Seeing which brands sponsor a YouTube channel, and tracking competitors
Every row on Discover names up to three brands that sponsored the channel, counted from its newest videos at high and medium confidence: a brand named as sponsor in the description, YouTube's paid-promotion flag with the brand's link, or a link seen on several sponsored videos. The full report lists every sponsored video with its date and the signal that caught it, and the brand view in the workspace turns the table around: every channel a given brand has paid.
This is the check most buyers skip. In the EMARKETER and Viral Nation survey of 117 US marketers in September 2025, only 22.2 percent said they look at a creator's past collaborations with competitors. It is also the check that pays back most, because a creator's recent sponsors tell you the price band, the exclusivity conflicts and whether they can run a disclosed integration at all.
How do I see which brands sponsor a YouTube channel?
Search the channel on Discover (its handle, link or name) and read the sponsors column: up to three brand chips and a count. Open the report for the full list: each sponsored video, its date, the brand, and whether it was caught by the description naming a sponsor, by the paid-promotion flag with the brand's link, or by a link repeated across sponsored videos. Free, no sign-in.
How do I find which brands sponsor YouTube channels in my niche?
Filter Discover by niche and tick "Has sponsors" or sort by most sponsors; the chips on each row name the brands. The brands-seen panel counts how many distinct brands the inventory holds (145 on 3 November 2026). Our post on finding brands that sponsor channels in your niche walks through nine DevOps channels and the 16 brands that appeared on more than one of them.
How does Discover know a video was sponsored?
Three signals from public data. The description names a brand as sponsor ("sponsored by", "thanks to X for sponsoring", "this video is brought to you by"). YouTube's paid-promotion flag is set and the description links to a brand. A brand's link appears on several videos that carry one of the first two signals. Each sponsored video in the report shows which signal caught it and its confidence.
Is an affiliate link or a promo code the same as a sponsorship?
No. A single affiliate link, a "use my code" line or a brand mention is counted as a mention, not a sponsorship, and does not appear in the sponsor chips. A brand becomes a sponsor when the description names it as one, when the paid-promotion flag accompanies its link, or when its link recurs across sponsored videos. ChannelCrawler draws the same line, for the same reason: codes are everywhere, deals are not.
What does "Includes paid promotion" tell me?
That the creator ticked YouTube's paid-promotion box, which YouTube requires for branded content. It is a reliable positive signal and a weak negative one: in our 447-video sample from ten channels in October 2026, the label was on 33 percent of sponsored videos while the description named the sponsor on 83 percent. Discover reads both, which is why it finds deals the label misses.
Can Discover see undisclosed sponsorships?
No, and neither can any tool working from descriptions and flags. A deal mentioned only in speech, with no link and no label, is invisible. A Princeton study of affiliate links on YouTube found disclosure in only 10.49 percent of videos with such links, so any description-based count is a lower bound. Treat "none found" as "none disclosed on the newest videos".
What are high, medium and low confidence sponsors?
High: the description names the brand as sponsor, or the paid-promotion flag is set with the brand's link. Medium: a brand link recurs on several videos that carry a sponsor signal. Low: a single link or mention with no other evidence. Discover's rows and the brand view count high and medium only; the report shows low-confidence links separately so you can judge them.
How do I track which creators my competitors sponsor?
Use the brand view in the workspace (Agency plans and the 7-day trial): type the competitor brand and get every channel it sponsored, with the videos and dates. Watch those channels and the weekly re-check marks new sponsors as they appear. On the public page, the brand chips on each row show competitor names at a glance.
How do I find creators my competitors work with but we do not?
Brand view for each competitor, then compare against your own roster in the workspace or the CSV. Discover does not yet subtract one brand's list from another's automatically; the export makes it a two-column check in a sheet.
What is a repeat partnership and why does it matter?
The same brand sponsoring the same channel more than once, which the report shows as several dated videos for one brand. A brand that came back was satisfied with the result and the price, so a channel with repeat partners has proven conversion for someone. It is the strongest public signal of sponsorship quality there is.
Which industries sponsor the most YouTube creators?
