Something quietly flipped this year. UGC campaigns have overtaken TikTok to become the second most-requested format brands book, sitting behind only Instagram. If you decide where your content budget goes, that shift is worth a pause – because it says a lot about what’s actually working right now, and where the money is quietly moving.
The numbers behind the shift.
The Collabstr 2026 Influencer Marketing Report looked at more than 21,000 brand collaborations across over 200,000 creators. The headline is hard to ignore: TikTok-specific campaigns dropped 48% in a year, while UGC campaigns grew 133%. Platform-agnostic UGC now makes up 35% of all campaigns booked, ahead of TikTok’s 21% and just behind Instagram’s 40%.
Put another way: UGC more than doubled its share, from 15% to 35%, while TikTok halved from 41% to 21%. eMarketer summed it up neatly – UGC has lapped TikTok, and Instagram is next. That’s not a small wobble. It’s a change in how brands think about the content they pay for.
Why brands stopped briefing by platform.
For years the brief started with a platform. “We need a TikTok.” “Get us three Reels.” The problem with that is you’re buying a post, not an asset. Once it’s live, it lives on one feed and then it’s gone.
UGC flips the order. You commission the content first, then decide where it goes – your ads, your product pages, your email, your organic grid, all of it. One shoot, cut and reused across every channel. When TikTok spent a chunk of last year under a cloud in the US, a lot of brands realised how risky it is to tie a whole campaign to one app’s future. Content you own and can move anywhere is simply the safer bet. That’s the real story behind the 133%: brands moving from platform-first to content-first.
What UGC actually costs now.
Here’s the part brands like and creators watch carefully. The average cost of a UGC campaign dropped 5.7% over the year, from $209 to $197. More creators, easier production, brands prioritising results over gloss – prices came down.
I’ll be honest about that as someone on the other side of the camera: cheaper isn’t automatically better. The temptation is to treat UGC as the bargain option and squeeze it. But the content that actually converts still takes a real hook, a clear idea and someone who knows how to hold attention. The falling average is good news if it means testing more angles for the same budget. It’s bad news if it becomes a race to the cheapest possible clip. Pay for the thinking, not just the footage.
Small budgets are running the show.
The other big finding: this whole shift is being led by smaller brands. Over 40% of UGC campaigns come from companies spending less than $5k, and nearly 80% of all creator collaborations cost under $300. Only 2% top $1,000.
That’s the bit I’d underline if you run a small business. You are not priced out of this. The market has shaped itself around exactly your size – lots of smaller, high-frequency pieces rather than one big-budget swing. A café, a boutique hotel, a new app, a jewellery label: you can build a steady stream of real content without an agency retainer.
Why it keeps outperforming polished ads.
None of this would matter if the content didn’t work. It does. UGC drives 29% higher conversions than non-UGC formats, and that lift makes sense when you look at what shoppers actually trust. Asked what makes them believe a product reviewer, people put authenticity at the top – it beats reach, polish and follower count.
That’s the whole point of good UGC. It doesn’t look like an ad, so it doesn’t get treated like one. Someone holding your product in their kitchen, talking like a friend, lands differently to a glossy 30-second spot – and the numbers keep proving it.
What to do with your next campaign.
If you take one thing from the 2026 data, make it this: stop briefing by platform and start briefing by content. Commission a handful of UGC pieces built to be cut for TikTok, Reels and Shorts from the same shoot. Make sure you own the footage so it can run as a paid ad, sit on a product page and go out in an email. Test a few hooks rather than betting everything on one perfect video. That’s how the brands winning right now are spending – flexible, reusable, real.
That’s exactly the kind of content I make – filmed, edited and delivered ready to post, built to work wherever you put it. If you want to talk through what a set of UGC pieces would look like for your brand, take a look at my pricing or email me at [email protected] and tell me what you’re launching.
