How do i get paid by instagram
How to Make Money on Instagram in 2022 (14 Proven Strategies)
If working hard and making money is the American dream, not working hard and making money is the Instagram dream. But making serious income using social media requires some serious strategy. Whether you’re a creator or a business, you’ll find the most success in making money on Instagram if you do your research.
Keep reading to get inspired by thirteen examples from creators and brands, and find tips for making money on Instagram that apply to everyone.
Can you make money on Instagram?
How much money can you make on Instagram?
How to make money on Instagram as a business
How to make money on Instagram as a creator
Bonus: Learn how to sell more products on social media with our free Social Commerce 101 guide. Delight your customers and improve conversion rates.
Can you make money on Instagram?
Hell yeah. In fact, helping creators make a living on the platform is a top priority for Instagram, especially as competition heats up from TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube.
“Our goal is to be the best platform for creators like you to make a living,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the company’s first-ever Creator Week in June 2021.
In 2021, Instagram was the second-most downloaded app in the world. It’s the 7th most-visited website globally, the 4th most-used social media platform, and has 1.22 billion users every month. All of which is to say: that’s a massive potential audience. With an enormous and diverse pool of people who could potentially be exposed to your content, there are plenty of opportunities to earn money.
Want more proof? Grab the popcorn and watch this video from Hootsuite Labs.
(If you’re looking for more Instagram stats—you know, to rattle off at parties and impress your friends—you can find 35 of them here).
How much money can you make on Instagram?
Numbers are tricky, because creators and brands are notoriously private about how much money they’re making. On top of that, calculating income from Instagram is complicated—if you sing a song on a Reel, the sound goes viral and you get a record deal from that internet fame, then tens of thousands of people buy tickets to your concert, does that count as making money on Instagram? What if you post food videos, then provide a link to your recipe blog, and host ads on your blog that make you money?
It sounds bizarre, but that’s the way most successful creators’ journeys go. How much money you can make on Instagram depends on your credentials, audience size, engagement, strategy, hustle, and a dash of dumb luck.
Here’s how much some creators and celebs have reportedly cashed in:
$901: The average amount of money an Instagram influencer with 1,000 to 10,000 followers can make per post, according to Business Insider
$100 to $1,500: How much a creator can be paid for a swipe-up advertisement on their Instagram stories according to Brian Hanly, CEO of Bullish Studio (a talent agency for influencers)
$983,100: The amount Kylie Jenner reportedly makes per ad or sponsored content post
$1,604,000: The amount Cristiano Ronaldo reportedly makes per post
In 2021, Hype Auditor surveyed almost 2 thousand influencers (most based in the U.S.) about how much money they make. Here’s what they found:
- The average influencer makes $2,970 per month. “Average” numbers aren’t the best to go by, since there’s so much differentiation between the highs and lows—as is referenced in the next stat!
- Micro-influencers (accounts with one thousand to ten thousand followers earn on average $1,420 per month, and mega-influencers (accounts with over one million followers) earn about $15,356 per month.
Source: Hypeauditor
Top 5 Instagram Earners in 2022
Obviously, celebrities have a leg up in notoriety, and when they sign up for Instagram they automatically get thousands of followers. Although that is not the same for all of us, it’s inspiring to see just how much someone can make through being an influencer on a social media platform. Here are the top 5 earners on Instagram today:
- Cristiano Ronaldo – 475 million followers with an estimated average price per post of $1,604,000
- Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson – 334 million followers with an estimated average price per post of $1,523,000
- Ariana Grande – 328 million followers with an estimated average price per post of $1,510,000
- Kylie Jenner – 365 million followers with an estimated average price per post of $1,494,000
- Selena Gomez – 341 million followers with an estimated average price per post of $1,468,000
How to make money on Instagram as a business
Being present, active, and engaging on Instagram (and keeping up with trends) is one of the best ways to find business success on the platform in 2022.
Here’s how to do it.
1. Promote special offers
The online audience is a sucker for a good deal (and Instagram users love to buy stuff: 44% of Instagrammers say they use the app to shop weekly).
Use Instagram to showcase all the great things about your company—specifically, anytime you’re having a sale. Not only does posting your sale, promo code, or special offer on Instagram advertise a sale to your followers, but it also makes the information easily shareable.
This holiday sale post from clothing brand @smashtess has lots of comments that are just people tagging their friends. It’s an awesome way to promote the sale and also have the sale shared organically.
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A post shared by Smash + Tess (@smashtess)
2. Set up countdowns to new launches
You can use Instagram to give your followers a sneak peek of new releases, launches, or product lines—and using the “Countdown” or “Reminder” functions, you can provide potential customers with a simple way to flag when those new products will be available for sale.
This creates some hype around your offer, and once the release happens, users get a notification reminding them to check out the goods (and, hopefully, check out the goods).
3. Set up an Instagram Shop
Instagram Shops are a direct method of making money off of the app. Users can buy products using the platform’s native e-commerce tools, and it’s easy to set up a shop.
Instagram shops are an impulse buyer’s best friend (or worst nightmare, depending on how you look at it). Your shoppable products or services will show up in your followers’ news feeds, along with regular posts.
Hosting an Instagram shop is also a great way to provide quick customer service to folks who use social media (basically everyone—75% of the global population over the age of 13).
Customers can DM you or comment on posts to learn more about your brand. (Hint: if you’re feeling overwhelmed in your DMs, consider using a chatbot to support your customer service team.)
