Instagram remains one of the most popular social media platforms not only to share content but to also make money while doing so. And there is no better proof of this than simply scrolling through your favorite Instagram accounts.

You would be hard-pressed to find one not pushing a product with affiliate links in 2025. However, affiliate links are only one way to monetize your Instagram account. The truth is that there are a ton of ways to do so.

And as any business owner should know, diversifying the way you make money is critical to success. This ensures that if one method falls through you’ll have several other ways to make money on Instagram.

How to Be Successful At Instagram Monetization

Before we get into the ways you can make money on Instagram, let’s discuss what you’ll need to accomplish that.

First and foremost, you need an audience. Virtually every method of monetization requires you to have followers who can interact with your content in one way or another. As such, the larger your following, the more earning potential.

Of course, just having a big following isn’t enough. You’ll also need to have a high engagement rate, as most sponsors look at these metrics before partnering with an influencer, as engagement has a strong correlation with sales.

There are several ways to improve engagement, with one of the simplest methods to include more interactive posts. These include creating polls, quizzes, and similar types of content that invite the user to interact with your content.

You’ll also need to be authentic. Authenticity is one of the driving factors why influencers can move products in specific fields. For example, a fitness trainer is going to have more success selling protein shakes compared to a car expert.

This is because followers are more likely to trust recommendations from someone they perceive to be an expert in the field.

10 Ways to Make Money With Instagram

There are so many ways to make money with an Instagram account nowadays. That said, some methods are better than others. And in many cases, it often comes down to the way the account pushes products and their audience size.

This list is in no specific order and results may vary. Here are 10 ways to make money with Instagram.

Sponsored content is the bread and butter of monetization on Instagram. This is when a company partners with an influencer to release a post centered around a product, service, or brand.

If you went on Instagram right now and scrolled down, you would undoubtedly see tags like “Sponsored” or “Paid partnership with (Company)” as Instagram does require influencers to label content as such.

While the concept behind sponsored posts is easy to understand, there can be a lot of preparation that goes into it.

First, you’ll need to get in contact with a brand to work with. There are two main ways. The first is to reach out to brands you want to work with and see if they are interested in working with you.

The other is to wait for a brand to contact you with an offer. You’ll then need to negotiate the terms, which can be quite jarring at first. For this reason, most larger influencers have a lawyer specializing in influencer contracts.

That said, smaller creators don’t have much negotiating power, thus it mostly boils down to either accepting or rejecting an offer.

You’ll then usually be given criteria for what they want to see in the post. This will usually include using their official hashtag, an image of you using the product or service, and other elements. It depends on what you are promoting.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Many people often mistake sponsored content and affiliate marketing for the same thing. While there is some overlap between the two, they are separate forms of monetization that you can utilize on Instagram.

Many sponsored posts contain an affiliate link, but the difference is how the influencer is paid.

With traditional sponsored posts, influencers are paid a flat rate for making the content. However, the affiliate link pays them a commission for each time a sale is made. And just to be clear, you can include affiliate links in non-sponsored content.

Bear in mind that 45% of all influencer affiliate marketing takes place on Instagram due to the high levels of engagement.

Many affiliate programs are very lucrative, and you’ll be in complete control of what products you are pushing. For example, one of the most popular affiliate programs on Instagram, and maybe the internet, is Amazon.

Amazon sells just about everything you can imagine, and by signing up for the program, you can easily incorporate affiliate links in your Instagram posts. Just be mindful that you are legally responsible for disclosing an affiliate link.

Failure to do so not only violates Instagram TOS but is also illegal under US law. Thus, this can open the door for lawsuits. Again, as your brand becomes bigger, partnering with legal counsel that specializes in this type of content is a must.

3. Instagram Live

Livestreaming has been rapidly growing over the years with more platforms focusing on it. Instagram is no exception, Instagram Live has seen explosive growth, and today over 100 million people watch live streams on Instagram daily.

Naturally, there are several ways to earn money while live streaming on Instagram or any other platform, for that matter.

Instagram Live offers viewers the ability to buy badges. These badges appear next to the user’s name as a heart icon and can be bought at multiple price points that the user can choose from.

The live streamer will receive 100% of the money generated from badges after taxes and any applicable fees have been taken out. Naturally, there is a lot of earning potential in live streaming with a big enough audience.

Just keep in mind there are some criteria that your account must meet to be eligible for badges. These include having 10,000 followers, being based in the US, having a business or creator account, and complying with Instagram TOS.

There are several steps you can take to help improve your viewership on Instagram Live.

