We all spend a lot of time scrolling on Instagram, but making money on the platform takes a lot more effort. After all, it's not like Instagram just pays its influencers a wage—far from it. Each creator makes money themselves in a variety of unique ways, both on and off Instagram.
This means getting your Instagram followers involved with other projects you start, such as ecommerce stores, personal brands, paid communities, and so much more. With Whop, you can kickstart projects like these in just a few minutes and start providing exclusive paid content to your fans.
The upside of online content creation is that truly anyone has the chance to gain massive success with it. The downside is that it takes time and dedication to start seeing results—but with a good monetization strategy, you'll only increase your chances of success. Here are some of the best methods for getting monetized on Instagram.
Can You Make Money on Instagram Alone?
It is possible to make money just by using Instagram alone, but it can be very hard to estimate how much you could make. This research from Influencer Marketing Hub looks into how much money influencers on Instagram tend to make for each sponsored post, depending on how many followers they have.
- Less than 10,000 followers: $10-$100 per post
- 10,000 to 50,000 followers: $100-$500 per post
- 50,000 to 500,000 followers: $500-$5,000 per post
- 500,000 to 1,000,000 followers: $5,000-$10,000 per post
- 1,000,000+ followers: $10,000+ per post
While these numbers look appealing, they're also quite vague, and it's best to take this kind of research with a grain of salt. Content creation is not a one-size-fits-all kind of job—which is what's so good about it!—but this also means there's no easy answer to how much you'll earn.
It's also clear from these numbers that you have to hit the big time to start making good money. But the truth is, if you use your Instagram as a sales funnel for a business, you can start making a lot more with a lot fewer followers.
In simpler terms, you can turn your Instagram followers into a dedicated base of customers. That way, you can get all the earnings you can through the official Instagram channels—I'll introduce these in a second—and then you can make even more by selling extra value (products, content, services, etc) to your followers.
I'll walk you through a bunch of different ways you can monetize your Instagram, including how to sell digital products quickly and easily with Whop. Let's get started.
7 Ways Instagram Lets You Make Money
Instagram offers a number of ways for its creators to make money through the app, from monetized ads to paid partnerships. Here's a breakdown of what the different methods are, who can use them, and how.
Instagram's content policies
Before we get started, let's have a quick look at Instagram's various policies. There are three main categories:
- Partner Monetization Policy
- Content Monetization Policy
- Community Guidelines
For each of the different monetization methods available on Instagram, you'll need to follow some, or all, of these policies. If you're going to set up any of these monetization tools, you should read the policies directly beforehand, but for now, here's a summary.
Partner Monetization Policy
- Live in an eligible country
- Follow the Community Guidelines
- Follow the Content Monetization Policies
- Share accurate information
- Post authentic (original) content
Content Monetization Policy
- No static videos
- No static image polls
- No videos which are just slideshows of images
- No looping videos
- No text montages
- No embedded ads
- Don't post engagement bait
- Don't solicit engagement
- No misinformation, misleading medical information, or unoriginal content
Community Guidelines
- Only share photos and videos that you've taken or have the right to share
- Post content that's appropriate for a diverse audience
- Foster meaningful and genuine interactions
- Follow the local laws
- Respect other members of the community
Ideally, you already follow most of these guidelines, but it's important to be extra careful once you start trying to monetize your content. If you violate the policies repeatedly, you can end up losing your right to monetization through Instagram.
Now that's out of the way, let's look at the different ways you can make money directly on Instagram.
1. Instagram Shopping
Instagram Shopping is essentially a way to connect an existing storefront to Instagram and sell products through it. It lets you show off your products and services through photo and video posts, with product tags available to click right within the post.
When users click these links, they are taken to a product detail page (PDP) where they can see information about your product and other content that features it. From there, users can access your website to make a purchase or, within the United States, they can create a basket and check out right from the Instagram app.
Basically, it makes your Instagram profile an extension of your existing shop, making it super easy for people to see and buy your products as soon as they discover you. One popular way to monetize this is by selling ebooks on Instagram.
