It's a Lifestyle

Inside the economics of vlogging

Author

Hannah Doyle
December 04, 2022

Sunday Story - Track Club

Illustration by Garrett Golightly

The Economics of: Lifestyle Creators

It’s an age—er, YouTube-old question: When your personal life is your product, when you’re the baker and the bread, the tailor and the suit—how do you draw the line between what’s business and what’s personal? Financially and in your relationships?

A prime example: Ashley Alexander, aka urmomashley, recently made a video about introducing her boyfriend to her parents. The sponsor? Gatorade. As a life event, it’s surreal. As a video for fans, it’s just another day in the life of being a lifestyle creator.

Creators Alex Griswold and Lizzy Capri navigate the same territory as lifestyle creators trying to make an honest living while living honestly. Griswold works with his wife and bills himself as the dad of the internet, and Capri does a mix of challenge and vlog content.

We talked to them about the financial breakdown of their businesses—where their income comes from, how they hire team members, and when they draw boundary lines—to understand what it’s like for creators whose lives are their products.

The big picture: Most of the financial decisions these creators make revolve around limiting the impact a lifestyle business has on a lifestyle. Let’s explore the calculus behind those decisions, starting with a big one


Hiring a team

Early vloggers used to have just themselves and a camera. Some still do (hi, Casey Neistat). But for many creators who post frequently across platforms, a team can be a helpful means of both staying creative and doing business.

In March, Griswold hired a co-writer as his first full-time employee to help with storyboarding and editing, followed shortly after by a filmer to assist on shoot days. But for lifestyle creators, hiring is more complex than just scrolling LinkedIn for the right CV—it requires more intangible skills.

  • Griswold’s co-writer is a friend he’s known since high school who’s since earned a film school degree.

  • Since he’s known Griswold for so long, he has a strong concept of his voice and now writes 80% of scripts and storyboards.

“It's fun. It definitely adds stress, but I felt like it was the only way,” Griswold said. “Early last year, I felt like I explored everything I could by myself. And even if it means a minor loss in total revenue for a period of time, the only way to get bigger was to start hiring people.”

FYI, Griswold’s lifestyle content isn’t his sole source of income—he has a full-time job as an engineer at a start-up (but he makes more money as a creator).

“I want to be able to see both [jobs] through,” Griswold said. “It would have to be that creator work isn’t just good annual money, but is moving in a very positive upward trend towards something like generational wealth as an individual—something that’s stable.”

Capri, on the other hand, focused her hiring strategy on output. She’s been a creator full-time since 2017, and she employs two editors, one videographer, a personal assistant/social media manager, and a production assistant.

“Putting more videos out is one of the easiest ways to monetize, so I tried to think of what takes the most time out of my day that I can outsource,” Capri said. “Editing is time consuming and having a videographer helps with camera gear, organizing footage, and sending [the raw footage] off to the editors.”

The big question in all this? How to pay for it.

Breaking down lifestyle creators’ revenue strategies

“At the beginning of my YouTube career, income only came from AdSense,” Capri said. As she grew, brands began to approach her and deals became more commonplace. “We were so surprised—like, ‘You guys are gonna just pay upfront for a video?’ Once we realized that was another stream of income, we were, like, ‘Wow, this is so much bigger than we thought!’”

For short-form creators like Griswold, monetization can look a little different.

“You’re getting money from all these different things as opposed to only looking at AdSense,” Griswold said. “A lot of our income this year was from separate posting deals and contracts with the different platforms, and the second half is brand deals.” Griswold says his income splits roughly 50/50 between the two.

Both Capri and Griswold agree that brand deals need to align with their audience by meeting these criteria:

  • Will they use it themselves?

  • Would their audience enjoy it?

  • Is it age appropriate?

“My audience tends to skew young, so if a stock-trading platform reached out—it’s a no,” Griswold said.

If that’s income, what about expenses? Capri said that nearly 80% of her life counts as a business expense, from hair to wardrobe. “As long as it's in the video, I justify the expense with my business manager.”

