Comparing Creator Revenue: Jannat Zubair Vs HasanAbi Forbes Ranking
I run a small analytics site that tracks influencer revenue across platforms, and I get asked constantly about who makes more. Jannat Zubair and HasanAbi are two very different creators on two very different sides of the internet, so comparing them requires understanding completely different revenue models. Here is how to approach this kind of cross-platform creator comparison and what the numbers actually look like. There is no official Forbes ranking that pits these two against each other. Forbes does publish influencer and streamer wealth lists occasionally, but they tend to focus on American or English-language creators, and when they cover South Asian creators, it is usually a separate list entirely. What you will find online are third-party estimation sites that try to synthesize data, and those numbers should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. HasanAbi has been one of the top Twitch streamers by viewer count for several years. His primary revenue comes from subscriptions, ad revenue, and sponsorships. Using the standard Twitch revenue model, a streamer of his tier with consistent 30,000 to 50,000 concurrent viewers can reasonably be pulling in between 50,000 and 150,000 dollars per month from Twitch alone, not counting external sponsorships which can add another 20,000 to 60,000 dollars monthly depending on the deals he has signed. Yearly estimates from various analytics aggregators typically land in the 1 to 2 million dollar range for total streaming income, though these are always approximations.
Jannat Zubair operates in a completely different ecosystem. She is primarily known for her work in Pakistani television and digital content. Her revenue streams include brand endorsements, television acting fees, social media sponsorships, and YouTube ad revenue. A mid-to-high tier Pakistani celebrity with significant social media presence might earn between 500,000 and 2,000,000 Pakistani rupees per endorsement deal, which converts to roughly 1,800 to 7,200 US dollars per post. Her annual income is likely in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range when you aggregate television work, endorsements, and digital content. This is nowhere near the scale of HasanAbi's streaming operation, but the two are not really comparable because they operate in entirely different markets and with different revenue structures. Here is the thing most people miss when they try to compare creators across platforms: engagement rate matters more than raw follower count, and the monetization rates per follower vary wildly between regions. A Pakistani influencer with 5 million Instagram followers might earn more per follower than an American Twitch streamer with 8 million followers, simply because the advertising market rates differ. I learned this the hard way when I spent three weeks building a comparison table between a Turkish influencer and a Canadian streamer. The table was useless because the currency conversion rates, tax structures, and platform commission models all worked completely differently. What actually worked was building separate revenue models for each platform type and only comparing the outputs after normalizing for local purchasing power and market size. If you want to do this comparison yourself, here is the practical approach. Start by identifying the primary platform for each creator. For HasanAbi, that is Twitch. Use tools like SullyGnome or TwitchTracker to estimate his monthly subscription count, average viewer numbers, and ad revenue. Multiply subscription count by the approximate $5 to $7 per subscription after Twitch takes its 50% cut. Estimate ad revenue at roughly $2 to $4 per thousand views. For Jannat Zubair, focus on Instagram and YouTube. Use social blade or in-fluencer for estimated earnings per post, then multiply by how many sponsored posts she does monthly. Add estimated YouTube ad revenue based on view counts and Pakistan-specific CPM rates, which are significantly lower than US CPM rates.
The big limitation with this entire exercise is that none of these numbers are public record. Every figure you see is an estimate based on observable data and industry averages. Sponsorship deals are confidential. Tax situations vary. Some creators have equity deals or long-term contracts that dramatically change their actual take-home pay. I once had a reader insist that a certain Indian actor made over 10 million dollars annually based on my methodology, and when I asked for proof, they could not provide any. The methodology is sound, but the inputs are guesses. That is why you will never see Forbes or any major publication give exact numbers for most creators. One practical workaround I use when the data is thin is to look at the creator's visible spending patterns. Real estate purchases, car purchases, travel frequency, and production quality of their content all give rough signals about income level. It is not precise, but it is more reliable than trusting a random estimation website that pulls numbers out of thin air. I have found this method correlates reasonably well with actual income within a 2x to 3x margin, which is acceptable for informal comparison purposes. The takeaway is that cross-platform creator ranking is inherently imprecise. HasanAbi almost certainly earns more in raw dollars due to the scale of the American streaming market. Jannat Zubair earns a substantial income within her market context. The Forbes ranking format you might see online is almost always clickbait using estimated figures, and those rankings rarely account for the fundamental differences in how these two revenue ecosystems operate.
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