Influencers explain the 9 best ways to make money on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok — and how much they earn

Brand partnerships are the best known way that influencers make money. Whether it's a tagged post on Instagram or a shout-out on YouTube, brands pay for exposure with the hope of driving sales back to their products.

How much money an influencer makes this way depends on their audience size, engagement, and where the paid content lives.

YouTube 

On YouTube, brand sponsorships vary in format. Some creators do quick brand shout-outs that are integrated into the content. Alexa Hollander, a fashion and thrifting YouTube creator with 231,000 subscribers, charges between $1,000 and $4,000 per sponsorship.

Others work with brands on sponsorship packages that could include an in-feed post and Story on Instagram in addition to a 30-second to 60-second mention in a YouTube video.

Instagram 

Within the app, influencers can create sponsored content for brands in a few ways:

1. In-feed posts (image or carousel post)
2. Instagram Stories
3. Instagram Reels
4. IGTV

Katy Bellotte, a YouTube creator and Instagram influencer with over 176,000 followers, said she charges $2,400 and $5,000 for a sponsored Instagram post and $500 per frame for an Instagram Story.

Influencers with fewer than 100,000 followers (referred to as "micro" and "nano" influencers) can also earn money through brand sponsorships.

Ashley Jones, a micro influencer on Instagram with 45,000 followers, sets her starting rates for brand sponsorships at $100 for a Story post and $300 for an in-feed post. 

Nano influencer Amber Broder shares skincare product reviews on Instagram and has just over 2,300 followers. In March, she landed her first paid sponsorship and now sets her starting rates for in-feed posts at $100 to $120.

Several creators told Business Insider that recently introduced Reels expand their content packages; many anticipate that more brands will use it over time. They often charge higher rates for Reels than a Story or in-feed post since Reels are time-consuming to make and reach a big audience. 

TikTok 

TikTok creator Cosette Rinab, with over 2 million followers, told Business Insider in January that she earns most of her revenue through sponsored posts. 

She's worked on sponsorships with brands like Bumble, Hollister, and Universal, and creators can also land similar deals by working with management firms, like Whalar Stars and Amp Studios.

Brands often use "hashtag challenges" on TikTok and hire influencers to take part in a trend. Other sponsorships include subliminal product placement or content campaigns, such as Addison Rae's American Eagle sponsorship. 

Creators don't need millions of followers to earn money through brand sponsorships on TikTok, however.

Lindy Goodson is a micro influencer on TikTok with over 78,000 followers and started working with brands on sponsored content this year. She typically charges brands $150 to $250 for a sponsored TikTok video. 

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App marketing is a form of performance marketing where an influencer or publisher encourages their followers to click a link that lets them get paid for each app install they drive.

"There's not really a limit on how much you can earn," Ercan Boyraz, head of talent management at the app-marketing company Yoke, told Business Insider in July. 

App marketing isn't always directly attributable through a link. Sometimes an influencer will just be paid to mention an app, as was the case when Addison Rae Easterling was hired by Teatime Games to promote its new app, Trivia Royale.

"We had no way to attribute how many users came exactly from these influencers," said Thor Fridriksson, CEO of Teatime Games. "But we know that when they posted the posts, the number of organic [installs] skyrocketed and kept going."

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Influencers use livestreaming as a way to engage with audiences – some TikTokkers even stream to their fans while they sleep. The format surged in popularity during the pandemic, and tech companies have introducing new ways for creators to make money this way. 

"You're connecting with your fans, and it's the fastest way to get money," TikTok creator Salina (known as SalinaKilla with 1.7 million followers) said in December. "On average, I can earn up to $20 to $50 on livestreams. Sometimes I can get $100 or more within one live."

YouTube 

YouTube and TikTok offer similar platform-specific currencies for creators to make money this way. YouTube requires creators to be a member of its Partner Program. 

Instagram 

Influencers can earn money by going live if they pitch brands and promote a product or service during the stream. 

TikTok 

Creators can make money by filming themselves in real time and getting followers to send them virtual gifts sold for various amounts of "coins" (sold in packs starting at 100 for $0.99).

Read more on livestreaming:

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Some social media platforms have membership programs where creators can earn money from their content. 

YouTube and Instagram have partner programs that let creators monetize their videos with ads.

Recently, TikTok established a Creator Fund designed to compensate creators for posting on its app.

YouTube 

The Partner Program allows creators with over 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours to monetize their videos with ads.

What they earn on a YouTube video depends on a number of factors, from the place in the video where viewers normally drop off to the type of advertisers the video gets.

Instagram 

Instagram creators can earn money off IGTV videos. Creators get a 55 percent cut of the revenue from the ads Instagram inserts into their content, according to TechCrunch. 

TikTok 

TikTok said that its Creator Fund depends on a variety of factors, like the region where videos are viewed and engagement.

Victory Rhyder, a TikToker with about 70,000 followers, earned an average of $2.89 per day through the Creator Fund from August 18-22, amounting to roughly $0.04 for every 1,000 video views generated in that period, according to screenshots of the creator's analytics dashboard viewed by Business Insider.

