How To Make Money on Instagram in 2026

You can’t scroll through your Instagram feed without seeing your favorite creators promoting products—both their own and those of other brands. While top-performing creators can make tens of thousands per post, you don’t need millions of followers to make money on Instagram. In fact, you only need 500 to start earning. 

If you’re a content creator looking to monetize your influence, Instagram can be a powerful social media platform for achieving your goals. According to Forbes, Influencer marketing is now a line item in marketing budgets, much like search engine marketing. 

Ahead, learn about six ways to make money on Instagram.

6 ways to make money on Instagram

1. Start affiliate marketing
2. Offer paid subscriptions
3. Earn Badges and Gifts from fans
4. Partner with brands on sponsored content
5. Try Instagram’s bonus program
6. Sell on Instagram

The methods that work best for you will depend on your unique brand of Instagram content, your target audience, and your level of commitment. Here are six options to explore:

1. Start affiliate marketing

With affiliate marketing, creators earn a commission every time someone discovers a product (and makes a purchase) through their content. Businesses track this through unique affiliate links and codes. 

In April 2026, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri announced that eligible creators would soon have the option to earn commission by tagging products directly in Instagram Reels, something they haven’t been able to do since 2022. The program is limited to products already in Meta’s brand catalog and creators over the age of 18 with at least 1,000 followers.

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A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)

If you don’t meet the requirements, or if you want to earn money from products that aren’t in Meta’s catalog, you can share affiliate links in your Instagram bio and Instagram Stories. 

Influencer-turned-founder Pia Mance recommends applying to join an affiliate network like ShopMy, which lets creators curate virtual storefronts with their recommended products. “It’s really nice because I’m an influencer on it, my brand’s on it, and then I liked it so much I invested in it,” Pia says on an episode of Shopify Masters. 

Pia says her accessory brand, Heaven Mayhem, plans to invest more heavily in creators in 2026. 

“I personally would rather buy something from an influencer talking about it because I associate them with knowing good things, and then I kind of have more attachment to the brand rather than just seeing an ad.”

2. Offer paid subscriptions

Once your fans are hooked on your content, you can offer them the chance to engage with exclusive content for paying subscribers. 

Instagram’s subscription program is open to users who are over the age of 18, in an eligible country, and have at least 10,000 followers. Creators will need to meet Instagram’s partner monetization and content monetization policies and adhere to Meta’s community standards. 

You can also use third-party subscription platforms like Patreon and Substack to promote your subscription content on your Instagram profile. You can even paywall certain content on your own website and direct your followers there. These options will allow you to build multiple revenue streams and establish your audience outside of the Instagram platform.

Ally Walsh and Casey Wojtalewicz are Instagram influencers and the cofounders of Canyon Coffee. They used their Instagram travel content to support their business by creating travel guides for their favorite cities. 

The guides are email-gated rather than paywalled—a long-term strategy the founders credit with helping drive direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales. “That’s how we started our email list,” Casey says on an episode of Shopify Masters. “We’d go to Portugal and make a travel guide with all these beautiful photos.”

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A post shared by Ally Walsh (@allylwalsh)

3. Earn Badges and Gifts from fans

Think of Instagram Live Badges like tips you receive from your fans, similar to tip-style tools on Twitch and TikTok. They allow you to engage with your community in real-time while earning revenue. 

During a livestream on Instagram, viewers can purchase Badges (icons of varying monetary value) that pay the creator directly and unlock features for the viewer. Instagram users can buy Badges in increments of 99¢, $1.99, and $4.99 to support a creator’s work, and can spend up to $250 per livestream.

You can also earn money from Reels via Instagram Gifts. Viewers purchase Stars to gift creators, who then receive a monthly payout from Instagram at the rate of 1¢ per star.

You’ll need at least 10,000 followers to earn money through Badges and 500 followers to earn Gifts. You’ll also need to adhere to Instagram’s partner monetization policies. 

4. Partner with brands on sponsored content

Sponsored content is a win-win for businesses and creators. Brands often can’t replicate the authenticity of a real person sharing real moments, so partnering with creators helps them put their products out in the world in a more organic way. Meanwhile, influencers get paid to create content.

For sponsored Instagram posts to be successful, they need to feel authentic. Jen Yu, cofounder of skincare brand Jaxon Lane, discusses what she looks for in influencer partners on Shopify Masters.

“When we see an influencer, we think, ‘Does this person really believe in this thing, or are they just doing it for money?’” says Jen. “There has to be authenticity.”

As a creator, you can help ensure authenticity by seeking out brands you genuinely like. When you reach out, think about how you could incorporate the company’s products into your content organically.

“A recurring style or series that brands could then plug into is a really nice way to partner with brands,” says Rachel Karten, a social media consultant and author of the newsletter Link in Bio. 

