
Just How Much Money Do “Influencers” Make? - pmcpinto
https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/how-much-do-influencers-make
======
freehunter
My wife and I are considered local "influencers" in our city by virtue of a
local lifestyle blog we run and our social media presence. We're part of a
local bloggers group, we get invited to tons of exclusive social events, we
attend branded events, brands reach out to us directly for help with
marketing. People and companies we interact with tend to assume we're making
great money doing this. Brands tell us the dollar value of the event they're
inviting us to as a way of apologizing for not paying us for it, and our
followers sometimes seem to expect we're owned by a major brand or at least
under contract.

In reality, in the three years we've been doing this we've made a grand total
of $38.50 in cash. Just like how people expect artists to work for "exposure",
"influencers" (I really dislike the term, we're just local bloggers as a side
project) are often expected to work for free or for perks. We've tried to
collect cash for obvious advertisements we're asked to make, and nothing shuts
a brand up faster than asking for payment. The reason for that, I'm
speculating, is that when we ask to be paid, there are a dozen more
"influencers" in the area willing to do it for a free sample of the product.

We've since pretty much determined that we're doing this for fun and for the
local influence/access and perks we get, and not for cash. We started as a
hobby without the intent to make money, so it's not like we're losing
anything. As an added benefit to this approach, we can afford to be super
picky and only advertise the brands we actually enjoy using and the places we
actually enjoy visiting. If a place/brand we hate asks us to promote them,
well... we take cash or card. And 99% of the time, that's the end of the
conversation.

Too many people are willing to shill for free, which hurts anyone trying to do
it for money.

~~~
vitaflo
> Too many people are willing to shill for free, which hurts anyone trying to
> do it for money.

But you're still a shill either way. Maybe I'm just old but when I was growing
up being a sellout was a pejorative. Now it's considered a virtue. I frankly
don't get it.

~~~
rconti
Yeah, I'm honestly perplexed as to why anyone would follow any of these
people. I'm on the various social platforms to varying extents. I use Facebook
but primarily interact with friends an family. Ditto with Instagram, but I
also follow some people I don't know; a few great photographers, seph lawless
(photographs urban decay), the folks with the dog and cat they take camping,
etc. No part of me is interested in following someone who is a celebrity for
celebrity's sake, let alone a person who is ONLY a celebrity because they're
attempting to monetize their following. I don't mean that would explicitly
turn me off (although it probably would), I mean, I don't see the impetus to
follow in the first place. What value or enjoyment would I get from content
that is without value?

~~~
pitaj
It's children.

Fun rule: if you're ever wondering why something odd or stupid is popular,
it's probably kids.

~~~
jakubp
Nope. Alcohol, drugs, watching sports, these things are really odd and really
stupid in my view and yet it's not kids who drive the sales the most.

~~~
chiefalchemist
In the context of the article / thread, children is probably accurate.

~~~
jakubp
No, it's not. There are surely lots of "kids", which I'm guessing includes
teenagers, but there's also a high percentage of people aged 20-40 or even
more who follow those "influencers" much the same way. People don't really
grow up from being naive, susceptible to social fashions, etc.

~~~
quakeguy
It is, you aren't right here. 16 year olds with a smartphone and IG account
make up a big spare of those likes/shares/whatever... The other big party is
bots/fake accounts/you get the idea.. And i'm generous here, even 11year olds
have the ability to move trends nowadays, i can't give numbers, only anectodal
reference, but i assume that's what OP meant.

~~~
nl
I'm in my 40s. I follow lots of popular accounts (so influencers, right?) in
the cycling world.

My wife does the same in interior design.

There are lots of kids, true. But try looking at mommy-instagram and you'll
see a whole other world.

~~~
chiefalchemist
True. But following is not engagement. If you average X likes per hour on say
IG and your teen doppelganger also is X p/h but they're on IG 5 or 6 times as
much as you. Well, I think you can see the difference.

~~~
nl
Yeah perhaps.

But older people spend lots of money on non essential items.

Also have you seen how much time a stay at home Mom spends on social media?
They'd give any teenager fair competition.

------
dokein
As far as anecdata goes, I know someone who makes around $800K a year even
without some crazy-impressive a follower count on Youtube (around 600K). This
is not factoring in free trips, etc.

As with any commercial exchange, there's a lot of variables other than size of
audience, including the composition of the audience, how good the channel is
at moving a specific product, whether there are side-opportunities related to
the main influencer role, how good of a B2B salesperson one is, etc.

This particular person works as hard as anyone in a startup, around 100 hours
a week, and treats it as such. She also happens to be pretty good looking
which helps with the videos.

It used to piss me off a little bit, given how hard I have had to work to get
to this stage, but one can think of it as very similar to modeling with
probably a similar income distribution too (and I seem to intrinsically
understand that top tier models make a lot and am ok with it).

