Why Africa’s creator economy is growing

… but still can’t pay its creators

By Cletus OSEI-KWAME

Africa’s creator economy is expanding at an unprecedented pace. From TikTok influencers in Lagos to YouTube educators in Accra, a new generation of digital creators is shaping culture, driving conversations, and building global audiences.

Yet behind this growth lies a persistent and often overlooked challenge: most creators across the continent still struggle to earn, access, and withdraw their income reliably.

This paradox — rapid growth without corresponding financial infrastructure — highlights a deeper structural issue within Africa’s digital economy.

At a surface level, the problem appears straightforward: limited access to global payment platforms. However, the reality is far more complex. Many of the monetisation systems powering today’s creator economy were designed for markets with stable banking systems, seamless card penetration, and predictable currency environments. These assumptions do not hold true across much of Africa.

Africa’s creator economy faces a significant financial infrastructure gap. While mobile money penetration continues to rise across the continent, global platforms still default to card-based payout systems. In markets like Ghana, where roughly 60 percent of consumers rely on mobile money (World Bank, 2023), this creates a clear disconnect between how users earn and how they are expected to withdraw.

In practice, this leads to fragmented payment rails, high transaction costs, inconsistent settlement timelines, and foreign exchange constraints. Even when platforms offer monetisation features, the path from ‘earning’ to ‘actually receiving funds’ is rarely frictionless. For many creators, income exists digitally but remains practically inaccessible.

This disconnect creates a fundamental trust gap. If creators cannot reliably access their earnings, monetisation becomes theoretical rather than practical. Over time, this undermines confidence not only in platforms but in the broader promise of the creator economy itself.

From a product perspective, the issue goes beyond payments — it is about infrastructure design. Many global platforms have attempted to extend their monetisation models into African markets without rethinking the underlying systems. The result is a patchwork of solutions that fail to address local realities.

For example, reliance on card-based payouts excludes a large portion of users who primarily operate through mobile money. Similarly, long settlement cycles may work in developed markets but can be prohibitive in environments where liquidity is critical for day-to-day survival.

What is required is a shift from adaptation to reimagination.

Rather than retrofitting existing systems, platforms need to design monetisation infrastructure that is native to these markets. This includes integrating mobile money as a first-class payment method, reducing settlement times, enabling local currency transactions, and building transparent systems that creators can trust.

In building Luupli across Ghana, Nigeria, and the UK — now scaled to over 50,000 organic users — we have seen firsthand how deeply these challenges affect user behaviour. Creators are not just looking for visibility; they are looking for certainty.

Certainty that their effort translates into value, and that value can be realised without friction. Our experience reinforces a broader industry truth: integrating native, local payout infrastructure is not optional — it is essential for creator retention and long-term financial viability.

Encouragingly, a new wave of platforms and products is beginning to rethink monetisation from this perspective. These approaches move away from advertising-heavy models and toward more direct, creator-first economic systems — where engagement can translate into tangible rewards, and where financial participation is not an afterthought but a core design principle.

However, solving this problem at scale will require more than product innovation. It demands collaboration across fintech providers, regulators, and platform builders to create interoperable systems that reflect the realities of emerging markets.

The next phase of Africa’s digital economy will not be defined solely by the volume of content produced, but by whether creators can meaningfully participate in the value they generate. Growth alone is not enough. Without the infrastructure to support it, the promise of the creator economy remains incomplete.

For Africa’s creators, the future will depend not just on being seen — but on being paid.

Cletus Osei-Kwame is a Product Director and Co-founder of Luupli, a social platform focused on enabling fair monetisation and collaboration for creators in underserved markets.

Contact: [email protected]

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