That could mean, depending on the nature of your videos—your house, car, or pet. The bed Emma Chamberlain records Anything Goes in? Likely expensable.

The notion that those deeply personal belongings could become numbers on a year-end balance sheet illustrates just how intertwined the business and the personal are for lifestyle creators.

That’s why setting boundaries matters

For some creators, the people we see in vlogs and posts are thoughtfully designed caricatures more than they are real people.

Griswold sees his content as a real-life/scripted-life hybrid, with videos storyboarded and written ahead of time. He does outright skits as the internet’s dad, but also peppers in real life and vulnerability.

Most of Capri’s videos are unscripted. She shares intimate details of her life, recently posting a breakup video with her long-time boyfriend and business partner Carter Sharer. She also uploads real-life adventures on her main channel and vlog channel, like painting her house pink and going to her friend’s wedding.

“I’ve shared a lot of my personal life on the internet, and I’m ok with that. I think there’s a tradeoff to being a creator where you want to show those parts where not everyone is always happy-go-lucky,” Capri told us.

To preserve her feelings after posting such vulnerable content, she refrains from looking at the comment section. “Because of how raw and real [the breakup] was, I don't think my viewers took it well ‘cause this isn’t the content that they normally get from me,” Capri said.

When your face is the brand, it can be hard not to take it personally when a video tanks.

“It hurts to see videos not perform—especially when you put so much effort into them, but I try to think long-term,” Capri said.

Their advice?

Test, test, and test again (which is easier on short-form).

“The biggest thing is you have to figure out what to talk about,” Griswold said. “Because I think it’s a little bit unsustainable to be completely you all the time and hope that works for years and years. Think of your life as a story, and not your life as your life when you’re putting it online, so that you can separate it out a little bit and not have the burden of ‘I have to make me interesting.’”

And be a student of the game. “Consume other lifestyle content yourself to see what works and what doesn't,” Capri said. “That was a big part of the success that we had in the beginning—and it pays off.”

Our Take

For lifestyle creators, their financial risks can be as big as their reward. You might pour a lot of time and money into making your videos interesting, with a strong edit and storyline. And the rewards can be great too—hello, expense report.

But the risks come with emotional side effects as well. When the lines get blurry and a 10/10 YouTube video makes you feel like a 0/10 person, remember that the content is just that—content. Not who you are as a person.

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đŸ€ Creator Support

Publish Press readers share a problem they're facing and creators Colin & Samir respond with their advice.

Q: As a brand, how do you go about finding and creating a good relationship with a creator? And more specifically—how do you know what a good amount is to offer for a sponsorship? Going too low could be offensive to the creator and make you never work with them again. And if you offer too much—you might be spending more than you need. Love y’all’s content. Keep doing what you’re doing!

–Ethan T.

A: Let’s start with the idea of an offensive bid—it depends on the creator. It typically isn’t hurtful unless they feel like they’re being pushed around. It’s likely just a matter of mismatched expectations, but it typically doesn’t create a positive feeling towards that brand.

If you’re concerned about low-balling, let the creator pitch their rates first.

On finding a good partnership: Identify the types of creators you want to work with. Then consider connecting with an agency to figure out the market rate. That context is really beneficial. We have agents at United Talent Agency, and when we get offered something, they know what the market rate is and they tell us if something is lower than usual or if it’s a great deal. For brands, they can provide similar intel.

Spacestation is another great agency that’s creator-founded. We used to do a lot of deals with them, and by going through an agency, you lessen the risk of jeopardizing your relationship with the creator.

A lot of people are anti-middleman. Sometimes they slow things down and sometimes it’s frustrating, but they can provide a healthy buffer to keep the relationship positive because you can speak through them. Plus, they have a macro perspective of what’s happening in the industry.

Often as a creator, you don’t have someone working across tons of brands or creators at any given moment. So an agency is helpful from both the creator or brand side.

–Colin & Samir

Facing a creator problem you want help with? Share it here→

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