How Much Do Influencers Make?

Amateur influencers often want to know how much the average influencer makes, but the truth is that it really depends.

One survey of Instagram influencers found that the average influencer salary was $2,970 per month, with micro-influencers (1K–10K followers) earning $1,420 per month and mega influencers (over 1M followers) earning $15,356 per month on average.

But that’s just one social media platform. What’s more, influencers are paid per post rather than per hour, month, or year. So how much money an influencer earns really comes down to how many sponsored posts they do.

These are just a few of the reasons why there’s substantial variation in how much money influencers make. There’s also a big difference between, for instance, how much YouTube influencers make vs. how much TikTok influencers make. The table below shows a general breakdown of influencer income by platform.

Average Influencer Salaries Per Post

Source: Shopify.

Influencer income calculator

There’s a standard formula that many influencers use to determine how much they charge brands per post. This formula is what many in the industry rely on in the beginning to estimate how much they’re going to make from brand sponsorships and other monetization strategies.

The formula goes like this:

For every 10,000 followers, an influencer makes $100 per post. 

Now, it’s important to remember that this is a pretty big simplification of the value of influencer marketing. In reality, you can charge much more if you have high levels of engagement or dominance in a particular niche.

How much do top influencers make?

The top social media influencers make millions of dollars a year, mostly off of brand partnerships. The table below shows the salaries of the highest-paid influencers.

Salaries of Top-Earning Social Media Creators

Sources: Statista (YouTube and TikTok) and Influencer Marketing Hub,

It’s worth noting that not all of these creators strictly earn money as influencers, particularly YouTube stars. Some of their earnings may have been made through non-influencer content monetization strategies.

The defining characteristic of a paid influencer is that they produce content that is designed to guide purchase decisions among their followers, viewers, or subscribers. In this sense, influencers typically make money by working with brands in one way or another, traditionally through influencer marketing.

With that said, there are other ways influencers can use their platform and popularity to earn money. For example, some social media platforms offer special creator monetization programs that allow you to earn money in a variety of ways. The catch is that your account has to reach certain milestones—in terms of metrics like number of followers and views—in order for you to qualify.

The key distinction, however, is that some other money-making strategies would be more appropriately described as content monetization methods for social media content creators. Whatever your definition, here’s a general overview of all the ways in which influencers make an income.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing, which is based on brand partnerships, is what started the influencer phenomenon in the first place. With this type of marketing, brands pay influencers to place products in their content or directly endorse the brand.

According to Influencer Marketing Hub, influencer marketing is the primary way in which social media content creators get paid, with 66.9% of surveyed creators reporting that they have secured brand deals.

Brands pay these ambassadors a commission or with free products in exchange for promoting the company. Brand partnerships can be long-term projects or one-off sponsored posts.

Affiliate marketing

There’s another way in which influencers can make money on social media. With affiliate marketing, influencers include links or referral codes in their content. When a follower uses that special affiliate link, the influencer gets paid a commission from the sale.

Unlike the case with influencer marketing, where you get paid simply to promote a brand, you only make money from affiliate marketing if a viewer clicks into your affiliate link. In many cases, they also need to actually make a purchase.

For this reason, affiliate marketing usually generates less money than influencer marketing for influencers. On the plus side, it’s a more lowkey way to promote a brand without allowing your affiliation to take over your content.

Product sales

Influencers can also make money by promoting their own products. There are a couple of ways in which they do this.

Some influencers sell branded merchandise, like clothing, mugs, and accessories. They use print-on-demand services like Printful to fulfill these custom-branded product orders.

Other influencers launch their own brands. This requires more work and a greater monetary investment, but the returns can be far greater than what you’d get from selling merch.

Ad shares

Once social media creators hit key metrics on a particular platform, they can sometimes start generating passive revenue from ad views or video plays.

