How to Become a Climbing Influencer (Without Being Insufferable)
A few weeks after we opened Field Testers, a message landed that opened with "I'm a climbing influencer" and closed with a rate card. No link, no handle, no video. We went looking anyway and found an account with eleven posts, all of them the same sunset. We didn't reply, and not because of the rate card. This article is what we'd have told them if we had.
The 10-second answer
To become a climbing influencer, pick one narrow thing you can film every week for a year, post the process instead of just the send, and treat each platform's rules as the real job description. The money, when it comes, arrives in small, separate streams: affiliate commission, flat-fee UGC work, the occasional sponsored post, and platform payouts once you clear their thresholds. Almost nobody lives on one of those alone. And if what you actually want is the athlete-and-sponsor path, that's a different article: How to Become a Professional Climber.
We're writing this from the other side of the inbox
Most "how to become an influencer" guides are written by people selling courses to aspiring influencers. We're the opposite end of the transaction: a climbing brand that receives the pitches, watches the footage, and decides who gets a bag. That's a narrow vantage point, and we'll stay inside it. We won't quote you creator rates, because nobody publishes reliable ones and we'd be making them up. What we can tell you is what a brand our size actually looks at, and what makes us close the tab.
Short version: we look at the last ten posts, not the follower count. We want to know whether you climb regularly, whether your videos show something useful, and whether the comments are real people asking real questions. An account at 2,000 followers where every post gets "what's the beta on the heel?" is worth more to us than 40,000 followers leaving fire emojis.
Pick a lane before you pick a camera
The climbing internet doesn't need another highlight reel of someone strong. It has thousands. What it's short on is climbing content creators who own one specific corner and show up in it every week. Lanes that work, because they answer questions people actually type:
- The progression diary. You, going from V2 to V5 over a year, honestly. Our V0 to V5 timeline says it takes most people a while, which means your audience will stick around for the whole ride.
- Your local area, done properly. Approaches, conditions, which problems are soft, where to park. Nobody else will cover your crag as well as you.
- Beta breakdowns. One problem, three attempts, what changed. It's the video people bookmark the night before a session.
- Training for normal people. Two sessions a week, a job, a sore shoulder. Much bigger audience than elite training content.
- Gear, tested for real. Hard, because it only works if you're willing to say a product is bad.
Pick one. You can widen later. You can't build an audience around "climbing, generally."
What to film, and what nobody watches
The professional climber guide makes the point that beginners have an advantage here, and it holds: most people watching climbing content climb somewhere between V2 and V5, and they want to watch someone who climbs what they climb. So film the attempts. Film the fall at the last move. Film the conversation with your friend about why the left heel doesn't work.
What nobody watches: forty-five seconds of approach footage with music, a send with no context, and anything shot in portrait from so far away that the climber is a colored dot. Get the phone close and low, with the wall and the pad in frame, and put the grade and the gym in the first line of the caption. Everyone's next question is "what grade is that," and if the answer's just a number, link to something that explains it, like our V-scale reference.
Etiquette is part of the brand. Don't park a tripod under a popular problem at 7 PM, don't film strangers without asking, and don't tick-mark outdoor rock to make the shot easier. Climbers remember who was annoying at the crag, and so do brands.
The gear: less than you think
You need a phone that shoots decent video, a small tripod or a clamp mount you can wedge onto a bench or a pad, and something to keep your gear from getting chalk-blasted between attempts. That's the whole kit for the first year. If you start talking to camera, a clip-on mic is the one upgrade that actually shows. A gimbal, a drone, and a second camera body can wait until your weekly schedule is proven, not the other way around.
One practical detail nobody mentions: chalk dust and phone lenses do not get along. Wipe the lens every session. Keep the phone in a separate pocket from your chalk.
How the money actually arrives
This is where the "travel the world and get paid for it" pitch runs into arithmetic. Climbing creator income isn't a salary, it's four or five small streams, each with its own rules:
- Affiliate commission. A code or a link, and you earn a percentage when someone buys. It pays on sales, not views, so it rewards trust more than reach.