For starters, be sure to regularly inform your followers when you are going live. After all, you won’t make money if no one is watching. When you are live, make sure the show is entertaining and you are regularly thanking followers who purchase badges.

4. Instagram Shopping

While pushing products for companies can be extremely lucrative, selling your own can generate even more. Instagram has a built-in shopping feature that business accounts can take advantage of.

With this, you can directly sell products and merch to your audience leveraging your Instagram account.

For example, let’s say you sell clothing items. You could make a post showing wearing your outfit, and your viewers could directly purchase the items from the post itself, thus making it very convenient for shoppers.

As a result, 37.3% of Instagram users will make a purchase directly on the platform.

That said, you can have a full store page where you sell any kind of product directly to your audience, and yes, this includes digital goods like eBooks. Just keep in mind that Instagram only acts as a storefront, designing the products is on you.

For this reason, you will likely want to partner with a manufacturer that can bring your design or product to life. In many cases, they will also have a fulfillment warehouse that can handle shipping the product for you.

A lot of creators often use Fourthwall as a print-on-demand service as well as offering members-only content. Coincidentally, it also has some of the lowest account fees on the Internet.

It is also important to point out that you are not limited to selling products. Many accounts sell services like social media consulting, photoshoots, personal training, and more. Leverage what you are good at, and people will buy it.

5. Offer Paid Subscriptions

Instagram offers eligible accounts the ability to offer paid subscriptions for users to access content and other perks. The account must have at least 10,000 followers, be over the age of 18, and be a US creator.

Once this criteria is met, you can lock content like Lives, Stories, Posts, Reels, and more behind a subscription.

There are two main ways to go about this. The first is to exclusively offer the content to subscribers. This creates a direct value for the subscription as they cannot view the content any other way.

The second is to show content first to subscribers. This is often a way that followers can help support the creator, which works very similar to how many YouTubers run a Patreon account.

While you may not think your content is worth paying for, 40% of influencers offer subscriptions on Instagram.

There are other advantages you can offer to subscribers. For example, let’s say you run a store on Instagram. You could make the store exclusively accessible by subscribers, or at the very least offer subscribers a store discount.

If stock is limited, offering that stock to subscribers first is another option. As long as you can create some kind of value proposition, many followers are willing to pay for a reasonably priced subscription.

6. Creator Marketplace

Instagram has created the Creator Marketplace as a way to streamline connecting influencers with businesses. The idea is simple, businesses can see content creators in different fields and see if they match their brand.

Creators also have the option of listing their preferred brands, which can sometimes lead to those brands reaching out.

Currently, the only requirement to use the Creator Marketplace is to be at least 18 years old, follow the TOS, and reside in one of the supported countries. To see a full list of countries, simply visit the eligibility requirements page.

Connecting with brands is very difficult, especially when you are just starting. One of the big misconceptions is that brands are only looking to partner with larger creators, but that simply isn’t true.

The truth is that smaller creators are still valuable, and in many cases, are more affordable for brands to partner with. Larger creators know their value and thus can negotiate better deals, but smaller creators don’t have that same bargaining power.

Since Instagram is the 4th most visited website, even smaller creators can still have a massive impact on sales if they go viral.

As such, the creator marketplace should be one of the first programs you sign up for on Instagram. The quicker you can start working with brands, the faster you can start signing lucrative brand deals.

7. Promote Your Business

We’ve spent a lot of time discussing how you can earn money promoting products and brands, but at its core, Instagram is about promoting yourself or your business to your audience. As such, you can make a lot of money by promoting your own business.

In many cases, influencers have followings on a variety of platforms and have multiple projects across these platforms.

For example, it is very common to have a YouTube channel for longer-form content. Thus, when you release a new video on YouTube, you can promote it by creating a link on your Instagram account.

Another simple example is if you host a podcast, or are going to appear on one. Promoting it on Instagram can help boost the total views, and can even lead to more podcasts reaching out to you in the future.

In some cases, Instagram influencers try to sell courses to their audience. These transactions do not usually take place on Instagram. Instead, Instagram is a way to promote the course, which is stored on a separate site, or attached to a Patreon.

Similarly to how easy it is to promote the brand on Instagram, you can promote your own and see huge returns.

The obvious advantage is not having to pay other influencers to do it for you. For this reason, nearly every company has its official channel to promote its products and offerings directly to its fans.

8. Host A Webinar

While this is pretty similar to what we just talked about, the truth is that webinars and educational content as a whole are huge on Instagram. Many content creators build online courses and promote them on the social media site.

