
That is 141 finance deals, plus 88 on food channels at more than three times the average, with lifestyle still its biggest block at 292. Twenty five of its creators were booked ten or more times. It is the clearest example here of a brand deciding its buyer is a person rather than a topic, then finding that person somewhere cheap.
Armra bought the expensive room and kept it
Armra does the one thing the rest of this shelf does badly. It started late, with its first recorded deal in March 2023, and it has rebooked 75 percent of its 144 creators, the highest rate of any brand here. Health took 41 percent of that spend at 222 deals, and lifestyle took 148.
It is a small tight programme built on the most expensive audience in the category, which makes the repeat rate more impressive and the entry price higher for anyone following it in.
The rest are preferences rather than programmes
Momentous took business and self-help, at eight times the average, with 39 business deals at 7.7 times the shelf average and health its biggest block at 171. It has the second best repeat rate here and misses a chart by three people, 97 creators against the 100 needed.
Thorne took tech. 13% technology, 15 times the average, plus the most health-heavy mix at 69%. That is 11 technology deals and 57 health deals out of 83, across 17 creators. Seventeen creators is not a programme, it is a preference.
Field of Greens is the strangest of the thirteen, with 8 of its 61 deals on podcast channels, 9 on religion and 10 on politics, all of them dozens of times the shelf average. Between them the last five brands hold about three percent of the shelf.
How much do these rosters overlap
At the bottom almost nobody is shared, and at the top almost everybody is.
Stack those 13 rosters on top of each other and a short list falls out. Fifty eight creators have been paid by four or more of them. That is the category voting on who actually converts, and it is who you end up bidding against.
IM8, the brand this shelf was first mapped for, had booked 1 of those 58.
Underneath that top band the sharing falls away fast, with 452 creators paid by two brands, 123 by three, then 36 by four, 21 by five, and one creator by six.
Of the 2,411 creators on this shelf, 1,778 have been paid by exactly one of the thirteen brands, and 58 have been paid by four or more.
Almost everyone here belongs to a single brand, and the whole crowd is standing on the same small platform at the top.
The names the whole category already shares
| Creator | Subscribers | Category | Brands | Deals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McKenna Walker | 466,000 | Lifestyle | 6 | 11 |
| Mark Hyman, MD | 1,490,000 | Health | 5 | 64 |
| Julia and Hunter | 328,000 | Lifestyle | 5 | 32 |
| The Athlete Special | 142,000 | Sports | 5 | 30 |
| Louisa Nicola | 93,600 | Health | 5 | 26 |
| Tyler and Todd | 274,000 | Lifestyle | 5 | 23 |
| Healthy Elizabeth | 89,200 | Food | 5 | 23 |
| Dominique Sachse | 1,900,000 | Lifestyle | 5 | 21 |
| Rachel Vinn | 144,000 | Lifestyle | 5 | 20 |
| Beth Grace Moore | 96,800 | Lifestyle | 5 | 19 |
Mark Hyman has taken 64 supplement deals from five of these brands, Julia and Hunter 32 from five, and McKenna Walker is the only creator paid by six, on 11 deals.
Look at the subscriber column, because it is the part people get wrong. Louisa Nicola has 93,600 subscribers and Healthy Elizabeth has 89,200, and both have been booked by five separate brands. Size is not what put them here. Something about the way they sell this particular product worked, five brands found that out one at a time, and each paid to learn it.
This is where a new brand gets hurt. You build a shortlist, the same eight names keep coming back as the obvious choice, and every one has read a rival's code twenty times. The quote is higher, the audience is saturated, and a health creator making claims about what a supplement does to your body is also the placement most likely to bring a regulator into your week. Checking two years of a creator's descriptions for rival codes, and checking what they have promised on camera, is most of the work we do before a name reaches a client's shortlist, and it changes both the price and the script.
Which pockets are worn out, and which are empty
Health is the most worn out room on this shelf, and gaming is the emptiest.
Health is the worst. Only 207 creators carry 2,019 deals, 9.8 each, and 12 of the 13 are already there. Those creators have run this type of ad ten times.
Lifestyle is next. All 13 brands use it, and it is 26% of every deal.
| Category | Creators | Deals | Deals per creator | Share of shelf | Brands buying |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lifestyle | 675 | 2,754 | 4.1 | 25.6% | 13 of 13 |
| Health | 207 | 2,019 | 9.8 | 18.7% | 12 of 13 |
| Sports | 235 | 1,102 | 4.7 | 10.2% | 12 of 13 |
Sports is the third one to watch, 235 creators and 1,102 deals with 12 of the 13 brands present, mostly because Huel and LMNT both went there hard.