To use Instagram Shopping, you need:
- An ecommerce store with its own website domain
- To live in a supported area
- To have a business or creator account on Instagram
- To set up a Business Manager account to use the Commerce Manager tool
- To read the Commerce Eligibility Requirements to check your products align with the rules
2. Monetized ads
This feature lets you opt to have ads appear on your profile. When people scroll through the feed view of a monetized profile, they'll see ads between posts. Creators have control over what ads will be shown, and you can opt out again at any time. By allowing the ads, you can earn a share of the revenue received from them.
The amount of money you earn will depend on several factors, but you'll be able to see an approximate earning estimate on the professional dashboard.
This feature is still new and being tested, so it's only available to certain accounts by invitation. If you want to be eligible for an invitation, make sure you:
- Follow Instagram's Partner Monetization Policies
- Have a professional account on Instagram
- Are at least 18 years old
- Are located in the United States, Japan, South Korea, or Canada
If monetized ads aren't an option for you just yet, don't worry—there are plenty more ways to turn your Instagram into a money maker.
3. Badges on Instagram Live
Badges are a way for viewers to gift money to you while you're live on Instagram. Viewers with badges have hearts next to their names, which help them stand out in the crowd and have a better chance of interacting with creators—and in return, the creators get paid for providing valuable content.
Turning badges on is easy, but you have to be in a supported area and have more than 10,000 followers to do it. If you're new to becoming an Instagram influencer, you can just treat this as a goal you'll work your way up to over time.
If you already have the right amount of followers, just go to your profile and click "Professional Dashboard." As long as you meet the requirements, you'll see a button to "Set Up Badges."
4. Subscriptions
Subscriptions are exactly what they sound like—your followers can choose to pay a monthly fee to support you and get access to exclusive content. They'll also have a subscriber badge next to their name so you can see them easily in comments and DMs.
You can create exclusive lives, stories, and chats for your subscribers to engage with, as well as posts and Reels. You can also turn on offers like discounts and free months to grow your subscribers.
Here are the requirements you need to meet to start selling subscriptions:
- You need to be over 18 years old
- You need to live in an eligible country (don't worry, it's available in a lot of places!)
- You need to have at least 10,000 followers
- You need to follow Instagram's Partner Monetization Policies and Content Monetization Policies
5. Bonuses
Another feature currently going through testing is bonuses. This feature is special because you're not getting money from advertisements or fans, but directly from Instagram itself.
When you're working towards a bonus, Instagram will count the number of times your content is played or viewed during a certain time period and pay you accordingly. The more engagement you get, the bigger your bonus will be.
Bonuses are currently invite-only and only available in South Korea, the U.S., and Japan. If you're in one of these countries and you have a business or creator account, check your professional dashboard to see if you have an invite.
6. Gifts with Reels
Gifts are a way to earn money with Reels on Instagram. Fans can send virtual gifts to show appreciation for your content, and you'll receive money that you can track on your professional dashboard.
Gifts are counted in stars, and fans can send various amounts of stars depending on how much they liked your stuff. Stars are worth $0.01 each, so 100 stars equals $1.
Here's what you need to get started:
- Be over 18 years old
- Have a professional account (creator or business)
- Live in a supported country
- Have more than 500 followers
As you can see, the minimum follower requirement for gifts is a lot lower than badges or subscriptions, so this is the best feature for people who are just starting out.
7. Creator Marketplace
Branded content is technically a way to make money outside of Instagram since you make deals with brands on your own and get paid by them. However, Instagram now runs a creator marketplace with the aim of bringing creators and brands together more easily.
You can join the marketplace as long as you comply with Instagram's various policies (all the ones I covered above). Once you're in, you can choose a list of brands and interests that relate to your content and let brands come to you.
If branded content sounds like your jam, we'll dive deeper into the subject later, so keep on reading.
8 Ways to Monetize Your Instagram Profile
Now let's get into the ways you can monetize your Instagram profile outside of Instagram. Doing any and all of these will help you turn your Instagram into a proper side business, and turn your followers into customers.
