Have you ever tried reaching out to a brand on Instagram, only to get ghosted?

Or tried to promote your ebook on the platform, only to get zero sales?

Making money on Instagram can feel daunting at first. 

But if you look around you, you’ll find new creators popping up, going viral, and making a living off the platform every day. 

If they can do it, what’s stopping you from going for it? 

Perhaps it’s because you don’t know how? 

Well then… let’s change that. 

Today, I’m going over exactly how to make money on Instagram. 

I’ll show you the 3 critical steps to get started, as well as the 6 different ways you can monetize your account. 

How to Make Money on Instagram (Based on Helping Thousands of Students)

Step #1: Pick a Specific Group of People to Help

This is a principle you NEED to understand if you want to make money on Instagram:

You have to pick a very specific group of people to target.  

No matter how you plan to monetize, this is always the first step. 

Whether you want to target home cooks on a budget, ladies trying to improve their fashion, travelers who enjoy cruises, or couples who are raising young children, it doesn’t matter. 

All that matters is that you focus on a specific group of people. 

When you have a clear target audience:

• Creating content becomes easier (because you know exactly who it’s for)
• You get more loyal followers (because you don’t post things they’re not interested in)
• Monetizing becomes easier because you can sell or promote products that you know your followers are actually interested in. (Plus, brands with products aimed at your target audience will be eager to work with you.)

So if you already have an account, stop posting random posts and start targeting everything at your chosen audience.

And if you’re just getting started, even better! You can make the entire account hyper-focused on your people. 

But how do you choose which people to help? How do you pick a profitable niche?

Ideally, you’ll want a niche that:

• You know more than most people about the topic

You don’t need to be the best in the world. 

As long as you know more than the average person, that’s good enough. 

• People spend money on

For example, “entertainment” isn’t generally a great niche for monetizing. 

This is because people watch entertainment on Instagram to be entertained; they don’t necessarily buy anything from what they watch. 

However, a niche like makeup is very good for monetization. Makeup tutorials feature all kinds of products that people would love to get their hands on (which is why there are lots of highly-paid makeup creators). 

• You’re passionate about

This isn’t 100% necessary, but being passionate about your niche is a huge help. 

You’ll naturally be excited when talking about your niche, and people will be able to tell. Passion has a way of drawing people in that pure knowledge simply cannot. 

It’s also more fulfilling to build something based on something you love. 

And if things get tough?

You’ll have so much more energy to keep going and working through the challenges (rather than giving up if it doesn’t make you the money you want right away). 

Step #2: Pick a Monetization Method

There are 6 main ways to make money on Instagram, all with different pros, cons, and ways to get started. 

Not sure which one to pick? 

Let’s go over each of them one by one. 

Note: you don’t have to pick only one of these. You can mix and match strategies for more earning potential. 

1: Sponsored Content

• Pros: Relatively easy to start
• Cons: Can push followers away (if done incorrectly)
• Best For: People who want to make their first money on Instagram

Sponsored content is when you strike a deal with a brand for specific deliverables. This can be 1 post, or a combination like 3 reels, 1 carousel, and 5 stories. 

This is arguably the easiest way to earn your first money on Instagram because it’s low-stakes for the sponsoring company, and doesn’t require too much effort on your part. 

However, keep in mind that not every brand will be willing to pay for a sponsored post. If you don’t have a lot of followers yet, most brands will offer you freebies in exchange for posts (rather than payment). 

This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s important to know how much you can charge for a sponsored post depending on your follower count. 

Here’s a quick chart (note: there’s a LOT more that goes into this, so I highly recommend checking out my full guide on how much to charge for sponsored content: 

0 – 1,000 followers (Pre-Nano): In-feed posts run $25-$100 or gifted product. Reels go for $50-$150. Stories typically get gifted product or $20-$75.

1,001 – 10,000 followers (Nano): In-feed posts range from $100-$500. Reels command $150-$750. Stories bring in $75-$250.

10,001 – 25,000 followers (Micro): In-feed posts earn $500-$1,200. Reels get $750-$1,800. Stories pull $250-$600.

25,001 – 50,000 followers (Micro): In-feed posts range from $1,200-$2,000. Reels earn $1,800-$3,000. Stories bring in $600-$1,000.

50,001 – 100,000 followers (Micro): In-feed posts command $2,000-$3,500. Reels get $3,000-$5,000. Stories earn $1,000-$1,750.