CreatorDB's study of 1.66 million channels found sponsorships become common from 50,000 to 100,000 subscribers, that review videos get sponsored most (about 33 percent), and that finance, crypto and technology brands make up roughly half of sponsors. Discover's own inventory leans technical because of where its first users came from; its brands-seen panel reflects the channels people have analyzed, not all of YouTube.
Can I see how long ago a brand last sponsored the channel?
Yes, on the report: each sponsored video has its publish date, and the recency block shows days since the last sponsored video and how many of the last 30 long-form uploads were sponsored. A channel whose last deal was 11 months ago is in a different negotiating position than one with three in the last month.
Does Discover show how much the brand paid?
No. Deal values are private and never in public data. The signals that are public are who, when and how often; use the repeat-partnership pattern and the sponsorship density to infer demand, and price from the channel's recent views and a niche CPM.
How do I check if a creator recently worked with a direct competitor?
Open the report and read the sponsor list with dates; the row's chips show the three most recent or most frequent brands. If a direct competitor appears in the last 90 days, category exclusivity is off the table or expensive, and the creator may be under an existing exclusivity clause.
Why does a channel I know takes sponsors show "none found"?
Because its newest videos (the report scans up to 300) carried no description naming a sponsor, no paid-promotion flag with a brand link, and no recurring sponsor link. Spoken-only integrations and deals disclosed only on screen are invisible to description-based detection. If the channel's sponsored videos are older than the scan window, they fall outside it too.
Can I search by brand on the public page?
The brand view is a workspace feature on the Agency plans and during the trial. The public page shows the brand chips on each row and the count of brands in the inventory, and a keyword search for a brand name finds channels whose descriptions mention it. Sign in for the full list per brand.
How do I find sponsored YouTube videos in a niche?
Filter Discover by niche, tick "Has sponsors", and open a report: each sponsored video is listed with a link, the brand and the date. The report's example videos show what the integration looked like, which is what a creator or an agency needs for a pitch.
Does Discover catch sponsorships in Shorts?
The report scans long-form uploads; Shorts are excluded because their descriptions rarely carry sponsorship text and their sponsorships are mostly spoken. A channel that sells sponsorships only in Shorts will show few or none.
Can a brand mention be a false positive?
Discover's rules are written to avoid that: reference domains (documentation sites, universities, platforms) and the creator's own social links are never counted, and a brand needs a sponsor sentence, a flag with a link, or a recurring link. Mistakes happen with unusual phrasing; the report shows the evidence for each sponsor so you can check in seconds.
How do I use sponsor data in a pitch to a creator?
Name the brand you share a category with and what you liked about the integration; it shows you watched. If the creator has a repeat partner in your category, exclusivity is the first thing to ask about. If their last deal was long ago, you may be the first call in a while.
How do I use sponsor data as a creator?
Search your niche and size band, open the reports of channels one step bigger, and list their sponsors: brands already paying for an audience like yours. Sponsorship coach Justin Moore's advice is exactly this, note who sponsors your peers and pitch them. The brand view (Agency plans and trial) lists every channel a brand has paid, which tells you how many creators that brand is willing to work with.
Which brands sponsor the most channels in the inventory?
The brands-seen panel in the workspace lists them by number of channels sponsored, with videos and last date; the public page shows the count and a blurred preview. It is a count over the inventory, not over YouTube, and it leans toward the niches people have analyzed most.
Can I export the sponsor data?
The CSV export (Agency plans and trial) includes each row's sponsor brands and count. The per-video sponsor list is on each report and downloads from the analyzer as CSV per channel. Deal values do not exist to export.
How often is sponsor data refreshed?
When the report is re-run: reused for a day, refreshable on request, and watched channels are re-checked weekly with new sponsors marked. A sponsor seen on a video 300 uploads ago on a daily channel falls out of the window eventually; the brand view keeps the dated record while the row lives.
Now run the search
Discover shows the first 10 channels of any search with size, posting pace, sponsors, scores and whether a business contact is listed. When the inventory has nothing for your keyword, it searches YouTube for you.
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