A new Brand Deals Report finds that 63% of brand-influencer relationships end after a single collaboration, with TikTok the worst at 72%. Brands keep paying the expensive first-date cost of a new creator and rarely stay for the relationship that actually compounds. The model is backwards.
The first post with a creator is the expensive one. Brands keep paying for first dates and calling it a strategy.
A new Brand Deals Report has put a number on something the influencer industry keeps avoiding. Most creator partnerships are one and done. Across the dataset, 63% of brand-influencer relationships ended after a single collaboration.
The platform split is stark. YouTube partnerships average 13.5 months with a repeat collaboration rate above 50%. TikTok averages just 4.9 months, with 72% of creator relationships ending after one post. Deal structure explains a lot of the gap. On YouTube, affiliate deals make up the majority of partnerships, giving both the brand and the creator a built-in reason to keep going. On TikTok and Instagram, flat-fee one-offs dominate, and a flat fee has no reason to continue.
The pattern is expensive in a way most brands do not measure. The first collaboration with any creator is the costly one. You are buying an unproven audience match, an untested message and a relationship with no history. The value shows up on the second, third and fourth post, once you know it works. Ending after one means paying the first-date premium every single time.
Why it matters
For Australian brands building creator programs, this reframes where the money is wasted. It is not in paying creators. It is in churning through them. A handful of long-running, well-matched partnerships will almost always outperform a rotating cast of one-off posts, because trust and familiarity compound for the audience as well as the brand.
It also explains why so many influencer programs feel busy but flat. Constant new deals look like activity. Repeat partnerships look like results.
Share of brand-influencer relationships that end after a single collaboration. Source: Brand Deals Report 2026.
What to do about it
Pick fewer creators and stay longer. Depth beats breadth when audience trust is the asset.
Structure deals to continue. Affiliate and performance arrangements give both sides a reason to keep working together past the first post.
Measure repeat-partnership performance against one-offs in your own data. The gap is usually larger than people expect.
Judge a creator on the second and third post, not the first. The first is the test. The relationship is the return.
Stop paying first-date prices on repeat. The compounding is the whole point.