When you post something with a buyable item, the little shop icon will appear on the post, letting viewers know that it’s available for purchase.
Home goods store @the.modern.shop uses shoppable tags in many of their posts.
4. Schedule shoppable Instagram posts with Hootsuite
You can create and schedule or auto-publish shoppable Instagram photos, videos, and carousel posts alongside all your other social media content using Hootsuite.
To tag a product in an Instagram post in Hootsuite, follow these steps:
1. Open your Hootsuite dashboard and go to Composer.
2. Under Publish to, select an Instagram Business profile.
3. Upload your media (up to 10 images or videos) and type out your caption.
4. In the preview on the right, select Tag products.
The tagging process is slightly different for videos and images:
- Images: Select a spot in the image, and then search for and select an item in your product catalog. Repeat for up to 5 tags in the same image. Select Done when you’re finished tagging.
- Videos: A catalog search appears right away. Search for and select all the products you want to tag in the video.
5. Select Post now or Schedule for later. If you decide to schedule your post, you will see suggestions for the best times to publish your content for maximum engagement.
And that’s it! Your shoppable post will show up in the Hootsuite Planner, alongside all of your other scheduled content.
You can also boost your existing shoppable posts directly from Hootsuite to help more people discover your products.
Note: You’ll need an Instagram Business account and an Instagram shop to take advantage of product tagging in Hootsuite.
Try Hootsuite free for 30 days
5.
Set up a chatbotAn easy way to provide excellent customer service and make sales through direct messages is to set up an Instagram chatbot. A chatbot is integrated directly into your Instagram account and website and can answer any frequently asked questions from your followers. If the question is too complicated for the conversational AI chatbot, then it will automatically pass the inquiry to a real live member of your team.
And how can a chatbot help you earn on Instagram? Simple!
An Instagram chatbot can recommend products in your shop, directly to your customers within the chat, leading to faster and more streamlined sales.
If a customer inquires about what color foundation you have in stock, the chatbot can serve up three different options that the user can quickly add to their cart without ever leaving the platform.
Source: HeydayGet a free Heyday demo
6. Partner with creators
Influencer marketing allows you to share your company with the creator’s audience (and the creator also gets a spotlight for your audience—it’s a win-win).
When you’re researching folks to collaborate with, make sure you pay attention to their content and values: you want to pick someone who has goals that align with your own, so the partnership makes sense to customers and doesn’t seem like some oddball marketing scheme.
For example, it makes sense for a plant-based bakery to partner with a vegan influencer (more sense than Bill Nye partnering with Coca-Cola, that’s for sure).
Try to collaborate with creators who would be likely to try and/or like your products, anyway—for example, dancer @maddieziegler has long had a partnership with activewear brand @fabletics. You can offer the creator money, goods, or an affiliate deal (more info on that in the “Join an affiliate program” section of this post, just above!) in exchange for posting about your company.
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A post shared by maddie (@maddieziegler)
7.
Partner with other businessesLike partnering with creators, partnerships with other businesses give folks on both sides of the deal an opportunity to interact with a wider consumer base. Try contacting other businesses like yours and hosting a contest or giveaway—it’s an excellent way to gain followers and tap into a new audience.
This giveaway from @chosenfoods and @barebonesbroth requires entrants to like and save the post, follow both companies, and tag a friend in the comments. Both brands are building their audience—followers just waiting to be converted into consumers.
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A post shared by Chosen Foods (@chosenfoods)
8. Straight-up advertise
Hey, the basics still work. Advertising on Instagram is one of the ways you can make money on the platform and actually track your progress.
You can turn any post into an ad by boosting it, and your Instagram analytics will tell you how much of a difference the boost made.
How to make money on Instagram as a creator
Even if you don’t have a “business” in the conventional sense, there are lots of ways you can use Instagram to make money as an individual. With a solid following and clear niche, you have influence—and can be an influencer.
1. Partner with brands
Partnering with brands is likely the most well-known way that creators can make money on Instagram. Find a small or big brand that aligns with your values (that part is important—partnering with a brand that has nothing to do with your regular content, or even directly contradicts your regular content, will make you seem inauthentic).
Partnerships with brands can take many forms: you might be paid to make an Instagram post that features a specific product or be offered free products in exchange for content. To get started, try making a few posts that feature some of your favorite things—restaurants, skincare, whatever feels true to you—for free.
You can then point to those posts as examples when you’re reaching out to brands.
Lots of makeup and beauty influencers participate in these kinds of brand deals. Here’s an example of a paid partnership post from creator @mexicanbutjapanese for Nordstrom.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Mexicanbutjapanese (@mexicanbutjapanese)
Hint: when you’re participating in a paid partnership or sponsored post, be transparent. Use hashtags, mark the post as sponsored, and be clear about the partnership in your captions. Not following Instagram’s branded content guidelines can result in posts being removed—plus, it’s sketchy.
2. Join an affiliate program
This is related to brand partnerships, as joining an affiliate program still requires you to connect yourself to a business that sells specific products or experiences.
Affiliate programs essentially pay you to market other people’s products (so again, you want to make sure that the products you’re highlighting align with your values). If your followers buy something from the brand through you—usually using a specific link or discount code—you get paid.
This nail artist is an affiliate marketer for a nail polish brand—when followers use her discount code to buy the nail polish, the creator makes money.
