Running a creator's business for a revenue share

The claim

Our collection holds one tweet, with 96 views, from an account with 2,231 followers¹. That is under the size at which we name or quote accounts. It describes “growth operating” as helping a creator build a business from their audience, and gives no income figure¹.

So we tested the method as its teachers promote it, with sellers’ and coaches’ own income figures from about $10,000 to over $100,000 a month^16202223. This page judges the scheme, not the people.

The sums

The operator’s income is the creator’s product sales times the operator’s share, minus fees, tools and tax. We found no contract. Promotional and competitor pages give shares of 20% to 25%, 30%, and 50% in one testimonial²⁵¹⁵³. They disagree on whether the share is of sales or of profit.

A common product is a paid community on Skool, a platform that hosts communities and courses. A third-party tracker gives median prices of $29 and $33 a month in different places³. Our sums, before fees, refunds and cancellations:

On the tracker’s model, which it calls an upper bound, the median paid community makes $1,202 a month³. By our sums, a 25% share of that is about $300, and about 26% of paid communities reach $5,000 a month and about 4% reach $50,000³. But 23.7K of the 48.1K tracked communities have fewer than 50 members, so this shows the size of the field, not a chosen creator’s odds³.

What happens to most people who try

We found no published figure for how many people sign a creator, what the median operator earns, or how long it takes.

Whop, a platform that earns fees from these businesses, calls the first client “the biggest hurdle”¹⁴. Creators are usually approached by cold messages, sent to strangers who have not asked. One cold-email tool vendor’s own figures run from 0.05% to 1.2% positive replies, none from messages to creators¹¹.

The failure reported most often, in a few reports, is creators going quiet¹⁵.

Of 12 YouTube video descriptions we opened, from critics as well as promoters, 11 link to the uploader’s own coaching, community, agency, affiliate tool or Telegram chat group²⁵. So neither the praise nor the criticism is disinterested.

The upside

Running the business side for someone with an audience does pay some people very well. The checkable cases are a different kind of business from the deal promoted on social media.

• Arcade Media, whose cofounder manages the YouTube group The Sidemen, filed accounts showing net assets (what the company owns minus what it owes) of £232,748 at 31 March 2025, falling to £160,610 at 31 December 2025⁶¹⁶². This is verified in filings, though unaudited and with no profit figure⁶².
• Electrify Video Partners had audited 2025 sales of $29.57 million and a loss of $7.90 million after interest and tax⁶³. A profile says it usually buys 50% or more of a creator business, so it pays for its share⁶⁴.

In the scheme’s own form, every figure is self-reported and unchecked. Scott Kelly says his agency hit $123,000 in its best month, over $68,000 of it profit after paying his team²⁰. Ben Bader claims $104,511 a month; about eight months later he published a video titled “Growth Operating Died In 2024… Do THIS Now”, which we did not watch²². Both sell coaching²¹²².

A realistic good result, on our estimate: one creator with about 10,000 engaged email subscribers gives roughly $6,000 to $72,000 a year at 30%, before costs and tax⁷¹. The bottom is one launch at the rate and price of the one measured launch we found, a creator’s own report of $14,641.50 from about 6,800 email subscribers⁷¹. The top needs four launches a year at a higher price with no fall in sales, which no source shows. Follower counts would need to be larger.

What it takes to compete

Those who succeed mostly had a paying skill first. The checkable cases were agents, media executives or existing companies; the biggest self-reported cases describe a former salesperson and an existing agency^2022616466. The creator matters too: one firm warns that those under 10,000 followers may lack the reach for meaningful revenue⁷².

Costs: Skool charges $9 a month plus 10% of sales, or $99 plus 2.9%⁸. Card buyers can typically dispute a payment for 120 days, so sales already split can be reversed³⁴. The operator owns none of the audience: Skool and Instagram terms forbid transferring account access, and Skool pays the account’s admin, usually the creator³²³⁷. The person who runs the marketing can be liable: one US regulator’s settlement order, in an unrelated case, barred a company’s operations manager from “assisting others” in selling business opportunities, including writing marketing material³⁹.

Early checks, in our judgement: can you show paid marketing or sales work already? Does the creator have more than a few thousand engaged email subscribers? Is the deal in writing before you build, stating whether your share is of sales or profit?

Who else makes money from it

The creator’s followers pay for everything, and the platforms take fees on the sales⁸⁹⁴⁹. Teachers of the method are paid whether or not a student signs a creator. The largest teaching community we saw shows 4,767 members at a listed $9 a month; how many pay is unknown¹⁶. No seller we found publishes what share of its students sign a creator or earn anything.