100,001 – 150,000 followers (Mid-Tier): In-feed posts range from $3,500-$5,000. Reels pull $5,000-$7,500. Stories bring in $1,750-$2,500.

150,001 – 200,000 followers (Mid-Tier): In-feed posts earn $5,000-$7,000. Reels command $7,500-$10,000. Stories get $2,500-$3,500.

200,001 – 300,000 followers (Mid-Tier): In-feed posts range from $7,000-$10,000. Reels earn $10,000-$15,000. Stories pull $3,500-$5,000.

300,001+ followers (Macro/Mega): In-feed posts start at $10,000 and can reach $100,000+. Reels range from $15,000-$200,000+. Stories command $5,000-$50,000+.

Finally, many brands are actively looking for creators to work with on a short-term basis. So even if you aren’t good at reaching out to brands yet, they might be the ones to reach out to you. 

However, the main downside of this strategy is that if you accept sponsors that aren’t aligned with your audience’s interests, your posts could push them away. 

Also, if you strike a deal with tons of deliverables (like 10 reels focused on the brand), it can come off as sleazy, and you might lose followers. 

So use this monetization technique carefully. Make sure to mix in sponsored posts strategically with your regular posts. And try to do these sponsored posts in ways your followers will enjoy. 

You can read more about how to get sponsored in my full guide here. 

But one last thing…

If you do a sponsored post well, it can pave the way for this next monetization technique: 

2: Brand Deals

• Pros: Long-term way to earn money, high earning potential
• Cons: Requires negotiation
• Best For: Creators who have a loyal following

The terms “brand deals” and “sponsored content” are often used interchangeably. 

But while sponsored content is a more short-term deal, a brand deal is a long-term partnership that may include:

• Exclusivity – not taking deals from your brand partner’s competition
• Usage rights – the brand has the right to reuse your content
• Long-term ambassadorship – you’re a brand ambassador, meaning you represent the brand even in content that’s not directly paid for. You can even represent the brand offline.

Brand deals are also long-term. Contracts usually run for months (or even years) at a time. 

As expected, these are more difficult to score than sponsored posts. 

Like sponsored posts, there’s no magical follower-count that unlocks brand deals (it’s much more important to build a loyal follower base of people interested in the same thing). 

However, since this is a long-term partnership, proving that you can grow an account will help with your negotiations. You may want to show potential brand partners how quickly you’re growing your account (and how much engagement your posts are getting). 

Because of this, you may struggle to land a deal with less than 1,000 followers (still possible, but difficult). 

Another thing you can do is to start by asking for a sponsored post. 

Then, if your followers react well and buy the product, you can then pitch a long-term brand deal. 

Again, brand deals are much more about negotiation. Show why you are a good fit, and you could land yourself a great deal. 

This isn’t the easiest way to monetize, but it’s one of the highest-paying methods out there. So if you’d like to learn more about how it’s done, read my full guide here. 

3. Affiliate Marketing

• Pros: Very easy to start, no negotiation required
• Cons: Lower income potential
• Best For: People looking for the easiest way to make some income from Instagram

Affiliate marketing on Instagram is not as lucrative as traditional affiliate marketing. 

That said, it’s arguably the easiest to make some money on Instagram.

That’s because lots of brands already have affiliate programs (yes, even some of your favorite brands). All you need to do is sign up, start promoting the brand, and you’ll get commissions anytime someone buys using your special link. 

There’s usually little to no negotiation required. Affiliate programs just have their terms and requirements. As long as you stick to these, you’re essentially free to promote the product however you want. 

That said, affiliate marketing doesn’t usually give you the biggest payouts. You typically get 5 – 10% commission for physical products, while digital products average around 20 – 50%. 

A 10% commission on a $100 product is only $10 for you. So you’ll need a ton of your followers to click on your link and buy the product to make a significant amount of money. 

This could push you to heavily promote your affiliate link to the point where you overdo it. When that happens, people start unfollowing you, because they followed for your content (not for getting sales ads for a product that’s not even made by you). 

So strike a balance. 

Sprinkle in your links every once in a while, but never overdo it. 

Because done right, it can be a nice way to make some money from your account. Read more about how to do it properly here. 

4. Subscriptions

• Pros: Paid for your content, recurring income
• Cons: Requires a super loyal audience
• Best For: Accounts focusing on causes, challenges, or entertainment.

Instagram Subscriptions are one of the most fulfilling ways to earn on Instagram because people literally PAY you to make special content. 