My question is -- of all the people making a lot in their 20s and early 30s,
how many are going to be making the same amount in their 40s and 50s? I
suppose by then their peer generation will also be the same age so it's hard
for me to project. I also expect it to be much more of a mature market at that
time.

~~~
csallen
_> It used to piss me off a little bit, given how hard I have had to work to
get to this stage_

There are only so many hours in the week, only so many years in a career, and
thus there's a limit to how much more one person can work than another. And
yet there are people making 2x, 10x, 100x, 1000x, …, 1 billion times what
others are. Compensation is largely unrelated to the amount of sweat, time,
and effort we put in. Rather, it's a result of the depth of the value we
provide and the number of people we provide that value to. Outcome > input.

I believe that understanding this makes us less jealous of people who seem
"undeserving," and also helps us make better decisions in our own careers.

Another way to reduce envy is to realize that, ultimately, it's luck all the
way down. There are plenty of talented, hard-working people who will never see
even moderate success, simply because they were born in the wrong country, in
the wrong decade, to the wrong parents, etc. It seems that cursing the people
above us is a natural tendency for humans, but we'd do well to spend more
energy thinking of those behind us, as well as appreciating our own
circumstances.

~~~
shawn
_Rather, it 's a result of the depth of the value we provide and the number of
people we provide that value to. Outcome > input_

Not really. It’s mostly family connections.

~~~
btilly
According to [https://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/03/two-thirds-of-
billionaires-m...](https://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/03/two-thirds-of-billionaires-
made-it-themselves.html), about 2/3 of billionaires have self-made fortunes.

So clearly family connections help. But that doesn't appear to be most of the
picture.

~~~
bsder
Is Bill Gates self-made? Or was it the fact that his father could cut a
$25,000 check on a whim?

Having lots of ready liquid cash gets you the ability to make deals that
normal people do not have access to.

You don't even have to be that rich. Take a look at Craigslist at the end of
the month before rent is due.

~~~
skookumchuck
> Is Bill Gates self-made?

Yes.

> Or was it the fact that his father could cut a $25,000 check on a whim?

There are millions of Americans like that, and only one Bill Gates.

There's no evidence, either, that his father bought the success of Microsoft.
The early success of Microsoft did not require anything more than rather
trivial amounts of cash.

~~~
s73v3r_
That amount of cash is not trivial for the vast majority of Americans.

~~~
ericd
There are vastly more people with access to $25k in cash than there are people
who end up making an impact as large as Gates had. It still takes an enormous
amount of work and savvy to pull off what he did.

~~~
s73v3r_
Sure. But if he didn't have access to that money, would he still have been
able to do that?

~~~
skookumchuck
Yes. An aggressive entrepreneur like Gates would be able to rustle up a few
paltry thousand in investment capital. People do it all the time.

------
basseq
_> 96.5 percent of YouTubers don’t make enough annual ad revenue to reach the
U.S. federal poverty line... $12,140._

I'm surprised it's that low, honestly. May be a question of definition of a
"youtuber", which I didn't see in the article. There's a long tail of
"influencers" who actually make a living at it—and some a very good living—but
I bet it's way less than 3.5%.

~~~
iRideUnicornz
One also has to take into account other revenue streams that Youtubers will
often have. Most channels nowadays will start up a Patreon account once they
get a core following, and even a monthly dollar per Patron is more than all
the adclicks that viewer would give. Merchandising is also big (1 T-shirt >
1000s of views), and bigger channels (100k+) can get a decent amount of
revenue through sponsorship where they give in-video advertisements (like what
Squarespace and a lot of VPNs do).

After the instability of Youtube's ad platform this past year ("Adpocalypse 1,
2 and 3"), many on the platform have given up on the idea of depending solely
on adclicks as it's just too risky to leave your future to the discretion of a
black box algorithm.

~~~
roel_v
I see youtubers with 6 figure followers list each of 'this months patreon
supporters' by name every month, they better be donating 3 figure amounts for
that to be more than beer money...

------
perceptor
Single datapoint: Asking rates from a young white attractive female with 65K+
Instagram followers

[https://megnoelheaton.com](https://megnoelheaton.com)

------
mullen
This article missed discussing the real influencers: niche influencers. I
follow a number of Sailing and Hiking YouTube vloggers and I know they aren't
getting rich but it does allow them to keep doing what they love to do.
Sailing Delos and Sailing La Vagabonde are the two power house sailing
vloggers that make enough money off of Patreon, YouTube and sponsorships to
keep sailing around the world and living a really great lifestyle. I know that
Sailing La Vagabonde did well enough to get a good deal on a new catamaran,
free clothes and bathing suits to keep them going for a long time. I would not
be surprised if Sailing Delos got a good sponsorship from Amel boats to keep
sailing for many many more years.