3. Enable Live Badges
For creators in the U.S., Instagram’s Live Badges is a method of making money directly through the app. During a live video, viewers can purchase the badges (which cost between $0.99 and $4.99) to show their support.
To turn on Live Badges, go to your Profile and tap Professional Dashboard. Then, enable monetization. Once you’ve been approved, you’ll see a button called Set Up Badges. Tap that, and you’re good to go!
Source: Instagram
If you’ve enabled Live Badges, make sure to mention it when you go live (remind your followers that if they’d like to show their support with money, it’s easy to do so!) and express gratitude when someone purchases a badge.
Saying thank you goes a long way, and will likely encourage other people to pitch in.
Bonus: Learn how to sell more products on social media with our free Social Commerce 101 guide. Delight your customers and improve conversion rates.
Get the guide now!
4. Sell your merch
Using Instagram as a marketing tool for your other revenue streams is a great strategy for moneymaking. If you’ve curated your personal brand enough to have a certain look, logo, catchphrase, or anything else that’s recognizably you, consider selling merch that’s splashed with that extra sparkle (you’re brand). You can make money from sales—plus score some free advertising when your followers start walking around with your name on their sweatpants.
Drag queen extraordinaire Trixie Mattel sells branded merch and uses Instagram as a platform to advertise.
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A post shared by Trixie Mattel (@trixiemattel)
5. Link to your blog or vlog
Selling advertising space on your own website—or making money from Youtube—can be super lucrative, and you can use Instagram to direct your followers to that external site (hint: use a link tree to make the most of that link in your Instagram bio).
Here are some quick examples:
- Foodies who post pictures of food they’ve made and also have a blog where they post full recipes
- YouTubers who post highlights of their vlog on Reels, then provide a link to their Youtube channel for the full video
- Fashion influencers who post their outfits on Instagram and link to their website, where they share where the clothes came from
- Outdoor adventurers who post gorgeous landscapes and link to their blog where they detail the best road trip routes
Food blogger @tiffy.
cooks posts videos of her making food on her blog, and links to in-depth recipes in her bio. The recipes live on her blog, which also hosts posts that contain affiliate links.
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A post shared by Tiffy Cooks 🥟 Easy Recipes (@tiffy.cooks)
6. Offer paid tutorials or masterclasses
This is similar to linking to a blog or vlog, but instead of making income indirectly (through businesses advertising on your page or Youtube ads), your followers are directly paying you for a service you’re providing.
If you have a particular area of expertise, you could offer an online masterclass that requires a paid ticket. This method of moneymaking is common for fitness influencers, who may post short workouts for free and then link to a full training routine that you need to pay to access.
Film colorist @theqazman offers quick tips on Instagram, but also hosts ticketed masterclasses. This way, his content still appeals to a wide (non-paying) audience, but folks who are serious about learning the ropes will pay him for a full lesson.
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A post shared by Qazi (@theqazman)
You can also offer tutorials or masterclasses for free and simply ask followers to tip you if they have the means—that’s the method athlete @iamlshauntay uses. Her link in bio directs followers to ways they can pay her for her work if they’re able to. This is a good technique to use if you’re looking for maximum accessibility: there’s no financial barrier to your content, but there’s still a clear way for your audience to pay you if they want to.
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A post shared by Latoya Shauntay Snell (@iamlshauntay)
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7 Best Ways To Make Money on Instagram in 2022
This guide will explore 7 quick and easy methods for how to make money on Instagram.
You’ve probably heard stories of Instagrammers cashing in on the pictures they snap and share every day.
You might’ve even looked at your own sizable following and thought, “Maybe I can do that full time too.”
Together, social media reach and influence offer the opportunity for Instagram creators to explore multiple streams of potential revenue, whether they want to build an empire or just earn some extra cash and free stuff.
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- Getting paid on Instagram and beyond
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How to make money on Instagram
- Collaborate with brands on sponsored posts
- Become an affiliate
- Open your own ecommerce store
- Create an Instagram shop
- Sell your photos online
- Monetize your content
- Sell old stuff
The methods that may work the best for you will depend on your unique brand of Instagram content, your target audience, and your level of commitment.
The beauty here is that chasing one revenue stream doesn’t necessarily rule out another.
So let’s start with the most common approach to Instagram monetization: partnering with brands as an influencer.
1. Collaborate with brands on sponsored content
The term “Instagram influencer” gets thrown around a lot these days.
An influencer is basically anyone who’s built themselves an online reputation by doing and sharing awesome things online. To their audiences, influencers are tastemakers, trendsetters, and trusted experts whose opinions about certain subjects are respected.
Many brands just can’t compete with that, so they partner with influencers on sponsored content like posts, Reels, and Stories that help get the word out about their products.
But it’s not just the follower count and reach of your Instagram account that brands want—it’s your audience’s trust and engagement with high-quality content.
It can be hard to balance your revenue as an influencer and your integrity as a creator, but if you’re not relying on your Instagram marketing income to stay afloat, you always have the freedom to be selective about the brands you work with, just as brands will be selective about the Instagrammers they work with.
How to decide what to charge as an influencer
Typically these influencer deals involve the creation of content—Instagram ads, a post, a video, or a Story—and will sometimes include permission for the brand to use this content on their own site or in an ad.
Most of these deals are negotiable and can involve a single post or an entire campaign in exchange for a fee, a free product, a service, a gift, the promise of exposure, or some combination of these.
Keep in mind when negotiating that you’re not just offering content but access to your audience—a potentially large reach on one of the most popular social media platforms around—and usage rights.