1. Offer 1-on-1 calls with your followers
If you have passionate followers who really want to engage with you—perhaps they send you gifts on Instagram or have even become subscribers—offering one-on-one calls is another great way for them to interact with you.
Any kind of creator can offer one-on-one calls, whether you just plan on chatting with your followers or doing something related to your content like offering advice or teaching.
You could also branch out into something new, whether it's offering coaching on a subject you're passionate about or even teaching people how you grew their Instagram profile.
One-on-one calls are a great way to offer tailored advice, but they do take up plenty of time. If you have lots of followers, make sure to set up specific time slots your customers can book in advance. Because you're interacting directly with your fans, one-on-one calls are often priced at a premium.
These calls are typically just one part of an entire community platform. For instance, you could set up your own whop hub and then use the Video Calls app to chat with your fans.
2. Share your knowledge with online courses
Offering services at different price points is always a great idea, and there's an easy way for you to also share your expertise with followers who don't want to pay for a one-on-one call: online courses.
All you need to do is put your teachings together in the form of an online course. With the Courses app, you can make your course right in the browser and add all sorts of elements like text, video, files, and quizzes. You could teach people your workouts or show them how you make the food, clothes, hairstyles, and other creative things you show in your Instagram content.
There are really no rules here; you can create a course about any subject you have knowledge of. But the best part about doing this is that you already have an audience you can sell directly to—and it's an audience that you know well.
So while you can experiment if you want to, you can also use the analytics from your Instagram to figure out what kinds of content and topics your audience likes best and create a course that fits.
The price you charge for your course will depend on how long it is, how much time you put into it, how specialized the knowledge is, and other factors. People selling online courses can make as much as $3,500 per week, and with your dedicated audience, you should be able to reach goals like this faster than the average person.
3. Try your hand at branded content
Branded content is the newer, fancier name for sponsored content. It's exactly what it says on the box: a brand pays you to feature their products in your content as a form of marketing. This practice has been a little controversial in the past because people accepted sponsorships from anyone and didn't necessarily make it clear that they were being sponsored.
All of that stuff is cleared up now though—branded content is a huge part of Instagram and other social media, and platforms have features in place to make it clear to viewers which content is sponsored and which isn't.
As a creator, all you really need to do is be honest and only enter into partnerships with brands and products you genuinely like. That way you can make content naturally, have fun recommending things you like, and make money at the same time.
To find partnerships, you need to grow your audience, stay away from uncontroversial content that brands might want to avoid, and show off products you like. Brands hire social media managers to actively search for creators who fit the culture and style of their brand—so show them that you're ready to collaborate!
You might get offers through DMs or emails, and Instagram also has the Creator Marketplace where brands can search for creators more easily. There's also nothing stopping you from reaching out to your favorite brands yourself—the biggest ones might not get back to you, but smaller businesses might.
Earning potential here depends on the size of your audience and the brand you partner with. The brand will want to pay you an amount that matches the engagement your posts tend to get. Instagram keeps track of things like how many accounts your posts reach and how much engagement they receive, so you can base your price or accept prices based on this.
Brands will often pay for a set number of posts, offering anything from $100 to thousands of dollars.
4. Create an exclusive paid community
Paid communities are a great way to turn engagement into money, and there are lots of different ways to make one. Turning on subscriptions on Instagram is one way, and setting up a Patreon is another, but one of the easiest and most flexible paid community platforms is Whop.
With Whop, your paid community can offer multiple ways for fans to interact and engage with your brand—all you have to do is add the apps you want. There are many apps that suit paid communities, from Chat and Video Calls to Files, Courses, and Giveaways.
By picking and choosing different apps, you can create a place where your followers can talk to you, talk to each other, buy exclusive content and products, and stay up to date with what you're doing.
Essentially, it becomes an extension of your Instagram community, where you decide just how much you want to interact with your fans and how you want to do it. You can make access to your community a monthly subscription, a one-time fee, or even have a free tier with paid extras—it's completely up to you.