~~~
busterarm
> good deal on a new catamaran

You mean free?

Notice how that channel hardly ever goes as in depth on major maintenance
requirements as the other sailing channels do? It's all fun and adventure. Not
to say that's wrong -- I enjoy watching that channel.

There are soooo many sailing channels right now (I can think of at least 40
somewhat popular ones) and the vast majority of them are filming low quality
content and sticking their hands out.

Side note: If you want to gauge which channels aren't getting heavy
sponsorship dollars, it's the ones that _almost always_ anchor vs tie up at
the marina.

~~~
throwawaymath
_> Side note: If you want to gauge which channels aren't getting heavy
sponsorship dollars, it's the ones that _almost always_ anchor vs tie up at
the marina._

Can you explain this for someone who doesn't know anything about boats?

~~~
busterarm
Marinas generally charge by the foot (and sometimes additionally by the hull,
as in 2x for catamarans). A one month tie-up in a marina will run you several
hundred to several thousand dollars depending on the above factors, the
location and the season.

Anchoring is free, but then you need to come to shore in (and store) a dinghy

Basically yachting is very expensive. A Panama Canal crossing in your
pleasurecraft these days will run about $2k. Those youtube channels are
basically lifestyle advertising -- some of those cruisers are heavily
(financially) supported.

~~~
jdietrich
_> Basically yachting is very expensive._

Yachting _can_ be very expensive. Annie Hill, Moxie Marlinspike and many
others prove that it can also be extremely cheap.

[https://www.amazon.com/Voyaging-Small-Income-Annie-
Hill/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/Voyaging-Small-Income-Annie-
Hill/dp/1888671378)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lwbHYOFD-4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lwbHYOFD-4)

~~~
busterarm
I plan on being a frugal, liveaboard, solo cruiser by the time I'm 40. Those
examples are a bit at the extreme though.

------
paulwithap
I can say from experience that an Instagrammer with 100k followers is unlikely
to get anything near $2700 to post a photo. This was probably true several
years ago, but these days the number is closer to $1000.

~~~
dyarosla
I’m curious how brands come up with these numbers- is the ROI really that
good?

~~~
anoncoward111
The ROI used to be that good, and then the market became crowded and the
consumers became more savvy.

Now the ROI is worse, the advertisers start lowballing, and the content
creators keep accepting (because rent is due and nobody else is offering any
higher, sooooo)

~~~
paulwithap
This is spot on. It's just like any other marketing tactic - it works well
until everyone else starts doing it.

As for the pricing of posts, the lowballing is getting more and more dramatic,
because there are many more "influencers" now. The only brands really shelling
out are large corporations with large budgets looking for something very
specific. Smaller brands can just reach out to a bunch of influencers offering
only product in exchange for a post, and someone will say yes.

~~~
anoncoward111
Totally agree, thanks for writing :)

I think we should all tread carefully here. In reality, monetizing content is
not particularly easy and usually isn't ethical or sustainable.

------
degrews
> _“an influencer with 100,000 followers on Instagram can charge around £2,000
> per picture (approximately $2,700), while celebrity influencers with between
> four million and 20 million followers can charge £5,000-£13,000
> ($6,700-$17,500).”_

So 2.5x the price for 40x the reach? These numbers just don't seem to make
sense.

~~~
jtwebman
I agree I don't think they know how to do basic math.

------
CryoLogic
YouTuber with 30k subs, 50k on twitter. Programming content. My sponsored
offers from random marketing firms are almost always $100-$250 / video. Not
sure how it scales up to larger channels.

------
jedberg
It's very much a power law curve. There are a few at the top making most of
the money, and pretty much no one else is. It's true for fake internet points
too -- there are a few top users on reddit who have most of the karma.

~~~
benatkin
I think it varies by industry, and would probably be hard to see the power law
curve if not accounting for this. Paul Graham found that the #1 startup for
art galleries in the 90s wasn't worth a whole lot.
[http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html)

------
overcast
I work for "free", posting beautiful photos of food, and cocktails on
Instagram. In exchange I get fed, I get invited to every social event, every
new restaurant opening, every special sit down, and I'm now well connected to
every major player in the local food scene. When I release my new product(the
reason for the last two years of work), I'll have that network to deploy it
to.

~~~
tropshop
Care to share your Instagram username? I don't see anything in your profile,
but I am interested in the niche community/local business space, and how to
drive customers to those places that I am proud to recommend.

------
sicnus
So is an "Influencer" simply just another word for a YouTuber?

~~~
freehunter
An influencer is someone with a strong social media presence, who has a large
number of real human followers and the ability to "influence" the purchasing
decisions of those followers.