Series let creators monetize Reels and other types of posts without having to start from scratch, and they give brands an established viewership.

For example, influencer Alix Earle uses series to promote sponsored products. “Everyone watches her ‘get ready with me.’ That’s a very easy place for a makeup brand to plug themselves into,” Rachel says. “Her audience looks forward to those specific videos.”

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A post shared by Alix Earle (@alixearle)

When pitching a brand, explain who your audience is and how the company’s products will fit into your content. You can also sign up for Instagram's creator marketplace with a business or creator account to connect with brands. Once you sign up, you can signal what type of content you’re interested in, showcase your portfolio, message about partnerships from a single hub, and more.

No matter how authentic your collaboration feels, Instagram’s branded content policies require sponsored posts (“content that features or is influenced by a business partner for an exchange of value”) to include its paid partnership label.

5. Try Instagram’s bonus program

With Instagram’s invite-only bonus program, Meta pays you directly for creating Reels, carousels, and single image posts. As with other in-app monetization methods like subscriptions, Badges, and Gifts, you’ll need to meet Instagram’s partner monetization policies.

There are two types of bonuses: seasonal bonuses for Reels and seasonal bonuses for single image and carousel posts. You’ll see different opportunities depending on the time of year. For example, you might receive a New Year’s or spring bonus. 

To calculate its payout, Meta counts up to 150 pieces of content you’ve shared, from the time you got your invite until the end of the bonus period. You’ll receive money based on the number of plays and views you’ve received.

6. Sell on Instagram

You can monetize your Instagram audience by starting an online store and promoting your products on your profile. 

If you’ve developed a strong personal brand as a creator, consider selling merch through a print on demand (POD) model. You come up with relevant designs and list products on your storefront, a customer places an order, and your POD partner manufactures and ships the product. 

Shopify’s $5-per-month Starter plan can help you get up and running. It allows you to list products through link-in-bio tools on your Instagram profile and in direct messages.

A more time-consuming (and potentially lucrative) route is to start your own business related to the personal brand you’ve cultivated on Instagram. Pia did it with her jewelry company Heaven Mayhem, and Ally and Casey did it with Canyon Coffee.

Both brands have Instagram shops, which let viewers browse products on their Instagram pages before being directed to the brands’ online stores to check out. 

If you’re on Shopify, you can add the Facebook & Instagram app to your online store to sync inventory and customer data between your Shopify site and your Shop on Instagram. You can then manage product listings, inventory, and fulfillment directly from your Shopify admin.

Factors that affect how much money you make on Instagram

• Follower count
• Engagement rate
• Affiliate marketing commission rates
• Niche
• Number of income streams

There are a few factors that affect how much money a creator can make on Instagram:

Follower count

One way to categorize Instagram influencers and their earning potential is to sort them into five tiers based on their follower count. As a general reference, influencer pricing tends to correspond with these follower numbers:

• Nano-influencer: 1,000–10,000 followers ($25–$150 per post)

• Micro-influencer: 10,001–100,000 followers ($250–$5,000 per post)

• Mid-tier influencer: 100,001–500,000 followers ($1,600–$10,000 per post)

• Macro-influencer: 500,001–1 million followers ($5,000–$25,000 per post)

• Mega-influencer: 1 million+ followers ($10,000+ per post)

Pricing varies based on the number of posts requested, the value of an influencer’s audience to a brand, and additional factors such as production expenses or exclusivity rights.

Engagement rate

How often do your followers interact with your posts by commenting on them, liking them, and sharing them? An engaged follower base can signal to potential brand partners that your audience is paying attention to your content and will therefore be paying attention to your influencer marketing and affiliate content

If you’re selling your own products on Instagram, high engagement can mean you have a loyal following of consumers who are likely to follow your calls to action and click through to purchase your items. 

Affiliate marketing commission rates

The commissions you receive when you persuade followers to click on affiliate links—and your overall earnings—vary depending on the types of products you promote, your performance as an affiliate, and your affiliate partners.

If you sign onto the Amazon Affiliate program, for example, you’ll earn up to a 10% commission. If you work with a smaller brand, you might start out at a higher rate (like 15%). As your account grows, you can leverage your larger following to negotiate better rates, which will help you make more money on Instagram.

Niche

The niche you target can impact the amount of money you can earn per follower. 

If your audience consists of people in a highly sought after demographic, or if your audience is interested in expensive products, you might be able to earn more from brand partnerships.

Number of income streams

The amount of money you make from Instagram can also depend on the number of monetization streams you pursue. Alongside brand partnerships, affiliate marketing, and in-app monetization tools, consider selling your own products to maximize your earnings on Instagram and bring your audience onto a website that you own—your online store.