The average influencer who has upward of 100,000 followers charges up to $500 per post, just to give you an idea of what some brands are willing to pay and how to negotiate based on the cards you’re holding.
Finally, it's important as an influencer to also know your own audience.
What is the makeup of your audience, and what is your engagement rate (total engagement divided by your number of followers)? You can dig up numbers to back this up in your Instagram analytics report, if you’ve switched to a business account. This will help you be prepared when it comes time to negotiate.
How to find brands to work with
If you’re big enough, chances are brands will find you. But you can also look for brands to work with that are on a similar level in terms of personality and values, so your audience won’t feel like you’re “selling out.”
You can reach out to them directly to try to work out a deal, but you can also list yourself on one of the many influencer marketplaces out there to increase your chances of being discovered, including:
- Fohr.
Connect your Instagram, blog, YouTube channel, and other social platforms to create an influencer “card” that shows your different profiles and total reach to brands shopping for a partnership. You can also access a list of brands and their wants, so you can take the initiative to reach out too. - Crowdtap. Do small content creation tasks to earn rewards. This is great if you’ve got a smaller audience. Available in the US only.
- indaHash. Brands post campaigns you can participate in. Post a picture with the specified hashtags on Instagram and get paid. You need at least 700 engaged followers to be eligible.
The rules vary when it comes to sponsored content, but to be on the safe side and respect your audience’s trust, consider adding a #sponsored hashtag to indicate sponsored posts.
You can find examples of sponsored posts and how Instagrammers integrate brands into their story or caption by searching #sponsored on Instagram, like this one from How He Asked, an account that shares wedding proposal stories and partners with a jewelry business:
Instagram also has a “Paid Partnership with” tag that prominently identifies sponsored posts, which some brands might require you to use to disclose your relationship with them.
2. Become an affiliate
Unlike an influencer, an affiliate is more invested in making sales for the partner brand—not just generating awareness—in exchange for a commission.
This is typically done with a trackable link or unique promo code to ensure clicks actually translate into sales. Use a mix of clickable links in your Instagram bio and Instagram Stories or through stickers. Since you can’t put links in Instagram posts, you can create promo codes so you can make money from different angles.
Consider reaching out to one of the many online merchants offering affiliate programs. Or you can explore popular marketplaces like:
- ClickBank. An affiliate platform with a tier-based commission that’s open to everyone.
- LTK. An invitation-only fashion and lifestyle influencer network that offers 20% commissions.
- Amazon Associates. A popular option that pays out a 10% commission.
Though it sounds like a numbers game, affiliate marketing is also an art, and you’ll have a better chance at success if you have a plan going into it and expand your online presence to include a website and other marketing channels.
Tip: Affiliate links can be long and ugly, so I recommend a URL shortener like Bitly, especially if the links are going in your Instagram bio.
3. Open your own ecommerce store
By now it might sound like the only way for an Instagrammer to make money is to sell out and work with other brands.
But creators of all kinds are in a good position to “sell out” with their own products: physical goods, services, or digital items that can be an extension of their brand, building a business with an audience at its center.
The ability for [content creators] to sell products is just so natural because their abundance of content allows them to have those moments of plugging their products.
Chris Vaccarino, founder of Fanjoy
You need to invest some time upfront, but in today’s world, it’s almost natural for creators to make the leap to entrepreneurship. That’s becoming easier with the growing list of Instagram tools available to build an audience.
Just look at Loki the Wolfdog, one of the biggest Instagram dog-preneurs of his time.
By selling your own stuff, you don’t need to worry about integrating messages from other brands into your posting strategy. Better yet, you can get your own brand out there on the products you sell.
Fans can show their love and support your work by buying from you—a purchase they can feel good about.
There are a few ways to sell your own merch:
- You can use a print-on-demand service to print and ship your own t-shirts, pillows, coffee mugs, wall art, and more.
- You can sell services such as photography or consulting using your bio to direct interested people to a contact email or a link to your professional website.
- You can sell digital products such as online courses, ebooks, or design templates.
- You can use your Instagram business account to launch a startup selling your own original products. You can use dropshipping fulfillment so you don’t have to deal with holding inventory or returns.
Superpowered social links
Linkpop is a tool that lets you create a customized landing page for all your brand links. It’s free, customizable, and best of all: shoppable.
4. Create an Instagram Shop
The past few years have been huge for ecommerce brands and creators who want to sell on social media. Instagram has released a ton of features under the Instagram Shopping umbrella, which allows people to easily shop your business’ videos and images on the platform.
Instagram shopping tags are so effective—and over 130 million people are tapping on shopping tags every month—because they allow people to go from product inspiration to product information in just a few taps."
Taylor Loren, in an edited excerpt from the course How to Make Money on Instagram
It all starts with an Instagram shop, a.k.a. your storefront. There, you can share your story and sell products.
Instagram provides a sleek experience for shoppers to browse and buy your collections. All you need to set up Instagram Shopping is a Business or Creator account.
You can customize your shop by creating collections or curated products presented in themes. Common themes include new arrivals, gifts, or seasonal trends.
Just like your online store, you can also create product description pages in your shop. Here you can include all relevant product information, like pricing and descriptions. You can send people to your website to complete a purchase or let them buy through the app using Instagram checkout.
It doesn’t stop there. People can also buy your products throughout Instagram via features like:
- Shoppable posts and Stories. You can use product tags to showcase items from your catalog in videos and images. People simply need to tap to learn more about an item.