Plus, Subscriptions are built into the platform already. You can turn on subscriptions for Instagram anytime you want, and you never have to work with any third-party tools. 

However, it’s also one of the most difficult methods to make a decent amount of money. 

You’re directly asking your followers to pay for more content, and you’ll now have to make both free content and premium content. 

Instagram is also a free platform, which can be. Nobody opens Instagram thinking that they’re going to spend money to see something. 

Finally, most creators only charge $1.99 – $9.99 for subscriptions. It’s a monthly subscription, so you’ll get recurring income. But you’ll still need a decent number of subscribers to make a healthy amount of money from this model. 

Given that most people go to Instagram for free content, this model works better for accounts focusing on:

• Causes – saving endangered animals, removing trash from the sea, feeding impoverished communities, etc. Your followers may want to contribute to your cause, and subscribing is an easy way to do this. 
• Challenges – making a perpetual stew, counting down 1356 days, not cutting your hair until Manchester United win 5 games in a row… these are all challenge accounts where followers can directly support the challenge by subscribing.
• Entertainment – comedians, skit makers, celebrities… These people can all charge for more entertainment or behind-the-scenes content. 

You can still go for subscribers if your account focuses on something else. However, you may struggle to find exclusive content ideas to share. 

But if you’re up for the challenge, then read my guide on getting subscriptions on Instagram. 

5. Selling Digital Products

• Pros: High earning potential, super fulfilling
• Cons: Challenging to create a good digital product
• Best For: Coaches, people with knowledge they want to share

Selling digital products is one of the best ways to make money on Instagram. 

If you know a lot about a topic your audience wants to learn more about, why not convert that knowledge into an online course, an ebook, or even swipe files or templates?

The secret to selling digital products is demonstrating your expertise in your content. So much so that your followers will want to learn more directly from you. 

Accomplish this, and people will gladly buy your product. 

The first challenge of digital products is actually creating the product. Making a course, writing an ebook, or designing templates is a completely different skillset from growing an Instagram account (unlike brand deals, where you’re essentially just posting content – something you’re already good at). 

The second (even bigger) challenge is getting people to buy your product. 

If you’ve already chosen a specific group of people to help, then you’re off to a great start. Now the next steps are to: 

1. Strategize – if you’re selling a high-ticket product ($3,000+), the strategy that works is giving away a freebie first, then getting people to book a call with you. If you’re selling a low-ticket product ($20 – $300), the key is to get sales on autopilot. 

2. Create – create content that showcases your expertise. The key to selling digital products is to become the authority in your niche, so that people want to learn more from you. When people see how knowledgeable you are, and how good you are at explaining things, they’ll be happy to buy your product. 

3. Explore a Chatbot – my secret technique for getting more sales and engagement. Get a ChatBot like ManyChat, so that when people comment a specific phrase, they’ll instantly get a DM with your course/product. Chatbots can also handle simple FAQs, so people get the answers they’re looking for right away.  

I strongly believe selling digital products is one of the best ways to make money on Instagram (in fact, that’s exactly how I make money). 

So if you’d like to learn my tried and tested ways to make this method work, check my full guide here. 

6. Selling Physical Products

• Pros: High earning potential, super fulfilling
• Cons: All the headaches of selling physical products (manufacturing, shipping, returns, refunds, customer complaints, etc.)
• Best For: Niches with plenty of accessories (makeup, fashion, babies, cooking, etc.)

You might think that you need an enormous following before you can sell a physical product. 

While that certainly helps, you can still sell even with 1,000 or fewer followers.

When selling physical products, it’s not so much about demonstrating your expertise (like with digital products); selling physical products is more of a show-don’t-tell strategy. 

Strategically place your product in your reels, show people how it’s used without hard selling, or show how nice/easy your life is with the product.

You can do a reel directly promoting the product once in a while. But focus your content on creating a sense of FOMO for not having the product. 

This is because people hate ads. 

If all you’re doing is showcasing your product and pushing people to buy like an infomercial, people aren’t going to follow you. 

You’ll also want to set up a chatbot. This way, if anyone sees your product and is interested, all they have to do is comment a keyword, and they’ll get a DM with a link to where they can buy it. 

If you’d like to learn more about the nuances of selling physical products, read this guide next. 

Step #3: Create Content For Your People

Once you’ve chosen your target audience and your monetization method, all that’s left to do is create content that’ll draw in your people. 

But how do you do this properly?

Because there are so many people out there who create a TON of content, but never make a single cent out of it. 