One of the best things about monthly subscriptions is how predictable your income becomes. Since you know your audience so well, you probably have a decent idea of how many people would join your community as soon as you make it, so you can make an earnings estimate right away.
For instance, if you price your community at $7 per month and 150 people sign up, that's $1,050 per month. You can also sell different tiers of membership—maybe a starter tier at $5 per month and a super-fan tier at $15, for example.
5. Write and sell ebooks
Whether you focus on fitness, lifestyle, self-help, mental health, finance, or creative pursuits, there's nothing you can't write an ebook about. Unlike novels or published non-fiction books, ebooks are a lot more free-form. They don't have to be long, they don't have to be written a certain way, and they don't have to take years of work to put together.
They can also be quite a visual experience with lots of images, tables, infographics, and text formatted to be easy to read (not just huge blocks of text one after another). So, overall, they can be pretty accessible both to you as a writer and to your audience.
If you write an ebook, you can promote it on Instagram and sell it on platforms such as Whop. If you don't have much experience with ebooks, it might seem like a pretty huge project to take on, but it's actually simpler than it seems.
Here's a little breakdown of how to sell an ebook:
- Pick your niche: You can choose something related to your Instagram content or your knowledge and life experiences. If you have a few different ideas, try searching each idea to see if similar ebooks exist and how much interest exists for them.
- Structure your ebook: Planning your book out before you start is a good way to stay on track and get an idea of how long it will be and how much time it will take. Think about what you want to achieve and what you need to achieve it, and start planning sections and chapters around that.
- Have your book edited: Whether you ask a friend or hire a professional, getting someone to proofread your book is essential. We're all almost guaranteed to make a typo here and there! The editing process will make sure your book is enjoyable and accessible for readers, so it plays a big part in getting positive reviews. If you're not ready to show yours to the world, make sure to use some kind of spellcheck tool to avoid pesky typos.
- Design your ebook's cover: An eye-catching cover is a great way to promote your book, so it's well worth the effort. You can put it together by yourself through Canva or another graphic design program. If you've got a budget, you can also hire a graphic designer.
- Price your ebook: It's important not to underprice or overprice your ebook, so think carefully about its length, the value it provides, and how much time and money it took you to create it. And remember you can always adjust the price with time if you think your initial attempt wasn't quite right.
When everything is ready, you can list your book on your platform of choice. With Whop, you can sell your ebook alongside other digital products and services like a paid community or online courses. Having multiple products in one place is a great way to develop a sense of brand identity and make your followers feel engaged and excited to be a part of your community.
6. Set up your own ecommerce store
Ecommerce stores can turn a big profit if you put enough effort into them, and with a reliable audience available from the start, it's a great business for Instagrammers to get into.
As for what you would sell, there are a few different options:
- Handmade products: If your Instagram content is creative, you might want to sell the things you make. You can do this on sites like Etsy, which are specifically geared towards small artisans.
- Traditional ecommerce: This involves finding product suppliers and buying inventory to sell. You might import products from other countries, sell clothing, stationery, jewelry—anything you want.
- Digital products: One of the easiest and lowest investment options is selling digital products on a platform like Whop. You can sell a unique mix of ebooks, online courses, digital stationery, paid communities, online coaching, and more—all in the same place. It only takes a few minutes to set up, and you won't start paying money until you start making money.
If you're eligible, you can also link your storefront directly to Instagram using Instagram Shopping. This will give you the ability to add product tags to your posts that people can click to learn more about your product and even buy it right from Instagram.
Even without Instagram Shopping, however, you can promote your products on your profile and include a link to your store in the description. How much you earn will depend on what you sell, how big your audience is, and how much work you're willing to put in, but if you want to go big you could end up making $1,000s a week!
7. Start dropshipping
When it comes to ecommerce stores, there is another option if you don't want to handle the inventory management yourself: dropshipping. This involves creating a storefront and partnering with dropship suppliers that stock the products you want to sell.