Every platform has a unique set of rules and requirements to qualify. The YouTube Partner Program (YPP), for instance, requires YouTubers to have at least 1,000 subscribers and a minimum of 4,000 watch hours within the last year.

There are a few downsides to these programs, however. For starters, there isn’t always a ton of transparency about how much money you can earn. You may also need to live in a certain location and produce only platform-approved content. On top of all that, social media platforms regularly update their rules and criteria for earners.

Other ways to make money as an influencer

Although the above monetization strategies are the primary ways in which influencers make money, there are other things you can do to generate an income.

Here are a few alternative money-making methods for influencers:

• Sell channel subscriptions and give members exclusive content or other perks
• Accept donations or tips
• Sell your own services, like consultations or courses

Because it can take a while to generate enough clout and a large enough audience to attract brand sponsors, it’s a good idea to use a diverse combination of these money-making strategies.

Making money on social media might seem like a dream come true. However, people don’t become social media influencers overnight. Plus, the majority of influencers barely make a living wage from what they do.

There are many factors that can affect how much you earn. Here are just a few.

Social media platform

If you look at the average salaries above, you’ll notice that YouTubers make far more money than Instagram and TikTok influencers. This is due to the size of the platform and the type of content you can create, among other things.

Time invested

Unless you’re just trying to generate some money on the side, you really need to be working as an influencer full-time to make it worth your while. There’s a ton of work that goes into producing content, engaging with followers, negotiating brand deals, managing your brand image, and so on.

Monetization strategy

Brand partnerships might have the highest payouts. However, you need a huge and engaged following in order to land those deals. So influencers have to use a mixture of strategies. Even then, things like number of views, engagement rates, and other metrics will affect how much money you make as an influencer.

Niche

Some industries/niches are more popular than others. For example, if you look at the top-paying influencers, they tend to post content related to fashion, sports, or entertainment. While you can have a successful page based on pretty much anything, your earning potential will depend on factors like the size of the market, where those followers are located, and how old they are.

When you think about more traditional digital marketing, the process is both time-consuming and expensive. This includes marketing tactics like blog writing, pay-per-click advertising, and search engine optimization.

Social media, in particular, has proven to be a highly valuable channel for marketing. By leveraging well-established and trusted influencers on these channels, brands can benefit in many ways.

Here are just a few of the benefits companies get from influencers:

• Reach a sizable audience
• Improve brand awareness
• Improve the overall reputation of the brand
• Increase website traffic
• Increase sales
• Get more in return for their marketing “spend”

Influencers aren’t random people saying “buy this” or “do that.” They create authentic content for a highly engaged audience that trusts and values their opinion.

It can take companies many years and tens or even thousands of dollars to accomplish this—not to mention that they often need an entire crew to manage it. Hiring an influencer is an easier and simpler option with a huge return on investment, even if the upfront costs seem high.

The global influencer market is now worth more than $21 billion. Considering this is over triple what it was in 2019, it’s clear that the industry is experiencing massive growth year after year. However, even though the value of the market is on the up and up, brand spending doesn’t seem to be following the same trajectory.

According to HypeAuditor, brands aren’t as focused on utilizing mega or macro influencers to build brand awareness anymore. They’re now looking toward micro and mid-tier influencers who are more cost-effective yet capable of connecting them with a targeted audience.

A Reddit user also confirmed that this is what brands are doing:

“I’m scaling back on content fees for 2023 and upping my ‘paid boost’ budget. Micro-influencers are way easier to work with and once you put the paid boost on the content, it gets a better reach than if I went with someone who has 1m+ followers (half of which are bots). I wouldn’t be surprised if other brands start to do the same.”

So if you’re thinking about becoming an influencer in the next few years, don’t stress too much about becoming one of the top influencers in your space. Leave the Cristiano Ronaldos and MrBeasts to that.

Agencies are looking to pay lower-level influencers to promote their brands. Find the right niche and publish enough high-quality content, and you could be making hundreds to thousands of dollars per post.