If Linus from Linus Tech Tips says not to buy the latest AMD Radeon X921gtstx,
a large number of people won't buy it. That's an influencer.

~~~
ryandrake
How do they measure their ability to "influence" the purchasing decisions of
their followers? How do their clients calculate ROI?

~~~
Thersites
My understanding is that the metrics used to calculate ROI differ from client
to client. It's more an art (or scam) than a science, with a ton of grey area.
Whatever metric the client's boss is really into at the moment can be marketed
hard and inflated using unverifiable data if needed. A lot of people are
incentivised to tell the story that influencers provide value to brands. I
believe that this is less and less true every day.

------
mlrtime
Instagram influencer with 30k +150/day. Can confirm that it is difficult to
get paid. I do get about $5k in premium products a year. I'm also picky on
what I post to not dilute the feed with ads.

~~~
justboxing
> 30k +150/day.

What does this mean? You have 30K followers and are adding 150 new ones / day?

------
Thersites
This is a form that a high end hotel requires potential influencers to fill
out when asking for free stuff. Cognitive dissonance generator.
[https://twitter.com/hels/status/954404411425607681](https://twitter.com/hels/status/954404411425607681)

------
jkuria
Here is some info for YouTube celebs:

[https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/414/how-much-do-
youtu...](https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/414/how-much-do-youtube-
celebrities-charge-to-advertis.html)

------
chiefalchemist
Revenue is not ROI. I personally know someone with 500k YT subscribers and his
/ her eyes go blank when asked about less obvious KPIs. Their #1 strategy for
increasing revenue is to spit out more content.

Rat on a wheel doesn't feel like much of a biz model to me.

------
netman21
I read this since "influencer" is roughly the business I am in. While I use
number of followers on Twitter to demonstrate my reach, I do not think of
social media as the primary channel for influence. Tech industry analysts,
bloggers, and writers are hugely influential and derive a living wage from
their work. Other than Walt Mossberg I have not heard of anyone making seven
figures.

------
akeck
I've always wondered how accounting/taxes work for being a US-based
influencer. If I'm comp'd a hotel room and meal in return for an IG feature, I
assume I have to report the net dollar value of that somewhere. Doing that
year 'round seems like an accounting mess, even with an accountant helping.

~~~
smaddox
I'm not an accountant, but my understanding is that gift tax is paid by the
gifter. I'm not sure if that applies to perks, though.

~~~
akeck
I think it could also be interpreted as a barter transaction. [1]

[1] [https://www.wicproject.com/ponderings/blog-
taxes/](https://www.wicproject.com/ponderings/blog-taxes/)

------
sireat
I wonder how does someone like KM Music on Youtube make money.

They have near 400M views and 600k subscribers but all their videos use big
commercial pop hits.

Do they actually get a cut or does all the ad revenue flow to music authors
and Youtube?

------
rdiddly
I don't know about anything else, but those three quoted Instagrams are
perhaps the most tedious thing I've ever seen, and they make me feel sad
inside.

------
erik_landerholm
Omg, what a waste of time. I’m so glad almost no one is making money doing
this stuff. Shill for free, shill for money, the shilling part is the common
part.

------
wlkr
I wonder whether the advertising reach of 'influencers' is due to the lack (or
absence) of enforcement of advertising regulations. I don't know about the
rest of the world but in the UK many 'influencers' certainly seem to skirt the
line and the Advertising Standards Authority is increasingly paying attention
[0].

[0]
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43470227](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43470227)

------
jtwebman
I think their math is off. Flipping burgers at McDonalds full time in
Portland, OR, USA would make you $19,240 a year.

------
dwags
influencers !== content creators

------
skumaster
This thread seems like the perfect place to plug a side project.

WP Commission ([https://wpcommission.com](https://wpcommission.com)) is a WP
plugin which helps influencers maximize affiliate revenue. The plugin makes
sure all Amazon.com links are tagged with an affiliate tag - and we even
follow, expand, and tag shortened amzn.to links as well.

Additionally, we provide a shortcode which creates a carousel displaying
products that have been linked to in prior posts. We've found that showing a
pretty carousel can lead to substantial revenue improvements, especially when
on the home page of a blog.

WPC charges a token fee to keep the servers running, but anyone doing a few
thousand in revenue should see a net profit from the service. At the end of
the day, we're publishers who want to help quality content creators monetize
so they can support themselves.

We're putting together some case studies about sites who most effectively use
the Amazon Associates program. The study is up here:
[https://medium.com/@sku_67047/how-kinja-earns-so-much-in-
com...](https://medium.com/@sku_67047/how-kinja-earns-so-much-in-commission-
revenue-af69d3e7a952)

~~~
malchow
I was a beta user and it is very good indeed.

