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.
See more stories on Insider's business page.

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 recently told Insider that she charges an average $5,000 for a single Instagram post and $3,000 for an Instagram Story.

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:

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.

YouTube

Instagram

TikTok

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 how much influencers make from affiliates:

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:

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:

Poshmark clothing resellers are becoming Instagram influencers to drive thousands of dollars in sales and land brand deals

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 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.

Read more:

How Ronne Brown, an entrepreneur and content creator with over 200,000 followers, earns money through Instagram Badges

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:

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:

Symphony Clarke Thrift TikTok — Symphony 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:

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