How to make money on instagram with photos

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.

Shortcuts ✂️

How to make money on Instagram
How much do Instagram influencers make?
How many Instagram followers do you need to make money?
Getting paid on Instagram and beyond
Make money on Instagram FAQ

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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.

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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.

Ready to create your business? Start your free trial of Shopify—no credit card required.

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 by Selling Photos (2022)

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These days, everyone is on Instagram. But did you know that you can make money on Instagram?

As a photographer, you’re already creating products that can be sold. Instagram is a perfect place to showcase your portfolio.

Set Up Instagram Shopping to Sell Your Products in a Direct Way

The easiest way to make money on Instagram is by setting up an Instagram Shopping account. This way, you can integrate your product catalogue into your Instagram account.

There will be a shop tab available under your profile intro. People can click on it and reach your online shop without leaving Instagram.

You can also tag products on your photos the same way as you tag your friends. When you do this, a small shopping bag icon is added to your photo.

When someone taps the image, they can see the products description and price. Users can also tap on the products label to go the product’s sales page.

You can tag up to five products per photo. You are also able to promote your products via Instagram stories.

Sounds amazing, right? So what do you need to do to set up Instagram Shopping? First, you have to make sure you are eligible for it.

You also have to switch to a Instagram Business account and connect it to a Facebook Page. Then, you have to connect your Instagram profile to a Facebook catalogue.

Here you can read all the criteria and the step-by-step process to set up your Instagram shop.

Use Instagram to Sell and Promote Prints

The most direct and simple way to sell prints is to create an Instagram post that tells your audience about your offer. You can create a graphic with a free tool like Canva. If you want to sell a particular photo, you can also use that image to promote your work in the Story section.

Under your picture’s caption, let your followers know that you’re selling prints. Be sure to include sizes available and a price for each size.

To keep things simple, you can ask them to comment on the photo that they want. Or they can DM you with the size they want to buy. To invoice, you can use Paypal.

Link Your Instagram Account to a Sales Website

If you’re ready to take it up a notch or if you want to make the print shop a bit more official, there a simple way to do so. First, you’ll need to set up a separate site to house your e-commerce.

You can use free sites such as Wix and WordPress, or you can invest in a paid site like Squarespace. Either way, you will have a place to direct people to for shopping.

Be sure to add the site’s link into your bio. Then create posts that tell people to go to the link in profile for your shop or website.

Buying products directly on social media is getting more and more common today. Instagram also has a shopping feature that allows you to tag products that are linked directly to your shop listing.

For best results, build up a following base for your Instagram account first. That way, you have an engaged audience when you start offering items for sale.

Offer Unique Instagram Photos as Stock Images

Besides selling prints, you can also offer digital photos for stock use. Loads of businesses need images for their marketing. They often seek out photos from big stock photography sites like Shutterstock.

So why not offer them another avenue for unique photography? You can sell photos individually or in themed bundles.

For individual photos, pick images that are bold and unique. For bundles, think of general themes that are popular and can serve different needs.

Like with prints, you can offer the photos from a post. Or you can set up an e-commerce site that people can be linked to for shopping.

Use Sponsored Posts and Affiliate Links to Boost Your Income

If you’ve gained a lot of Instagram followers, there can be opportunities for affiliate or sponsored posts! These are posts that you create in your voice to advertise a product or service.

When it’s an affiliate post, it leads viewers to an affiliate link. If they make a purchase, this will give you a percentage commission and you make money in a simple way. It’s easy and quick to set up affiliate accounts for most products found online.

Once you have a product or company in mind, Google their name and “affiliate”. You’ll be able to find information on what affiliate program they work with.

When a company pays you to create a post for their product, it’s called a sponsored post. Below you’ll see a sponsored post from Jenna Kutcher. She has a very large following and uses sponsored posts as a regular part of her monthly income.

Affiliate accounts can be created by anyone for free and are dependent on your driving sales and traffic. But a sponsored post relies on having a relationship with the sponsor company.

Once you have a large following, think of what brands or products you enjoy. Make sure they also fit in well with your brand.

Then you’ll want to reach out to that company, create a genuine relationship, and pitch yourself for sponsorship. Having a large, engaged audience will be crucial to getting sponsored. But it also needs to be a good match between your brand and theirs!

There is nothing worse than someone sharing all different kinds of sponsored posts without any consistency. People will know when you share something only to make money, and you can lose followers in no time.

For example, as a photographer, you wouldn’t be doing sponsored ads for cleaning products. But you would do sponsored ads for photography-related products such as camera bags.

To maintain authenticity with your audience, be fully transparent about any sponsored ads. Include Instagram hashtags such as #ad or #sponsored.

Conclusion

Instagram is a fun and addictive social media platform. But you can also use Instagram as a marketing tool for extra money.

As a photographer, you are already creating visual content regularly. Why not use that content as another income stream?

Through prints, digital products, and partnerships, an Instagram account can open doors you never imagined.

Check out our post on how to sell photos on Etsy next!

You can boost your social media skills with our ebook – Social Media Strategies!

