There are two ways to make money on Instagram. Instagram pays you, or you use Instagram to sell something.
The first one gets the headlines.
The second one is where most creators actually earn, and you don’t need a huge following for it.
By 2020 I’d worked with more than 3,000 Instagram accounts and grown my own, @gettinggrowth, to nearly 40,000 followers, and how to make money on Instagram was one of the questions I got most.
Below are the seven answers I’d give today, what each one needs, and the order I’d build them in.
Key takeaways
- Instagram’s own payouts (subscriptions, gifts, bonuses) have follower thresholds and country limits, and Instagram decides who gets them.
- Brand deals and affiliate links have no follower minimum. A small audience that trusts you can earn more than a big one that doesn’t.
- Your own newsletter, course or community is the income Instagram can’t take away. Move followers to an email list early.
- DM automation turns comments into conversations, sign-ups and sales without you answering every message by hand.
What you need before you can earn
None of the seven ways works on an account people follow by accident. Before you think about money, get four things right.
- A professional account. Switch to a creator or business account (Settings, Account type and tools). You get insights, the Professional Dashboard, and access to Instagram’s monetization tools.
- A clear promise. People follow accounts that are about one thing for one kind of person. “Easy dinners for parents who work full time” earns; “my life” rarely does.
- A profile that converts. Your bio says who you help and with what, and your link goes to one page with one next step, ideally your newsletter sign-up. Here’s how to write the bio.
- Trust. You can’t make people care about what you sell before they care about you. Be useful to them for a while. The offers come later.
If you’re still building that audience, start with growing on Instagram and come back.
7 ways to make money on Instagram, compared
| Way | Followers needed | Who pays you | You control it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instagram subscriptions, gifts, bonuses | 10,000 for subscriptions, 500 for gifts | Your followers, through Instagram | No |
| Brand deals | No minimum | Brands | Partly |
| Affiliate links | No minimum | The companies you recommend | Partly |
| A newsletter | No minimum | Sponsors, paid subscribers | Yes |
| Courses and digital products | No minimum | Your buyers | Yes |
| A paid community | No minimum | Your members | Yes |
| Coaching and services | No minimum | Your clients | Yes |
1. Get paid by Instagram: subscriptions, gifts and bonuses
Instagram has a few ways to pay creators directly. Your Professional Dashboard shows which ones your account qualifies for, and the rules are on Instagram’s Creators site (opens in new tab) and in the Instagram Help Center (opens in new tab).
- Subscriptions. Followers pay you a monthly fee for subscriber-only Reels, Stories, Lives and chats. You need a professional account with at least 10,000 followers, you have to be 18 or older, and you have to live in a country where Subscriptions are available (Help Center (opens in new tab), checked October 2026).
- Gifts. Viewers buy Stars and send them to you as gifts on your Reels. Instagram pays you $0.01 for every Star, once a month. You need a professional account with at least 500 followers, a payout account, and to be 18 or older (Help Center (opens in new tab), checked October 2026).
- Bonuses. Instagram has at times paid creators extra for Reels that perform well. These programs are invite-only and come and go.
These rules change often
Instagram changes its thresholds, countries and payouts without much notice, and meeting the numbers doesn’t guarantee access.
Treat this income as a bonus, not a business: Instagram decides who gets it and how much.
2. Brand deals and sponsored posts
Brands pay creators to feature their products in posts, Reels and Stories. There’s no follower minimum.
Plenty of brands prefer a smaller account with a clear niche, because a recommendation from someone the audience trusts tends to sell.
People used to message me asking how to become an influencer. You don’t become one by deciding to.
Someone with one follower who helps you make a big life decision is an influencer; an account with 10,000 followers and mindless likes isn’t.
- Make yourself easy to find. Say what you post about and who follows you in your bio, and keep a one-page media kit with your audience, your best results and your prices.
- Pitch brands you already use. A short message about how you use their product, with an idea for a post, beats waiting to be found. Your very first deal can be free, for a testimonial and results to show the next brand.
- Trust your gut. If you’re unsure whether to take a brand’s money, it’s probably not a good deal.
- Label every paid post. Use Instagram’s “Paid partnership” label. It’s required under Meta’s branded content policies (opens in new tab) and the advertising laws in most countries.
The guide to becoming a micro-influencer goes deeper on pitching and pricing.
3. Affiliate links
With affiliate links you earn a commission when someone buys through your link. Most creator tools, a lot of other software and many shops run affiliate programs.
Put the link on your link page, in Stories with a link sticker, or in a DM when someone asks for it.
Two rules keep it working.
Only recommend what you’ve used, because your audience will notice when you don’t. And say it’s an affiliate link every time; it’s the law in most countries, and it keeps your followers’ trust.
Four working affiliates explain how they use AI for the busywork in AI tools for affiliate marketing.
Looking for programs that fit a creator audience? The affiliate program database collects the commission, cookie window and payout terms of creator software programs.
4. Build a newsletter: the income Instagram can’t take away
Your followers belong to Instagram. If your reach drops or your account gets hacked, they’re gone.
Email subscribers are yours. You can write to all of them whenever you like, and no algorithm decides who gets to see it.
That’s why I’d call a newsletter the most valuable thing you can build from an Instagram audience.
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Pick a newsletter tool
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is built for creators. Its free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers and lets you sell digital products and paid subscriptions from the same account (checked October 2026 on Kit’s pricing page (opens in new tab)).