I have a complete guide on how to get more views on Instagram, but to start, you’ll want to find out what content they want to see. 

So go to Instagram search, type in a keyword related to your niche, and check out which videos are going viral. 

Take note of what hooks they use, the types of videos they make, the topics they focus on, and how they interact with the comments. Use these ideas for your own content as well to gain more followers. You may even find opportunities to make faceless content. 

Then, you’ll want to mix in a few posts talking about your product, your brand deal, affiliate product, or whatever monetization method you’ve chosen. 

The rule of thumb is that 70-80% of your posts should be purely value for your followers, while 20-30% should be direct “sales,” telling people to do the thing that’ll get you paid. 

This cadence lets people know that you have a product to sell, but it isn’t annoying or overdone. People will still enjoy the main content that they followed you for. 

For the most part, good content is good content no matter what monetization method you’ve chosen. 

However, there are some tiny differences in how to do content depending on your chosen method: 

• Sponsored Content – If you’re going for sponsored posts, positioning yourself as either an expert in your niche or someone who is extremely relatable is the way to go. Brands work with creators whom people either trust or relate to. 

• Brand Deals – Similar to sponsored content. However, you’ll need to build a solid reputation if you want long-term brand deals. Always post consistently, work on getting great engagement in your posts, and work on growing your follower count for better brand deal opportunities. 

• Affiliate Marketing – The most successful affiliate partnerships are the ones where you actually use the product you’re promoting. If you actually trust the brand, promoting them will come naturally to you. You can also be completely honest and much more lively, which is likely to draw more people to the product you’re promoting. 

• Subscriptions – Be interesting. Subscriptions work when people want more of you or your mission (more even than the free content you’re posting). Or, make sure the reward for subscribing is worth it (such as allowing people to help decide the content of your account). 

• Digital Products – Authority, authority, authority. Digital products are all about positioning yourself as the authority and making people want to learn from you. So give the best advice and tutorial on Instagram, show people you can help them solve their problems, and they’ll be eager to grab your digital products. 

• Physical Products – Soft sells and lifestyle. Showcase how amazing life is with your product. Create a sense of FOMO for people who don’t have it. Yes, you can hard sell once in a while. But too much hard selling comes off as salesy. So keep it soft, keep your content interesting for your audience, and sales should come. 

Frequently Asked Questions About Making Money on Instagram

Can you make money on Instagram?

Yes! Instagram is one of the preferred social media platforms for content creators to make money. 

This is because of how many people use Instagram, as well as how many brands are willing to spend on brand deals on Instagram. 

How many views do you need to get paid on Instagram?

Instagram doesn’t pay most people for views on Instagram. 

The Instagram Bonuses Program is an invite-only program where creators get a share of ad revenue. It’s not available for most people on Instagram. 

I highly recommend working on a different way to monetize your account, rather than growing it and hoping you’re invited by Instagram for the Bonuses Program. 

What’s the single best strategy to get paid on Instagram?

Selling digital products and brand deals are my top 2 ways to get paid on Instagram. 

They have extremely high earning potential and aren’t as difficult as other monetization methods. 

Anybody with expertise in a topic can start selling digital products, while people who have a big and engaged audience on Instagram are super attractive to brands. 

How do beginners get started making money on Instagram?

1. Pick a group of people to help
2. Choose a way to monetize
3. Grow your account by posting content your target audience loves

From there, it depends on your monetization technique. 

How many followers do you need to make money on Instagram?

There’s no magic number of followers to start making money. Making money on Instagram depends more on the quality of your followers rather than quantity. 

If you have 100 loyal followers who all share a specific interest, you can already sell them digital products, physical products, subscriptions, or get them to buy a product via your affiliate product. 

Sponsored posts and brand deals will be more difficult with a small follower base. But if you can prove your followers are their target customers (and show good engagement numbers), they may work with you despite the lower numbers. 

As a rule of thumb, you can start pitching to brands as early as 1,000 followers. 

Ready to Make Money on Instagram?

Instagram is still one of the top social media platforms to make money. It just takes a bit more than just views to start earning. 

But now that you know how to get started and the six best ways to monetize, what are you waiting for? 

Start targeting a specific audience, grow your account, get those sponsored posts (or start selling your product), and start earning from your hard work growing your account. 

Want to speed up the process? Well, there’s a ”secret” way to do that… AI. 

To learn how to use AI to get started, speed up the process, and make money from Instagram as quickly as possible, check out my AI Content Creator next.