Charli Prangley.
Charli Prangley
Influencers get paid a number of ways, from sponsorships to ad revenue.
How much creators earn depends on factors like following size, engagement, and content category.
We spoke with dozens of influencers who shared how much money they’d earned on social media.
Influencers earn money a number of ways, from sponsorships to selling merchandise.
How much money different creators make depends on a variety of factors, from content category to what platform the influencer is prominent on.
For Jehava Brown, a stay-at-home mom who runs a full-time influencer business, her monthly income comes from working with brands like Walmart, Amazon, and Disney on paid partnerships.
Brown has 196,000 followers on Instagram. She told Insider that she charges an average $5,000 for a single Instagram post and $3,000 for an Instagram Story.
Nuseir Yassin, who runs the YouTube channel Nas Daily with 10 million subscribers, earns money each month from platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat.
In August, Yassin told Insider that Facebook was his highest-paying platform, with most of that revenue coming from ads. Halfway into 2022, the Nas Daily account has earned approximately $366,000 in ad revenue from Facebook, according to Nas Daily’s creator studio, which was viewed by Insider.
Insider has spoken with dozens of other influencers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok about how much each of them makes from videos, sponsorships, and other revenue streams.
Here’s a breakdown of our coverage:
Jehava Brown.
Jehava Brown
How much influencers earn from brand deals
Many influencers rely on sponsored content — from a set of Instagram posts and Stories to a dedicated YouTube video promoting a company — to earn money.
Rates for these types of brand deals vary based on an influencer’s engagement rate, platform, and other factors like usage rights.
Here’s a breakdown of our coverage of how much influencers make for brand deals and sponsorships.
Many sponsorship opportunities come from the brand emailing the influencer or their management company directly.
Creators on YouTube promote brands a few different ways, from an entire video dedicated to speaking about the company or product to a 30-second mention. The length of the mention can play a role in how much the creator charges, some influencers said.
Here’s how much 4 YouTubers make from brand deals:
Katy Bellotte, a YouTube creator with 474,000 subscribersJade Darmawangsa, a YouTube creator with 382,000 subscribersCharlie Chang, a finance influencer with 350,000 subscribers Charli Prangley, a part-time design influencer with 200,000 subscribers
Instagram has launched more than 10 money-making tools for creators since 2020. Aside from being paid directly from the platform, one of the main ways many influencers earn money on Instagram is by promoting brands through sponsored in-feed posts, Stories and Reels.
Here’s how much 21 Instagram influencers make from brand deals:
Alexa Collins, a lifestyle influencer with 1.2 million followersJaLisa Vaughn-Jefferson, a lifestyle influencer with 291,000 followersMacy Mariano, a travel and fashion influencer with 102,000 followersJehava Brown, a travel and lifestyle influencer with 70,000 followersNick Cutsumpas, a plant influencer with 63,700 followersEmma Cortes, a full-time lifestyle and fashion micro influencer with 47,000 followersAshley Jones, a fashion and lifestyle influencer with 45,000 followersKirsty Ip, a food influencer with 42,000 Instagram followersTomi Obebe, a lifestyle blogger and influencer with 40,000 followersEmma Cortes, a lifestyle influencer and podcast host with 38,000 followersAisha Beau Frisbey, a full-time lifestyle creator with 34,000 Instagram followers Britney Turner, a lifestyle influencer with 27,000 followersCaitlin Patton, a lifestyle influencer with 22,000 followersMary Margaret Boudreaux, a fashion influencer with 20,000 followersLillian Zhang, micro influencer with 20,000 followersGigi Kovach, a part-time lifestyle blogger with 13,500 followersTyler Chanel, a sustainability influencer with 12,000 followersJalyn Baiden, an Instagram and TikTok nano influencer with fewer than 10,000 followersKhadijah Lacey-Taylor, a fashion and lifestyle influencer with 9,800 followersLaur DeMartino, a nano influencer with 5,200 Instagram followersAmber Broder, a part-time skincare influencer with 2,300 followers
Many brands have increased their spending on TikTok, but it has been hard for some influencers native to the platform to build a stable business.
Although the app’s short video format has taken over social media, some creators say they are struggling to form a lasting bond with fans and scale their businesses. Still, brand deals have provided lucrative revenue stream for many TikTok creators.
Here’s how much 20 TikTokers make from brand deals:
Alex Ojeda, a water park influencer with 8 million followers The McFarlands, a family TikTok account with 2.6 million followersDana Hasson, a fashion influencer with 2.3 million followersTiffany Chen, a food influencer with 2.3 million followersNate White, a fashion designer with 1.8 million followersYoung Yuh, a skincare influencer with 1.6 million followersHarry Raftus, a Canadian creator with 1.2 million followersVi Luong, a creator who films how-to videos with 1.1 million followersDeanna Giulietti, a content creator with over 1 million TikTok followersThe HoneyHouse, a creator collab group with 1 million followersMatt Upham, a software engineer with 522,000 followersNaomi Melanie Leanage, a TikTok influencer with 506,000 followers Tejas Hullur, a content creator and entrepreneur with 500,000 followersCarolina Freixa, a part-time creator with 447,000 followersRahan Alemi, a model and student with 385,000 followersSymphony Clarke, a thrifting creator with 208,000 followersNatasha Greene, a lifestyle and food influencer with 204,000 followersErin Confortini, a personal finance influencer with 180,000 followersManasi Arya, a Gen-Z artist with 40,100 followersPooja Tripathi, an actress, writer, and comedian with 33,500 followers
How much influencers earn from affiliate links
Some influencers use platforms like LiketoKnow.it and ShopStyle to generate affiliate links, or discount codes provided by brands, to earn a percentage of sales. (Read more about the top 9 affiliate platforms for influencers.)