6 ways to make money on Instagram posting photos

Table of contents:

1 Is it possible to make money on Instagram posting photos?
2 ways, how to receive money for photos on Instagram
- 2.1 photos of photographs
- 2.2 Content for other people
- 2.3 Sale of services
3 alternative methods of earnings on Instagram
- 3.1 Advertising
- 3.3 Selling training courses
4 Questions from our readers

Who knew that the people we laughed at in 2008 would be in such high demand today? Everyone remembers this boom, when half of the creative graduates rushed to enter the photographers and video editors. Do you remember how they laughed and said: “Well, where will you work? Filming weddings? Today, the picture has changed dramatically, specialists in this area have many opportunities to earn money via the Internet. Instagram has become one of the tools that opened the curtain on the world of photography. Let's talk about how to make money on Instagram by posting photos.

Is it possible to make money on Instagram posting photos?

There are many ways to make money in social networks: from completing penny tasks to entire online stores that operate exclusively on communication services. Such sites come in different directions: on VKontakte, for example, this is text, and on Instagram - photos and videos. Therefore, the question "How to make money on Instagram in the photo?" quite logical. The answer will please you: of course you can. And in what ways to do this, let's talk further.

Ways to get paid for photos on Instagram

Running Instagram itself consists of posting photos. But what are the specific ways? First of all, we will consider direct ways to earn money, and then indirect ones.

Photos for sale

The most obvious. You can make an entire portfolio by posting your own work. Place a watermark, name a price, and build your promotion to attract customers. Moreover, you must be aware of the latest news and be zealous about your work. Otherwise, the story will repeat itself with artists who simply steal other people's work and earn on them.

Creating content for other people

Instagram has a very high demand for quality images. Therefore, people who make cool content will not sell. Provided that they are promoted or collaborate with someone.

Sale of services

Photo shoots are now also in vogue. People want to put good pictures on the Internet. There are also retrogrades that collect real paper photo albums, in which you can’t invest anything.

Alternative ways to make money on Instagram for photographers

It cannot be that the income consists only in the ways already listed. Cunning and enterprise: these traits are common to all nations. And in terms of making money on Insta, people were able to find other ways.

Advertising

Collaboration with brands can provide you with a decent income. If you have a large and active audience, then advertising posts will sell like hot cakes. In general, good pictures are the key to success in a social network.

Partner programs

This is perhaps the most universal way to generate income. Good content will draw attention to the words that you have placed under it. And there may be an affiliate link, by clicking on which users will bring you some money.

Sales of training courses

Education courses are doing very well on Instagram. The typical Instagram user isn't just a TP who exclusively photographs food. One of the trends is self-education and obtaining skills for additional or even other basic income. Photography courses are a great option in this regard.

How to make money on Instagram posting photos? This is a fairly general question, because all the activity on this site is precisely this. So, when a blogger takes pictures of himself in the gym on his phone and advertises Nike, this is also income from uploading photos. In this article, we talked about how a photographer can realize himself in this social network.

Questions from our readers

#1. Can you make money by uploading other people's photos to Instagram?

You can, but it's illegal and your account can be blocked at any time.

#2. Are there orders for photos on Instagram?

Yes, these are mainly online stores that need high-quality photos of their goods. But to find such an order is quite difficult.

#3. I photograph various landscapes, architectural structures, etc. How do I sell photos for Instagram?

You can sell such photos not only for Instagram, register on photo stocks, and put your work up for sale there.

If you still have questions, ask them in the comments. Also watch videos on the topic.

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How to make money on photos on Instagram?

Profit and profit are sometimes much closer than it seems. You may be surprised - but on Instagram you can even make money on a photo of a cat basking on the window or playing with a bow.

Interested? Let's understand in more detail.

How does it even work?

In fact, today the age of information technology erases the boundaries and distances between the employer and the worker. We just register through our insta account on the page of the exchange site, mark which specific images we want to sell - and it's done, and the profit is in your pocket.

To do this, you need to take a number of simple steps:

We are looking for a client through popular exchanges or on our own;
We agree on a price;
We make a beautiful high-quality photo that completely suits the client, and we give the work back;
Profit - we get money.

In addition, you can use a number of services - this will be an easier way to make money on photos on Instagram. Let's take a closer look at a few sites.

Foap service

The developers boldly call themselves the "next wave of stock photos".

To get started, you need to register on the site, create a profile and fill out a portfolio with those photos that you would like to sell. One sold image gives you $5.

A big plus : you can sell the same photo as many times as you want, no one will require you to remove it after the first sale.

Free Instagram Follower Analysis

By the way, try doing a free analysis of your Instagram followers through InstaHero. You will find out the quality of your account, how many bots and garbage you have, and you can also remove everything. Removing bots increases reach, engagement, and activity. Try for free.

Free subscriber analysis

500px

Digital community of photographers from all over the world, over 80 million images. A great platform to showcase and license your photos.

To better sell on this site, try:

Use at least four keywords for each image. In one of the previous articles, we just considered how to do hashtags on Instagram;
Look for unusual themes for photos, be original;
Upload unique photos to the service that have not been published anywhere before.

Snapwire

The photo selling service offers an interesting rating system: the more often you upload high-quality and unique images to the site, the more points the system gives you. The amount of earnings in the sale depends on the number of points.