- Shoppable ads. You can also add product tags to ads and extend the reach of your shoppable posts.
Setup is simple inside Ads Manager, or you can boost existing Instagram posts in your feed.
- Instagram Shop tab. Instagram’s shopping tab is a destination for people looking to discover new brands that are relevant to them. This helps you more easily reach new customers on the app.
- Live shopping. Do you love livestreaming content? Then you’ll find Instagram live shopping helpful for making money. Just go live and tag products from your catalog (or Facebook shop) to feature in your broadcast. The product will show up at the bottom of the screen, where people can tap to purchase instantly.
The best part? Setting up an Instagram shop is free. You’ll only pay a commission if someone purchases through Instagram checkout.
5. Sell your photos online
Someone might get famous on Twitter by telling 140-character jokes, but Instagram is a photo-sharing app at its core. And photos are assets that can be licensed, printed, and sold in a variety of ways.
If photography is what got you into the Instagram game in the first place, you can list your photos in marketplaces like 500px or Twenty20, where brands and publishers might license them.
However, you can also sell your photos as prints and on other physical products using a similar method described in the last section. Services like Printful and Teelaunch let you put your photos on posters, phone cases, pillows, and more, taking care of fulfilling orders and customer service, so all you really need to worry about is making sales.
Take the story of Daniel Arnold, who, according to an interview in Forbes, went from “eating toast three meals a day” to making $15,000 in 24 hours by offering to sell prints of his popular-but-controversial photos. If you've already got the demand, all you need to do is take the initiative and offer your audience the opportunity to buy your photography from you.
6. Monetize your content
Monetize your videos with ads
Another way for entrepreneurs to make money on Instagram is through in-stream video ads.
With these ads, brands can promote themselves within the videos you produce.
How much you earn depends on the amount of views your video gets, or “Monetizeable Plays,” according to Instagram. You’ll get 55% of ad revenue generated from each view, paid monthly to your bank account.
Turn on In-stream Video Ads and start earning in three steps:
- Go to Account Settings. Tap Creator, then In-Stream Video Ads.
- Tap Get Started. Read and agree to the terms and conditions.
- Toggle Allow Monetization on your existing Instagram videos, then tap Continue to finish.
To earn through In-Stream Video Ads, your content must be original and you need to own the rights to any music. Your video needs to be two minutes or more to monetize. Images, polls, looping videos, slideshows, or text montages don’t qualify.
Live badges
Live badges are a newer feature, helping creators and influencers make money on Instagram.
A popular concept taken from Twitch and TikTok, think of Instagram Live badges as tips you can receive during a live broadcast.
With this feature, viewers can purchase a badge during the livestream that shows in the comments and unlocks features, including a place on the creators’ badge list and access to a special heart.
People can buy:
- One heart for $0.99
- Two hearts for $1.99
- Three hearts for $4.99
7. Sell old stuff
If you’re not an influencer and just want to make some extra cash, Instagram is a great place to sell old stuff. Whether it’s furniture, clothing, collectors items or even Mason jars, you can make side income selling it on Instagram. Plus, you can declutter your home and help save the environment.
Take Lavender Loveseat, for example. Based in Chicago, the team finds older pieces of furniture, refinishes them, and sells them through Instagram. The brand shares fun, entertaining content on its page to attract buyers and earn sales.
Read More: From Likes to Dollars: Here's How to Sell Your Products on Instagram
How much do Instagram influencers make?
There are a number of factors that determine how much an Instagram influencer makes. They can earn anywhere from a few dollars to a million dollars per post.
The amount you make depends on a few factors:
- Number of followers
- Engagement rates
- Affiliate marketing tactics
The good news? There is room for any size account to make money on Instagram. There are generally five tiers of influencer marketing, broken down by follower count.
- Nano-influencer: 1,000–10,000 followers ($10–$100 per post)
- Micro-influencer: 10,000–50,000 followers ($100–$500 per post)
- Mid-tier influencer: 50,000–500,000 followers ($500–$5,000 per post)
- Macro-influencer: 500,000–1 million followers ($5,000–$10,000 per post)
- Mega-influencer: 1 million+ followers ($10,000–$1 million+ per post)
If you don’t have a lot of followers, don’t get discouraged.
Earning your followers’ trust and engaging with them will help your account grow. More than the number of followers, brands look for influencers to work with that have an active following.
So even if you only have 1,000 followers, you can still make some real money. To give you a little inspiration, here are some examples of the top non-celebrity influencers who have made the most of Instagram with their accounts:
- Lele Pons: 46 million followers
- Charli D'Amelio: 44.4 million followers
- Addison Rae: 40.1 million followers
- Sommer Ray: 26.8 million followers
Related Article: It’s Your Time to Shine: How to Find and Work With Instagram Influencers
How many Instagram followers do you need to make money?
If by now you’re wondering how many followers you need to start bringing in real revenue, the short answer is: not as many as you think.
The long answer depends on factors that range from:
- What niche you’re in and how easily you can directly tie it to a product category (fashion, food, beauty, and fitness are popular niches, based on top Instagram hashtags)
- How engaged your followers are (100,000 fake followers won’t amount to much)
- Which revenue channels you explore
Naturally, the more engaged followers you have, the better. Check out our tips on how to get more followers on Instagram.
While top Instagrammers make thousands of dollars per post, even those with small but engaged followings of 1,000 have the potential to start making money.