Read more about how much influencers make from affiliates:
Kara Harms, a blogger and influencer based in San Francisco, shared how she is making over $200,000 a year bloggingBethany Everett-Ratcliffe has over 16,000 Instagram followers and she’s relied more on Instagram’s native affiliate marketing programVi Lai, a skincare influencer, uses Instagram and TikTok to make thousands of dollars per month using affiliate marketingYouTuber Charli Prangley broke down how much she had earned from affiliate marketing in 2021Charlie Chang promotes dozens of personal-finance apps and programs a month. He shared how much he earns.Rahan Alemi is a model and student who earned five figures in 2022 through social media
How much influencers make selling direct-to-consumer products and merch
Social-media stars are increasingly leveraging their presence online to create consumer products to sell directly to their followers.
Influencer-lead DTC brands first began popping up earnest in 2012, with companies like the fitness program, “EmFitChallenge”; the phone case company, Wildflower Cases; and the cold-press juice line, Suja.
Read more:
A micro influencer self-published a book and used Instagram to drive sales
How a personal-finance influencer sold her budget spreadsheet on Etsy for passive income
How much influencers make reselling clothing
Resale apps like Poshmark, Depop, and Etsy have become lucrative small businesses for many creators, particularly on Instagram.
Read more:
How much influencers make promoting songs, especially on TikTok
One of the most popular ways to earn money as a TikToker is by promoting songs in videos. Music marketers and record labels regularly pay TikTok users to post on the app in an attempt to make a new track go viral.
Read more about how TikTok creators make money from song promotions:
How much TikTok creators get paid to promote songs on the app by music marketers and record labelsWhy TikTok music marketers are increasingly hiring micro influencers over superstarsHow much TikTok influencers can earn from song promotions, according to 2 music marketersHow much creator Harry Raftus with 1.2 million followers earns money by promoting songs
Tomi Obebe.
Tomi Obebe
How influencers make money directly from Instagram
Getting tips via Instagram Badges
In 2020, Instagram announced “Badges,” which allows fans to tip creators who livestream on the app. Instagram also started paying some creators who use Badges with “Bonuses” in June 2021, but the program came to an end later that year.
Read more:
How Ronne Brown, an entrepreneur and content creator with over 200,000 followers, earns money through Instagram BadgesHow much money Instagram paid a creator who got 7.7 million views on ReelsGraham Stephan.
Graham Stephan
How influencers make money directly from YouTube
Many YouTube creators earn money off the ads that play in their videos and receive a monthly payout.
Creators who are part of the Partner Program can monetize their videos with Google-placed ads. Creators must have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year to apply for the Partner Program. Google then pays creators 55% of the revenue their channels earn from the ads that run on them.
Here’s a breakdown of how much money YouTubers make in a month from the Partner Program:
Nuseir Yassin, founder and creator behind Nas Daily, with 9 million subscribersAli Abdaal, a British YouTuber with 3.6 million subscribersTiffany Ma, a lifestyle creator with 1.8 million subscribersAndrei Jikh, a personal-finance creator who has 1.7 million subscribers.Nate O’Brien, a personal-finance creator with 1 million subscribersManny Ortiz, a full-time photography YouTuber with 600,000 subscribersKelly Stamps, a minimalism-lifestyle creator with 600,000 subscribersCharlie Chang, a personal-finance creator with 350,000 subscribersJoshua Mayo, a personal finance influencer with 269,000 subscribersCharli Prangley, a web and graphic design creator with 200,000 subscribersErin Winters, a business creator with 200,000 subscribers SemideCoco, an ASMR creator with 150,000 subscribersLevi Hildebrand, a zero-waste creator with 125,000 subscribersSarah Lavender, an ASMR YouTuber with over 100,000 subscribersChloe Tan, a college life creator with 80,000 subscribersMarissa Lyda, personal-finance creator with 50,000 subscribersMacy Schmidt, a lifestyle influencer with 50,000 subscribersNay Cook-Nelson, a YouTube Shorts creator, with 40,000 subscribersErica Boucher, a creator with a DIY candle making channel with 31,000 subscribersAisha Beau Frisbey, a full-time lifestyle creator with 30,000 YouTube subscribersReni Odetoyinbo, a personal finance influencer with 19,300 subscribersJake Tilk, a full-time YouTuber with 18,000 subscribersMeghan Pruitt, a college influencer with 6,800 subscribersJen Lauren, a part-time lifestyle influencer with 5,200
YouTube’s central creator monetization metric is called revenue per mille (RPM). That rate shows how much revenue a creator earns per every 1,000 video views (after YouTube’s 45% cut). No creator consistently makes the same rate, which depends on factors like the viewers and advertisers the video attracts.
Here’s a breakdown of how much money some YouTubers have made for 1,000 views (RPM), for 100,000 views, 1 million views, and the most they’ve made from a single video:
How much money YouTubers make for 1 million viewsHow much money YouTubers make for 100,000 viewsHow much money YouTubers make per 1,000 views (RPM)How much money YouTubers make on a single videoSymphony Clarke.
Symphony Clarke
How influencers make money directly from TikTok
To earn money directly from TikTok, users must be 18 years or older, meet a baseline of 10,000 followers, and have accrued at least 100,000 video views in the last 30 days. Once they reach that threshold, they can apply for TikTok’s Creator Fund through the app.
Read more about how much TikTok creators make from the Creator Fund:
TikTok influencers reveal how much they’re getting paid from its $1 billion Creator FundPreston Seo, a personal-finance and entrepreneurship TikToker with 1.6 million followersVi Luong, and how-to and lifestyle TikToker with more than 1 million followersVictoria Paris, a fashion and lifestyle influencer with 1 million followersRahan Alemi, a model and student with 385,000 followersManasi Arya, a Gen-Z artist with 40,100 followers