How to Make Money on Instagram in 2025: 13 Ideas for Creators and Small Businesses

We walk through 8 ideas for Instagram monetization in this detailed article.

Jun 25, 2025 - 11:54

How to Make Money on Instagram in 2025: 13 Ideas for Creators and Small Businesses

Let’s start by busting a common misconception: You don’t need millions of followers or superstar status to make money on Instagram.

Micro and even nano-influencers on Instagram are supplementing — or even replacing — their income with content creation on the social platform.

In 2025, there are dozens of routes to monetizing, too. And chances are, one of them fits your style.

Most creators make money on Instagram in one (or more!) of these three ways:

Making money via the Instagram app: This means earning money using Instagram features like subscriptions, gifts, and badges.
Making money via collaboration with brands: Some creators make money on Instagram by promoting other brands on their account or creating content that companies can repurpose (like ads).
Making money by promoting your small business: The last way to monetize on Instagram is less direct — using it as a promotion tool for your own business. This could be an online store, a service, a course, memberships, a community, etc.

In this article, I’ll share 13 ways you can start making money on Instagram using the three camps above. Whether you’re just starting on Instagram or already have a sizable following, there are options here for everyone.

1. Earn money by offering exclusive content via subscriptions

Subscriptions are a way to share exclusive content with your community on the platform — you charge a monthly fee for that content.

Think of subscriptions as the Patreon of the Instagram app. Superfans can become paid subscribers of their favorite creator and receive exclusive content in return.

With an Instagram Subscription, you can share exclusive posts, reels, lives, stories, and chats with your subscribers. Subscribers can find the content easily on your Instagram feed in a new tab using the crown icon.

Subscriptions are an excellent way to earn monthly recurring revenue using Instagram. Choose a fee that’s high enough for the value of your content, but still accessible for your Instagram followers.

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Pro tip: To make subscriptions more valuable, focus on giving your paid subscribers an elite experience — create content that’s unique and helpful. You can also spot your subscribers easily with their purple crown symbol in your posts’ comments — make replying to them a priority.

To enable subscriptions on your Instagram account, you must:

Be at least 18 years old
Have a professional Instagram account with at least 10,000 followers
Reside in the country where it’s available (here’s a list for your reference)
Have an Instagram profile that meets Instagram’s Content Monetization and Partner Monetization policies

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Note: Subscriptions aren’t available for Instagram accounts that primarily post content focused on children.

2. Earn money by getting gifts from fans

If subscriptions are like Patreon, gifts are like Buy Me a Coffee. Your followers can show appreciation on your Instagram Reels by giving you a gift (aka, money).

How do users buy you a gift? They purchase ‘stars’ using their Instagram app and share these virtual gifts with you using their stars. You receive $.01 USD for every star someone spends on you. In simple terms, 100 stars = $1. You can take out this money when your total balance reaches $25 USD.

Instagram offers gifts only to creators with a professional Instagram account and at least 500 followers. It’s also available in selected countries only — you can find the eligible countries here.

3. Earn money by going live using badges

When you go live on the Instagram app, people watching can purchase badges for you as a sign of support and appreciation. You’ll see a heart next to the usernames of users who have purchased a badge.

You can earn badges in increments of $0.99, $1.99, and $4.99 increments (all USD). To make the most of badges, remind users that they’re enabled at the beginning of your live and/or when new people join in.

Badges are only available to Instagram creators in the United States who are 18+ and have at least 10,000 followers. Instagram is rolling out badges to countries like the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Brazil, and Mexico on an invitation-only basis, so expect this feature to roll out to other countries soon!

4. Earn money by earning bonuses

Right now, bonuses are the only way Instagram pays money to you as a platform, with no audience involved. You get these bonuses paid on 31 December, New Year’s Eve — and they are available for reels, carousels, and single-image posts.

Instagram Bonuses are currently invite-only for creators in South Korea and the US. If you receive the invitation, you’ll see it on your dashboard.

Once you complete the onboarding flow, the platform will count up to 150 pieces of content shared from the week that you activate until the end of the bonus opportunity. The more views and/or plays (replays not included) your content receives, the more money you earn.

To receive the invitation for bonuses, you should have a minimum of five million views across reels shared within the last three months.