- UGC fees. A brand pays a flat fee for footage it runs on its own channels. Your follower count barely matters here. What matters is whether you can shoot clean, honest video of a product in use.
- Sponsored posts. A brand pays you to post about it on your channel. That's the one people picture when they hear "influencer," and it's the least predictable of the lot.
- Platform payouts. On YouTube, the Partner Program currently requires 1,000 subscribers plus either 4,000 valid public watch hours in the past 12 months or 10 million valid Shorts views in the past 90 days (YouTube's own eligibility page). Other platforms have their own programs and change them often, so check the source, not a blog.
- Product and pro deals. Free gear and discounts. Useful, not income. The pro climber guide covers the athlete-versus-ambassador distinction in detail.
If you want climbing to pay rent, the jobs around the wall are a much steadier bet, and plenty of creators pair the two. Route setters and coaches have a built-in subject and a built-in audience. That's all mapped in How to Make a Living From Climbing.
How to pitch a brand, from the brand's side
Here's what makes a pitch work when it lands on our desk:
- Lead with a link. One handle or channel, first line. If we have to ask where your work is, we've already moved on.
- Show you use the thing. A clip of you with the product, or a clear reason it fits what you already film. Pitching a bouldering brand from a big-wall account is a mismatch we notice immediately.
- Propose one small, specific idea. "Three beta videos on my local problems, with the bucket in frame" beats "let's collaborate."
- Give real numbers. Average views on recent posts, not your best one. We can check, and we do.
- Keep it short. A paragraph and a link. Small brands read everything; bigger brands skim.
If you want to pitch us specifically, use our contact page, and mention Field Testers. Full transparency: we make one product, the CRACX Ascend bouldering chalk bucket, currently $49.99 at launch (regular $89.99, with a free brush and chalk ball), free shipping, US only, and the first run ships in November 2026. We don't pay for posts. We send a bag and ask for honest feedback, which is the bottom rung and we'll say so.
Disclosure isn't optional, and it isn't a vibe
If a brand gives you anything of value, including a free product, US rules treat it as a material connection you have to disclose. The FTC's guide for influencers is short and worth reading in full. The gist: put the disclosure where people will actually see it, in the post or the video itself, not buried in your bio or behind "more." Plain words like "ad," "sponsored," or "thanks to [brand] for the free product" work. Vague tags like "sp" or "collab" don't. In a video, say it and show it.
From the brand side: creators who disclose cleanly are easier to work with, because we're on the hook too. Nobody has ever lost a deal with us for being too honest.
The "travel the world" part, honestly
The dream version is a van, a new area every month, and brands paying for it. The version that exists is closer to this: you travel on your own money first, film everything, and the travel content becomes worth something because it's genuinely useful to someone planning the same trip. Conditions, permits, camping, which circuit to hit on a rest-day morning.
If you're starting in the US, you don't need a passport to build that library. Our guide to the best climbing spots in the US has a year's worth of trips in it, and a creator who covers five of those areas well has more useful travel content than most accounts with a hundred country flags in the bio. If you've never climbed outside, start with gym to crag before you start filming there.
Being strong is being free, sure. Being consistent is what gets you paid.
Quick answers
How many followers do you need to be a climbing influencer?
There's no threshold, and brands our size care more about engagement than raw numbers. For platform payouts there are hard thresholds, like YouTube's 1,000 subscribers plus watch-time or Shorts-view requirements.
Do you have to climb hard to be a climbing content creator?
No. Most viewers climb V2 to V5 and want to watch climbers at their level. Useful and consistent beats strong and occasional.
Can you make a full-time living as a climbing influencer?
A few people do, usually by stacking affiliate income, UGC work, sponsorships and platform revenue, often alongside a climbing job. Treat it as a side income until the numbers say otherwise.
Do you have to disclose free gear?
In the US, yes. The FTC treats free product as a material connection, and the disclosure has to be clear and in the post itself.
— CRACX Co-founder
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Cover photo : cottonbro studio / Pexels. Graphics by CRACX.