YouTube sponsorships doubled in a year. Here is the month-by-month curve, and the brands ramping up now

When should you pitch a sponsor? The honest answer depends on when brands are actually buying, and that is something you can measure. We counted the sponsored videos in the DiscoverSponsors index by the month they were published, from July 2025 to August 2026. The index is built from public video information retrieved through the official YouTube Data API and held 562K sponsored videos across more than 55K channels as of September 2026.

The curve

Three patterns.

• The volume of sponsored videos roughly doubled in a year: 25.7K in July 2025, 54.0K in June 2026. Part of that is our index growing, but the number of distinct brands sponsoring in a given month rose from 6.6K to 11.1K over the same period, and the number of sponsored channels from 7.6K to 13.1K. More brands are buying integrations, on more channels.
• January is a step, not a blip. Sponsored videos jumped from 30.5K in December to 40.2K in January and never came back down. New-year budgets land in the first weeks of January; a pitch sent in early December, when brands plan the quarter, lands in that window.
• June is the peak. Spring quarters build steadily from March, top out in June, and the summer dip follows. The two most recent months, July and August 2026, look lower partly because they are still being indexed; sponsored videos keep appearing for weeks after publication as descriptions are read and disclosures are added.

The 15 sponsors ramping up right now

Volume tells you when brands buy. This table tells you who is buying more creators at this moment: the brands whose roster of distinct sponsored channels grew fastest between March–May and June–August 2026, among brands that sponsored at least 40 channels this summer.

A brand that tripled its creator roster in a quarter is running an active program and is still adding channels. CookUnity (meal delivery) and BougeRV (portable power) each sponsored more than 90 channels this summer; Kalshi, Cash App and Freecash show finance and fintech brands moving into creator budgets; Bagsmart, CASETiFY and TORRAS are accessories brands that scale through many mid-sized channels rather than a few large ones.

When to pitch

• Pitch in early December for January budgets, and in February for the spring build that peaks in June. Both are moments when the count of active brands jumps.
• Pitch brands that are ramping up, not the ones everyone already lists. A growing roster means an open budget and a team that is still saying yes.
• Check the smallest channel each brand has sponsored recently; the brands above are adding channels across sizes, which is where new creators get in.

The brands ramping up in your niche, and the size of channels they are adding, are on the sponsor leaderboards. For matches ranked by your own channel's size, language and niche, add your channel.

Method and limits

• Counts are sponsored videos by publication month. A video is sponsored when its description or paid-promotion disclosure names the brand that paid for the integration, from public video information retrieved through the official YouTube Data API.
• The index grew during the period, so the year-over-year rise overstates the platform-wide growth; distinct brands and channels per month are the more conservative indicators, and both rose by roughly two thirds.
• The last two months are incomplete and will rise as more videos from July and August 2026 are indexed.
• Growth is the ratio of distinct channels sponsored in June–August 2026 to March–May 2026, for brands with at least 40 channels in the later window.