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Merch sales are a popular revenue stream for top creators and a main income source for some top creators whose content is considered risky by some advertisers. Merch sales can also offset declines in advertising due to the pandemic or other factors.

Users can sell products by linking to them on their TikTok profile page, YouTube description, or through a Story swipe-up on Instagram that will direct followers to buy, sometimes through companies like Fanjoy, Killer Merch, and Teespring.

TikTok star Addison Rae Easterling (61 million TikTok followers) sells her merchandise with ecommerce company Fanjoy, which handles merch sales for top creators like Jake Paul, David Dobrik, and Tana Mongeau.

Dobrik's custom merchandise from Fanjoy makes up the majority of his income, he told The Wall Street Journal. The company helps him design, develop, and distribute a new collection of sweatshirts, T-shirts, and other items about once a month.

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Affiliate marketing is a way that creators can earn money through a commission (typically between 1% and 20%) on sales from a trackable link or discount code. A number of factors play into the percentage.

The process is similar across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. As long as a creator can share an affiliate link or mention a discount code, they can earn money through commission.

Influencers can partner with brands by joining an affiliate program such as MagicLinks or Amazon, or becoming a brand ambassador. 

Kim Pratt, a skincare influencer who runs the YouTube channel "Natural Kaos," has 108,000 subscribers and is part of the Amazon Influencer Program. Every time someone makes a purchase through one of her links, she earns a commission of 4% t0 10%, she told Business Insider. In 2019, Pratt said, she earned over $24,000 in commissions this way.

Some creators treat affiliates as a more passive form of income. "Affiliates are so interesting because you won't see anything, and then all of a sudden you have $200 sent to your PayPal account," said Alexa Hollander.

For fashion and lifestyle influencers, a common program is the RewardStyle affiliate program and its LiketoKnow.it app that allows creators to repost their Instagram or TikTok and tag products that their followers can purchase. 

Brand ambassador programs offer a similar affiliate model, such as Revolve, an e-commerce fashion retailer. The brand provides its ambassadors with gifted clothing and Revolve product links that influencers can share on social media to earn commission.

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Julia Engel, who goes by Gal Meets Glam online, turned her readers into customers in 2018 with a dress collection that releases limited products every few months. 

Since launching, her collection has made $35 million in revenue, she told Business Insider in October.

Aside from clothing, perfume launches — which have been a staple among celebrities and performers like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande — have also been a popular with influencers like Tana Mongeau and twin-influencers Ethan and Grayson Dolan. 

Like with branded merchandise, creators can link to their collections via their TikTok profile page, YouTube description, or Story swipe-up on Instagram.

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Creators have used their audiences and content to drive sales to third-party storefronts such as Etsy, Depop, and Poshmark.

Emma Rogue, 24, has a TikTok with over 264,000 followers and posts about her Depop thrift shop. When one of her videos went viral in May, her sales skyrocketed. She's since doubled her average sales to $7,000 to $8,000 each month, she told Business Insider. Depop takes a 10% cut of sales on the app.

Jack Ermisch, 21, runs an Instagram and YouTube under the name Flipped Thrift. He buys and resells clothing on Poshmark, another resale app, in addition to selling through his Instagram page. He makes about $1,000 per week in sales.

"It's given me a lot more returning customers," Ermisch told Business Insider. "There are people that specifically buy from me and my boyfriend just because they like our videos and they like our pictures."

Other creators like Alexa Hollander link their resale storefronts in their video descriptions. Hollander includes her Poshmark, but said she mostly uses it for passive income and to sell items she no longer wears. 

Graphic artist and animator Annie Morcos said TikTok started boosting her sales on Etsy after one of her videos attracted 3 million likes and 18 million views in January and added her Etsy shop to her TikTok bio. Within two months this past spring, she earned close to $4,000 in sales on Etsy. Before joining TikTok, the most she made in a month was $500.

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Music marketing provides a steady source of revenue for some creators. Artists, record labels, and music marketers pay creators to integrate songs into videos on apps like TikTok and in Instagram posts, including the app's new short-form video feature Reels. 

TikTok

TikTok has become a major promotional tool for the music industry.

Artists, record labels, creators, and marketers are all heavily engaged with the app, which has helped songs get massive exposure and eventually chart on the Billboard 100 and Spotify Viral 50. 

Ariell Nicholas Yahid, a talent manager at the TikTok-focused talent-management upstart the Fuel Injector, told Business Insider in July that his company would facilitate four to five paid song integrations a week for its TikTok creators.

"Every music label, every record label, they have a budget now for TikTok because it's becoming so huge," Yahid said. 

Instagram 

After finding success running song campaigns on TikTok, some influencers and marketers have been testing out Instagram's Reels, though the feature is still in its infancy.

"We're still in the process of onboarding a lot of our creators on TikTok or that I've worked with that are on Instagram," said Alicia Mathews, who manages influencer campaigns at the music-marketing agency Songfluencer. "We haven't given our Reels creators any sort of specific creative direction. We've kind of been having them create something, however they interpret it, with the song."

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