Getting paid on Instagram and beyond
What started as a hobby—making people laugh, doing silly photoshoots with your dog, or sharing pictures of food—can snowball into the chance to turn your Instagram page into a source of income fuelled by your engaged following. But why stop there?
There’s a world of possibilities for creators to make money on the web.
If you want to open up more revenue streams online, be sure to check out our tips on how to make money on YouTube. Your Instagram followers are bound to join you on other channels. You just have to open the doors for them to walk through.
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Make money on Instagram FAQ
Can you get paid on Instagram?
Yes. You can get paid on Instagram in the following ways:
- Create sponsored posts for brands that want to get in front of your audience
- Become an affiliate and making a commission selling other brands’ products
- Create and selling a physical or digital product or offering a paid service
- Set up an Instagram Shop
- Sell licenses for your photography or videos
- Monetize your content
How many followers do you need to make money on Instagram?
The more followers you have on Instagram, the more money you can make.
Rates are also determined by engagement, quality of content, name recognition, audience demographic, and skill set. The standard is $10 per 1,000 followers, but can vary depending on your contract and sponsor.
How much money does 10K Instagram followers bring in?
Micro-influencers, or accounts with 10,000 followers or less, can make around $88 per post on Instagram.
How to make money on Instagram: all the ways
How to make money on Instagram* from scratch? You can become an SMM specialist and set up Instagram ads for your clients*. Or maintain their profiles so that they receive new orders - money is paid for all this. But it is much more interesting to maintain your profile and earn income.
Yes, someone keeps an account "for fun", and someone - to earn money. We tell you exactly how you can earn money on Instagram * on your profile, how much you can receive and what you need for this.
Ways to make money on Instagram*
Sell ads
The most obvious and common way to make money from your Instagram profile* is to sell ad integrations.
You can do this in different ways:
- mention the account in the next post or story;
- talk about the product, just show it or mention that you use it yourself;
- place a link to the advertiser's website in the profile description or stories;
- to agitate to do something or express "one's" opinion in publications, and so on.
Advertising can be anything. For example, many bloggers said that they would go to the polls themselves and called on the audience to do so. Some campaigned for amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation and also received money for this.
Usually an ad on Instagram* looks something like this: a blogger shows a product and links to a profile where you can learn more about it Advertisers will pay you not for the number of people who came from you, but simply for the fact itself advertising placement. But at the same time, they will track the results, and if they don’t like them, they are unlikely to contact you again.
And to tell advertisers that you are ready to place ad integrations, you can create a second account on Instagram* and leave a link to it in your profile description. Or indicate there a phone number or email address where you can be contacted.
An example of how you can leave contacts for communication about advertising integrationsAnd if there are not many subscribers yet, but you want to earn money right now, it is better to additionally register on the blogger exchanges: on Epicstars, LabelUp and others. Advertisers can look for bloggers with a small audience there, and you can get clients from both your Instagram profile* and exchanges.
Traffic arbitrage
It's like advertising integrations - you also have to promote some product or product. But the earnings scheme is arranged a little differently:
- traffic (people) will have to be directed directly to the advertiser's website, and for this - place a link in the description of the main profile or create an additional account and first promote it;
- you will be paid not for the very fact of placing an advertisement, but for the targeted actions of users who clicked on it: for example, 2% of the order of all those who came from you.
The more loyal the audience is and the more purchases (orders, registrations) it makes, the more you earn.
Traffic arbitrage may look like this: a person offers to get a card with favorable service, and he gets money for each issued cardTo be able to make money like this, you need to look for advertisers who are willing to pay according to a similar scheme. This can be done in CPA networks: this is the name of the "catalogues" of affiliate programs. The largest CPA network in Russia is Admitad: M.Video, Lamoda, OZON and other brands offer their programs there.
Optimal Instagram* is suitable for making money on the following products:
- Goods for beauty, fitness, weight loss.
- Gadgets, fashion novelties, accessories, various wow-goods. Everything from which it is easy to make a beautiful picture and is designed for an impulse purchase.
- Offers for training or employment of students and recent graduates.
Accepting donations
In practice, this way of making money on Instagram* is rarely used.
The bottom line is that you simply accept donations (voluntary money transfers) from subscribers. They can throw off money for different purposes: buying a new computer, overexposure of a sick animal, restoring a passport.
at DonationAlerts. If you make a link, people will be able to transfer money to you in different ways: from a card, from a mobile account or from electronic wallets.
Selling services
One of the most popular ways to make money on Instagram* is selling your services. Many manicurists, SMM specialists, psychologists, cosmetologists and other specialists promote their profile in order to receive orders from there. Tarologists, business coaches, English teachers are not far behind - the list can be long.
This is what the profile of a specialist who sells his services on Instagram looks like* In order to sell services and make money from it, you need to be able to create high-quality interesting content, communicate with the audience, and work out objections.
Sale of information products
Another opportunity to make money, which famous bloggers often resort to, is the sale of their own information courses. You can teach your audience something you know yourself: promote your Instagram profile*, bake delicious cakes, sew handmade soft toys, and so on.
Elena Blinovskaya, for example, runs a wish-fulfillment marathon and has already sold an information product to more than 150,000 people time. Despite the fact that in an interview Sobchak did not show Elena Blinovskaya in the most favorable light, the subscribers of the information businesswoman supported her.To make money selling information products, you need a loyal audience that will trust you. And for this, pumping a personal brand is important - it is it that allows you to create an image of an expert in the eyes of users and increase loyalty to you.