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Make a sign-up page
One page, one promise, one form. Put it in your Instagram bio link.
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Offer something worth an email address
A checklist, a template, a short email course. A simple shopping list can be worth more to your audience than a long e-book. Give them the thing they keep asking you for.
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Invite people from Instagram every week
Mention it in Reels, add a link sticker to Stories, and send it by DM to anyone who comments a keyword (see DM automation below). Instagram for bloggers walks through link stickers and comment-to-DM step by step.
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Welcome them, then earn
A short welcome sequence that introduces you and your best content. On Kit, automated sequences need a paid plan. Then earn through sponsors, a paid tier, affiliate links or your own products.
5. Sell courses and digital products
A course, an e-book, templates or presets let you sell what you know without selling your time. On Instagram this works best when the product answers the question your followers ask most often in your DMs and comments.
Start small.
A $29 workshop or template pack tests demand faster than a $400 course, and the people who buy it tell you what the bigger product should be.
When you’re ready for a platform, my Thinkific vs Teachable comparison has a calculator for what you keep from each sale, and the other course platforms are covered there too.
6. Run a paid community
Some audiences want each other as much as they want you: people learning the same skill, running the same kind of business, or training for the same goal. A paid community gives them a place to meet, with you as the host, for a monthly fee.
It’s recurring income, and the community gets more valuable as the members get to know each other.
I’m a bachata dancer and instructor. Filling my classes and workshops and building a community of dancers has taught me more about this than any marketing book.
7. Coaching, consulting and services
Selling your time is the fastest way to earn from a small audience: a 1:1 call, a review of someone’s work, a done-for-you service. It doesn’t scale, but it pays from your first hundred followers, and every client teaches you what your course or product should be later.
It can start without a plan.
I started a simple blog in 2016 and posted motivational quotes on Instagram because I liked the topic. About a year later, people asked if they could pay me to manage their Instagram accounts.
I said yes and ran it as a side gig next to my agency work.
DM automation: the multiplier
Most sales on Instagram start in the DMs.
When I was coaching, the best thing I found was to run a promotion and ask people to DM me. Once the conversation is going, it’s a lot easier to do business.
DM automation lets you do that at scale. Someone comments a keyword on your Reel, and they get a DM with your link, your free guide or a question that qualifies them for your offer.
Use a tool built on Meta’s official messaging API, such as ManyChat. Tools that log in with your password or send messages nobody asked for put your account at risk.
An automated reply to a comment is one private message, sent within 7 days of the comment. After that, the tool can only keep writing if the person replies, and only within 24 hours of their message (checked October 2026 in Meta’s developer docs (opens in new tab)).
DM automation
Turn comments into sign-ups and sales
Joren Wouters swapped his affiliate landing pages for Instagram chat funnels in ManyChat. Here’s how he set them up.
What doesn’t work anymore
Skip these
- Engagement groups and pods. They go against Instagram’s guidelines and teach the algorithm to show your posts to the wrong people. Read why engagement groups backfire.
- Buying followers. Fake followers don’t buy, they lower your engagement rate, and brands check for them.
- Follow/unfollow and mass-DM tools. They break Instagram’s terms and can get your account restricted.
- Paid shoutout pages. Followers from a shoutout rarely care about your niche, so they don’t engage or buy. A Collab post with an account in your niche is the better trade: here’s how to get one.
How much can you make on Instagram?
There’s no honest average.
What you earn depends on your niche, how much your audience can spend and what you sell, far more than on your follower count. What you can estimate is your own funnel.
Take a made-up example. If 1,000 people join your newsletter and 2% of them buy a $99 course, that’s $1,980 from one launch, and the list is still yours for the next one.
To earn the same from Gifts, viewers would have to send you 198,000 Stars.
The free tools page has calculators for your own numbers, such as what you keep from each course sale.
Where to start: the order that works
Don’t start all seven at once; that takes a team and a budget.
Starting from zero, I’d go in this order, each step building on the last.
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Pick one promise for one kind of person
And post content that keeps it, three to five times a week.
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Switch to a professional account and fix your bio link
One link, one next step: your newsletter sign-up.
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Start the newsletter and a free guide
Invite people from every Reel and Story.
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Add comment-to-DM automation
So every interested comment can become a subscriber.
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Make your first offer
An affiliate recommendation, a small product or a few coaching calls.
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Grow into a course or community, and brand deals
Once you know what your audience asks for and buys.
How to make money on Instagram: frequently asked questions
How many followers do you need to make money on Instagram?
None for brand deals, affiliate links, your own products or coaching: you can earn from your first hundred engaged followers. Instagram’s own subscriptions need at least 10,000 followers, and gifts at least 500 (checked October 2026).
Does Instagram pay you for views?
Not as a rule.
Instagram pays some creators through invite-only bonus programs, and through gifts on Reels at $0.01 per Star, but there’s no standard payment per view.
How do I turn on Instagram monetization?
Switch to a professional account, then open your Professional Dashboard. It shows the monetization tools your account qualifies for, such as subscriptions or gifts.
What’s the best way to make money on Instagram with a small account?
Coaching or a service, affiliate links for tools you use, and a newsletter you can sell to later. All three work with a few hundred engaged followers.
Is DM automation allowed on Instagram?
Yes, through tools that use Meta’s official messaging API and reply to people who commented or messaged first. Tools that send unsolicited messages or log in with your password break Instagram’s terms.