Many influencers on Instagram will host a webinar and promote it themselves.

Webinars are hosted on other platforms where you can control the price of the ticket and have custom tools that help you build a show worth the ticket price. And unlike physical events, you can host thousands of viewers without worrying about seat limitations.

Instagram is a great platform for promoting webinars and other educational material for a variety of reasons. The first is the use of Instagram Reels. This short-form video content is great at sharing quick lessons and tips that help build credibility.

At the end of the reel be sure to mention any courses you offer or when people can attend your next webinar. This acts as great promotional content because it shows the user exactly what they can expect from your material.

That said, make sure the reels are well-made. Poorly made ones can cause just as much harm as good ones can bring.

Many LMS platforms have integration options for Instagram now, where someone completes a course and can show off a certificate in an Instagram post. Naturally, there’s a lot of money to be made if you have the right skill set.

9. Selling Digital Art

While Instagram has undergone many changes over the years, at its core, it is still just a platform to share photos and images. This makes it a great platform to sell digital art and commission work for those looking for a specific skill set.

Instagram allows you to easily show off the art you create to promote it to potential customers.

For example, if you were to search for Logo Designers on Instagram, you would find multiple creators that specialize in logo design. They will have examples of what they have made, and you can easily reach out to see if they can bring your vision to life.

However, I would argue the real power of Instagram is playing into a niche. A great example of this would be commissioning art for video game fans. Many are eager to hire an artist to create custom art for their favorite properties.

In other cases, they may commission an artist to bring their unique character creations to life. This is particularly popular in MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft. Simply find a community that appreciates art, and you can sell your services to them.

Instagram is a great way to show off work and attract customers interested in your art style.

While this may start as a side hustle, the average salary of a commission artist in the US is over $70,000. It’s all about finding a passionate community and offering what they want to see at a price they can afford.

10. Ad Revenue

When scrolling through an Instagram profile, you will undoubtedly see ads. These ads allow accounts to earn revenue as users see and interact with them while viewing your profile, assuming your account is eligible for monetization.

On the flip side, you also can completely remove ads from your profile.

This is often done by larger creators as they want to advertise their own or sponsored products. The main reason is that the ad that Instagram places could be anything, even the direct competition of a sponsored product.

Naturally, you want users to buy the product you sponsored or have an affiliate link to, not what Instagram is pushing. That said, you can make some income through ad revenue if you have a large enough following.

Currently, only users who are at least 18 years old, have a professional account, comply with safety guidelines from Instagram, and reside in the US, Canada, Japan, or South Korea are eligible to receive ad revenue generated by their profile.

Naturally, like most ad revenue programs, income can fluctuate wildly, thus it is not a consistent stream of income.

As such, most accounts focus more on sponsored products and affiliate marketing as they have more earning potential, but if you ever catch yourself in a sponsorship dry spell, enabling ad monetization is another way to make money with Instagram.

Create A Website for Your Account

While it is entirely possible to solely focus on Instagram, that doesn’t happen much today. Most major influencers have a presence on multiple social media sites, and this is because each platform has different strengths and weaknesses.

More importantly, many influencers often have a dedicated website for their brand.

This website acts as a base of operations and helps connect their different accounts together, giving them a better space to create long-form content through blog posts. This can also act as a hub for selling merchandise.

In many cases, influencers will often repurpose blogs into Instagram Stores, or Stories into blogs. It is a great way of using the same idea for different forms of content. And unlike content on Instagram, you’ll own everything on your website.

While there are many ways to build a website in 2025, the easiest way to do it is with WordPress.

WordPress is the most popular CMS in the industry because it is easy to use and can build any type of website. And perhaps most importantly, it is free to use. The only price associated with WordPress is web hosting.

Luckily, web hosting has gotten much more affordable over the years. As every website needs a web host, the amount of competition in the industry is massive. That said, all web hosts are not created equally.

You need to ensure you find one that provides great service, which is what we strive for at GreenGeeks.

Instagram Monetization FAQ

While we have talked about a variety of ways to make money with Instagram, you may still have some questions. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions answered:

Make Money With Instagram Today

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, which is why so many strive to make money on the app. It has a variety of ways for influencers to monetize their account. However, in most cases, your monetization potential is limited by your account size.

Accounts with more followers and higher levels of engagement simply have more options at their disposal. Not to mention they will have more bargaining power when negotiating sponsored deals.

As such, before you start worrying about monetization, you need to focus on growing your channel. After all, content is king.

Which methods do you use to make money with Instagram? Did we miss any monetization methods?