Sale of merchandise
Merch is a product with the symbols of a certain brand, person, team, and so on.
You can sell merch immediately if you are engaged in the production of some goods. In this case, you will first create a profile, then you will recruit an audience.
You can do the opposite - gain an audience, and then offer them to buy a hoodie or dress with a pattern that you personally made. Your fans will certainly want to get some kind of product that will help them "join" you. True, you will have to look for someone who can produce these goods.
An example of how a blogger first got subscribers and then created his own merchMany bloggers release something of their own: they create production from scratch or negotiate with factories to release goods with certain symbols. Media personalities sell clothes, accessories and even cosmetics and perfumes under their own name.
Oksana Samoilova sells a whole line of different cosmeticsDraining traffic to other sites
Another indirect way to make money on Instagram* is to attract followers to other sites.
Where direct monetization is available or where you also earn by selling services, goods or accepting donations.
For example, you can leave a link in your Instagram profile* to a YouTube channel. Some users will subscribe to you there and watch the video, and you will be able to connect to the YouTube affiliate program and get paid for showing ads in your videos to users.
Artists often do this: for example, Alexei Vorobyov also drives traffic on YouTubeShop on Instagram*
Instagram Shopping is the integration of an e-commerce store into your Instagram profile*. This is the only way to sell directly to subscribers through posts, stories, the Browse tab, and the Store tab. Shoppers can check the price of an item on the app and then go to the store with the click of a button.
Let's say you represent a clothing store on Instagram* and want to promote your brand. Simply upload a photo of a model wearing your outfit and Instagram* will allow you to tag up to five products per post or up to 20 products per carousel.
You can also use stories and videos.
Read more about the nuances of work and settings in the article "Instagram* Shopping - how to set it up in 2021".
Photos for sale
Instagram* is basically a photo-sharing app. And photos are assets that can be licensed, printed, and sold in a variety of ways.
If you have great photos, you can list them on marketplaces where brands and publishers can license them. For example, 500px or Twenty20.
Another option is to sell your photos as prints on other products such as posters, phone cases, pillows. All you need is to find a suitable service that will not only make the desired print, but also take care of the delivery. You will only have sales. There are such organizations in almost every more or less large city.
Daniel Arnold, a Brooklyn-based photographer, went from $90 to $15,000 in one day, according to Forbes.
At that time, Arnold had a little over 20,000 subscribers. Now there are 329,000 of them.
Brand Ambassador
Unlike a blogger who sells many one-time ad integrations, an ambassador works with the same brand for a long time.
Most companies benefit from establishing a long-term relationship with an influencer who regularly promotes the company in a positive way. The fact is that most often an opinion leader who becomes a brand ambassador already uses the company's product or a similar one, or broadcasts in a certain niche. He has an interested target audience who will not be surprised that a blogger supports and recommends a particular cosmetics or coffee variety.
What brand ambassadors do:
- Give away free products in experimental campaigns.
- Broadcast speeches at conferences or stores to promote the brand.
- Interaction with consumers on your page.
- Increasing brand awareness.
For example, a blogger wears branded T-shirts, caps, suits. - Post quality content to increase user engagement.
Sale of AR masks
Augmented reality (AR) filters are various effects that are superimposed on what your camera shows.
Facebook's* Spark AR Studio platform allows users to create their own interactive augmented reality filters. They can be used in Instagram* and Facebook* Stories, as well as in Facebook* Messenger and Video Chat Portal with Friends.
Such masks can be sold to various brands, because AR masks are useful because:
- They help to emphasize the individuality of the brand, stand out from the competition.
- Communicate with the audience. Interactive elements in Stories increased 3-second views 9 out of 10 times, says Facebook*, and 60% of businesses use them to increase monthly engagement.
- Allows users to "try on" a product before buying or "wear" branded clothing.
- Increase brand awareness.
An AR mask can be a company logo or mascot. And if the filter is not advertising, it will be displayed in the gallery of effects, where it is available to anyone. In addition, when users take a selfie with a brand's AR mask, their followers will learn about the company.
Instagram augmented reality filter skills* can make good money.
It's all about making money on Instagram* from your account. I will not consider the option of how to make money without investments on likes, subscribers and views - it takes a lot of time and brings very little money, and this type of income is not pleasant to me. Most often, it harms business, spoils statistics, helps scammers advance, and algorithms do not like it.
How much you can earn on Instagram*
Everything will depend on the quantity and quality of your audience.
The more people follow you, the more you can charge for one ad integration or the more donations you can get. In the case of advertising integrations, you set the prices yourself.
Those with more than 1 million subscribers can charge from 100,000 ₽ for one advertising post. And media personalities like Olga Buzova, Natalya Rudova, Nastasya Samburskaya can charge 200-300 thousand rubles for one post.
If you make money by selling information products, merchandise or services, everything will depend on how many people buy your product. But with a large audience, the amounts are impressive. For example, let's calculate the earnings of Elena Blinovskaya.
She herself says that she received more than 150,000 reviews, which means that there were no less sales. The cost of the marathon is changing: let's take 3,000 ₽ - the amount that is most often mentioned in reviews.
It turns out that Elena earned about 450 million rubles for the entire time the marathon was sold. Yes, she spent time creating it and is now spending money on supporting the information product (hiring employees), but the amount itself is impressive.