Now the other end. Gaming, 42 creators, only three brands, 1.6 deals each. The least contested pocket on the map. Beauty, 33 creators, five brands. Outdoors, 28 creators, five brands. Automotive, 81 creators, with AG1 basically alone.
| Category | Creators | Deals | Deals per creator | Brands buying |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fashion | 52 | 149 | 2.9 | 7 of 13 |
| Beauty | 33 | 89 | 2.7 | 5 of 13 |
| Gaming | 42 | 69 | 1.6 | 3 of 13 |
| Outdoors | 28 | 113 | 4.0 | 5 of 13 |
The cost of crowding does not show up as a higher invoice, it shows up as a placement that performs like a reminder rather than a discovery.
Automotive proves the mechanic works, because AG1 took 218 of the 271 automotive deals on this whole shelf and did it unopposed.
What the numbers do not show
Every count here is a floor, not a total, and it is one platform only.
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 in the market. A zero means we have not recorded a deal, which is not the same as a brand never buying one.
The empty pockets are small because they are small. Gaming's 69 deals are a rounding error against health's 2,019, so nobody should read the under-sponsored list as a hidden market waiting to be harvested. What it is worth is the price, because a gaming creator has almost certainly never been pitched a greens powder.
The category labels come from what a channel mostly makes, so a health channel that also reviews cars counts once. And this pull is dated, because an earlier version had one brand's filter catching a couples app and a chewing tobacco company, and correcting it moved 426 videos out.
A number this specific is only worth something if you also know what it cannot see.
What to do about it
Buy one uncontested lane repeatedly, rather than testing five crowded ones once.
- Stop opening with health creators. You are paying a premium for an audience that has been sold this product nine times already.
Health is 9.8 deals per creator against 4.1 in lifestyle, and LMNT and Armra earned their positions in that room over years, so buying into it cold means paying their tuition again.
- Pick one uncontested lane and buy it repeatedly instead of testing five. LMNT's 6.3 deals per creator is the number to copy, not AG1's list of 1,101.
AG1 spent 28.9 percent of the shelf's deals to rebook 46 percent of its people. LMNT holds 24.3 percent of the shelf with 413 names and rebooks 64 percent of them.
- The cheapest entries are gaming, beauty, outdoors and home. Nobody in functional health has planted a flag there, and those creators already take deals from other categories.
Huel already proved the point, with 340 sports deals and 284 entertainment deals and almost nothing on health.
That last step is the work we do. We pull the rival history on every name, cut the ones already carrying four 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
- Next door on the shelf. Paying supplement creators cash against commission
- Before you brief a health creator. What the rules ask of you and of them
Frequently asked
Which supplement brands pay the most YouTube creators?
AG1 is the biggest buyer on this shelf by a wide margin, with 1,101 creators and 3,114 recorded paid deals, which is 28.9 percent of every deal we have across the thirteen brands. Ritual is second on roster size at 806 creators and 1,741 deals. LMNT is third on creator count at 413 but second on deal volume at 2,622, because it books the same people far more often than either of the other two.
How much overlap is there between supplement creator rosters?
Less than most buyers expect at the bottom and much more than they expect at the top. Of 2,411 creators, 1,778 have taken money from exactly one of the thirteen brands, 452 from two and 123 from three. Only 58 have been paid by four or more, and a single creator has been paid by six. That small group is where the bidding gets expensive, because every brand in the category has already proved those names convert.
Which creator categories are over sponsored in the supplement space?
Health is the worst. Only 207 health channels carry 2,019 of the deals, an average of 9.8 each, and 12 of the 13 brands have already bought there. Lifestyle is the broadest, with all 13 brands present and 25.6 percent of every deal on the shelf. Sports is third, with 12 brands and 1,102 deals. A health audience on this shelf has been sold a greens powder nine or ten times already.
Where can a new supplement brand buy creators without bidding against everyone?
Gaming is the emptiest pocket, with 42 creators, 69 deals and only three of the thirteen brands present. Beauty has 33 creators and five brands, and fashion has 52 creators and seven. These are small pockets rather than hidden goldmines, so the point is not the volume, it is the price. A gaming creator has almost certainly never been pitched a greens powder, and that shows up in what they quote.
Which supplement brand rebooks its creators the most?
Armra, at 75 percent of its 144 creators booked more than once, followed by Momentous at 70 percent and LMNT at 64 percent. The two widest rosters are the two worst on this measure, with AG1 at 46 percent of 1,101 creators and Ritual at 45 percent of 806. Repeat buying is the honest signal in this data, because nobody pays a creator a fourth time out of politeness.