All of the browsing and purchasing is done through your store, but once an order comes in, the dropship supplier takes care of everything else. You can partner with as many different suppliers as you want to create a cohesive or eclectic selection of products for your customers. (By the way, digital dropshipping is also a thing, and it has an extremely low barrier to entry.)
This works particularly well if you can provide a single place for people to buy products that they would otherwise have to buy from multiple different stores. For Instagram influencers, you can sell products that you feature in your content, showing viewers how good something is and then taking all the work out of finding it.
Dropshipping also means you can reach more of the world since you'll be leaving the postage and packaging to big companies that can ship worldwide. This is great for content creators since they typically have fans all over the world.
8. Sell extra content
Finally, you can make more money by just doing more of what you already do. Let's say you're a food content creator on Instagram who always posts short-form recipes and kitchen hacks for people to enjoy.
If you add another platform to your brand, you can start to sell even more content—downloadable recipes, long-form video recipes, online courses for complicated cooking techniques or meal planning, one-on-one or group cooking classes via video calls, or even a recipe ebook.
By setting up a free Whop account, you could start selling content like this in just a few minutes. You can also tie the whole thing together with Chat apps or Discord servers, turning your content platform into a real community where members can ask you and each other questions.
What's the Best Way to Get Monetized on Instagram?
While Instagram does have some of its own monetization tools, if you want to maximize your earning potential, the best thing to do is to combine your Instagram business with another platform where you can sell related digital products and services.
This will give you a lot more control over the kind of content you make and how much you sell it for. It can also help you start monetizing a smaller account before you hit 10,000 followers and become eligible for things like subscriptions and badges.
Digital products and services can also help you develop a much more steady source of income because money that's tied directly to views and advertising will always be unpredictable. It can be a source of both passive and active income, giving you full control over how much you earn.
Make Money on Instagram With Whop
Choosing a platform outside of Instagram to work with might seem daunting, just because there are so many options out there and they all offer different things.
When it comes to digital products, however, there is one platform that offers everything you need all in one place: Whop.
Once you've set up your own whop, you can build a custom community around your brand and what you want to sell. Ebooks, long-form video content, downloadables, chat rooms, private community servers, video calls, online courses—just about any digital product or service you can think of is possible with Whop.
Whop automates a lot of the annoying parts of running your business outside of Instagram. You can set up subscriptions, flat fees, tiered pricing, and even offer free products. We take care of the payment side of things and make sure your followers get what they bought without any extra involvement from you.
Another bonus? Getting started is completely free, and you keep 97% of every sale you make.
Don't rely on Instagram to make you money. Take matters into your own hands and start selling with Whop.
FAQs
How do you qualify for monetization on Instagram?
First of all, you have to be over 18 and comply with all of Instagram's monetization policies. You also need to live in an eligible country and have a professional account. Most of Instagram's content policies boil down to this: create original content, be respectful of others, don't promote hate or misinformation, and don't spam. Lastly, don't cover topics that aren't monetized. Some monetization tools also require a minimum number of followers.
Can I monetize my Instagram with 1,000 followers?
With 1,000 followers, you can turn on the gifts feature on Instagram, but not subscriptions or badges. You can also join the Creator Marketplace and try to find brands to work with, but with 1,000 followers you may be limited to small brands and startups. Alternatively, you can branch out onto another platform like Whop, where you can sell exclusive content to your current followers and find new customers too.
How do you get paid on Instagram?
When you sign up for various monetization tools on Instagram, you'll be prompted to add a payout account. Whenever your earnings reach $25 or more, you'll be able to send your earnings to this bank account and get paid. Many of the monetization tools also let you keep track of your earnings or potential earnings on the professional dashboard.
How many followers do you need to get paid on Instagram?
The absolute minimum is 500 followers to turn on the gifts feature and allow your followers to send you gifts. You can also join the Creator Marketplace, but you may not get much attention with a small number of followers. If you want to take advantage of other tools like subscriptions and badges, you'll need to reach 10,000 followers. Right now, other monetization options are happening through invites only, so there isn't a specific follower requirement.