How much money you earn on Instagram * depends only on how you invest in the development of your account, and how many audiences you gain. The more loyal subscribers you get, the more income you can get from one way of earning. And you can use several - for example, advertise someone's services and sell your information product at the same time.
How to get your first sales in social networks, we tell on the online course for beginners "First Orders on Instagram*". The course is suitable for anyone who wants to earn money by promoting their services or product on an online platform.
What to do to earn a lot
Promote your profile and get a lot of followers: the more the better.
There are two ways to go:
- gain an audience quickly with the help of advertising from bloggers;
- make interesting and high-quality content and gain subscribers slowly.
Content is needed even if you want to use paid promotion: after all, people will follow you only if they like your account. It's just that with the help of advertising you will get followers much faster than with organic promotion.
You will find all the necessary tools for content production in one application, which will save a lot of time to promote your business. Auto-posting, photo and video editor, story builder, post analytics, teamwork opportunities - this and much more is in SMMplanner.
You will be able to work faster and more efficiently - get more done in the same amount of time. Register using the link and you will have 14 days of access to the professional tariff "Initial" instead of the standard week. Explore the possibilities, then choose the appropriate tariff or use the free version of the service - it depends on your needs.
There is another way - a quick and free recruitment of a new audience through hype. So Diana Shurygina, Ekaterina Didenko and Daria Zoteeva (Instasamka) became popular. The only question is what is the price of their popularity: hype will bring subscribers, but not a loyal audience. Because of black PR, subscribers, advertisers and those with whom the blogger did joint projects may turn away. This was the case with Daria Zoteeva, when, due to another scandalous trick, Klava Koka refused to cooperate with her, and her voice was replaced with another one in the cartoon “100% Wolf”.
Promoting your profile on Instagram* requires a lot of time, effort and nerves. We have collected materials that can help attract loyal followers:
- 9 ways to promote on Instagram for free*
- 8 free social media contest services
- Post idea generator
Decide for yourself which promotion method to use. The most important thing is to gain the first few thousand subscribers.
Even with 1-2 thousand followers, you can start earning and investing in the further development of your account in order to get more audience and, accordingly, earn more.
The article has been updated. First published: March 26, 2021
16 ways to monetize in 2022
Youtube. Vladimir Kolesov, September 9, 2021
1. Selling ads
You collect a certain amount of audience and start selling ads. You can advertise other bloggers, some projects, it can be commercial advertising. They pay money to talk about something or someone.
The main difficulty is to gather an audience. Secondly, it is very important here how loyal and active your audience is.
If no one clicks on ads, on the recommendations that you give, then no one will buy ads. The cost of advertising is now quite low. Therefore, the method is already less promising in terms of earnings: advertising is getting cheaper, efficiency is falling, there are too many ads, and it’s hard to keep the attention of the audience.
But this does not negate the fact that there is still a huge amount of advertising being bought from bloggers, including bloggers with a small audience. It all depends on the quality of the audience - how expensive, valuable and how active it is. The better the performance, the more money you can earn.
2. Brand Ambassador
If in the first case it was about the constant placement of various advertisements, then the ambassador is a person who promotes the brand on an ongoing basis. You can be an ambassador for one or more brands.
It's great when a long-term contract is concluded with you. You become a brand ambassador and receive either goods or money.
3. Selling other people's goods
You can also sell something, open a store or offer something to your audience as a blogger. Efficiency depends on how well you know how to search for interesting products, how competently you know how to present the product so that people really pay for it.
4. Selling your products
The fourth way is to sell products that you make yourself. This is beneficial, because most often hand-made goods are more expensive, they are less costly, and you earn more.
5. Selling merch
Now it is very fashionable to create collections of T-shirts, sweatshirts, accessories, mugs, bags. And this is done not only by celebrities, but also by designers, authors, just people who know how to do interesting things.
6. Dropshipping
Dropshipping - when we do not buy anything, but resell. There is an online store, a platform that sells many, many different products. A person clicks on your link, buys - you get a commission.
You do not need to deal with shipping, logistics, or any other things that classic online stores do. Your task is only traffic.
7. Counseling
You can advise people on how to get a tax deduction or how to set up a service, etc. Here you are not selling some physical product, but selling your knowledge in the format of consultations.
8. Selling your product (course)
You can make your own product: record a video version or an audio version. It can be an audiobook or a regular book. You take your knowledge, make a product that suits many.
9. Selling a digital product
Courses are a set of knowledge and skills. And digital products are, for example, an image you created, stock photos, templates, Lightroom presets. From photography, design, a finished logo to a finished website template and so on.
10. Selling services
Through Instagram* you can attract clients to your services. For example, in the format of monthly payments - monthly accounting services or SMM promotion.
11. Creation of a startup
You can create a startup. And use social media to promote it. Not everyone will succeed, but you can earn millions of dollars.
12. Earnings on the public
You can create a public and earn money by posting any information or advertising. The principle is the same. Create a thematic public, attract an audience there - and earn money either by posting content or by placing ads.
13. Affiliate programs
Affiliate programs are a separate way to make money in social networks. Affiliate programs are a bit like dropshipping, selling goods. But here most often we are talking about some kind of service. These can be banking products: deposits, loans, insurance. There are also many affiliate programs in HR, when, for example, you recommend a person, he fills out a resume, he is hired - you are paid a bonus for this.
14. Personal assistant
Instagram often requires personal assistants. The tasks here are different.
