How an Instagram micro influencer made over $300,000 in yearly income (2024)
Emma Cortes — like millions of other Americans — lost her full-time job in 2020 due to pandemic-related layoffs.
Luckily, Cortes had already been preparing to leave her job at the aerospace company she'd been working at for about five years to pursue a career as a full-time influencer. The switch just happened a little sooner (and under different circ*mstances) than she expected.
By the end of 2021, about a year and a half after Cortes lost her job, she more than doubled her previous full-time salary.
"It was my first year as a full-time content creator, because at the end of the summer of 2020, I got laid off," Cortes told Insider in a recent interview. "I was really excited to start the year as a full-time content year and decided to set a revenue goal of $200,000."
In 2021, Cortes earned over $300,000 from a mix of brand deals and selling an online course about being a content creator. (Insider verified these earnings with documentation provided by Cortes.)
Brand deals made up the bulk of Cortes' earnings, she said. While most of her deals are for Instagram, some include posting content to her TikTok or blog; and many required several deliverables (such as in-feed posts, multiple stories, and video).
Last year, she signed a total of 68 sponsorships with a variety of brands — from fashion brands like Aerie to working with Meta Platforms on a Giving Tuesday campaign — Cortes said. Some of those deals carry over into 2022, she added.
*Cortes started making money through Instagram's Reels Bonus Program in December 2021.
Making money as a full-time 'micro' influencer in 2021
"Micro" influencers like Cortes, who are typically categorized as such if they have under 100,000 followers on Instagram, have become crucial players in the influencer-marketing industry.
With niche audiences and high engagement rates (compared to many mega influencers with more than 500,000 followers), micro influencers are on many brands' radars for marketing campaigns.
According to a 2021 survey by the influencer-marketing firm Intellifluence, micro influencers on average charged between $270 to about $1,000 for an Instagram post (rates increased as follower range increased).
Holly Phan Photography
The majority of Cortes' brand deals are four-figure deals — some higher, into the low five-figure range. Without a talent manager or agent, Cortes navigates the ins and outs of negotiating brand deals on her own and secures these contracts by calculating a rate and factoring in additional costs.
"Once you understand what you can charge for, you can create a more realistic rate," Cortes said. "Lots of creators think the only way you can charge as a creator is to do the one-cent-per-follower rule. So if you have 10,000 followers, you would charge a hundred dollars."
But that only calculates a baseline, Cortes said.
"If you do that, you are saying that my value as a creator is only my number of followers," Cortes added.
Here are 4 additional costs or contract clauses Cortes charges brands for:
Production: "I hire a photographer for about 70% of my brand partnerships," Cortes said. That's a fee she calculates into her sponsorship rates since she pays for the photographer, their time, and the photos.
Hourly rate: Like other freelancers, Cortes factors in an hourly rate. "I recommend all creators to think about what your hourly rate is and to think about how much time it actually takes to create content for a brand campaign," Cortes said. "You are not just quoting one Instagram post and three stories — that's just the deliverable."
Usage Rights: Brands often want to post a creators' content across the company's accounts and website. Each campaign is different, Cortes said. Some brands may want to include the content in a newsletter. Others may want to push the content as a paid ad on Instagram (also called whitelisting). "You can charge by percentage or you can charge by a flat rate," Cortes said.
Exclusivity: Some brands don't want influencers posting about any competitor, so they'll add an exclusivity clause into a contract. "If you agree to like a pretty aggressive exclusivity clause, you potentially could be turning down brand partnerships in the next month or quarter," Cortes said. For example, after a brand requested three months of exclusivity for a sponsorship, Cortes doubled her rate, she said.
Fast-forward and Cortes is a full-time influencer and earned more than $300,000 in a year — with under 50,000 Instagram followers. Most of that revenue came from brand deals, she told BI.
Furthermore, micro-influencers can generate income through sponsored posts, affiliate marketing, and partnerships with smaller brands. Despite not earning as much as macro influencers, their impact, and influence within their niches remain significant and cherished.
Recent data shows that influencers with 1 million followers make anywhere from $5K to $25K for a sponsored post. So, if you had 500K followers, you could estimate that you'd make anywhere from $2,500 to $12,500 from sponsored posts alone. Remember that these figures are just for sponsored posts.
Micro-influencers with 10,000 to 50,000 followers may earn between $200 and $800 per sponsored post, while those with more significant followings (500,000+) can command $3,000 to $10,000 or more per post.
Instagram Influencer Salary Revealed: 11,000 to 500,000 Followers. Instagram influencers with less than 100,000 followers can expect to earn up to $2,000 per post. But, once you get bigger (with more than 250,000 followers) you can earn $6,000 per post, especially if you have an audience of highly engaged users.
Potential for higher ROI: Micro-influencers cost a lot less because they have smaller followings. Because of that, you're more likely to see a better return on your money. Micro-influencers get 47% more engagement on their posts compared to macro-influencers, putting your brand in front of more interested shoppers.
If you are a micro Influencer, you might be the perfect fit for a local brand that just doesn't know you exist yet. Pitch yourself to them and lead with your common ground of being from the same place and then seal the deal by showing the brand that you have an audience that would love to learn about them too!
Micro-influencers (10,000–50,000 followers): $100–$500 per post. Mid-tier influencers (50,000–100,000 followers): $500–$5,000 per post. Macro-influencers (100,000–500,000 followers): $5,000–$10,000 per post. Mega-influencers (500,000+ followers): $10,000+ per post.
Cristiano Ronaldo. No one has a bigger social media presence in the world than the Juventus soccer megastar and five-time Ballon d'Or winner. Ronaldo comes out top on the highest-paid Instagram influencers list, making $3.23 million per sponsored post.
Influencers work as independent contractors for the companies they promote. Independent contractors are considered self-employed. “In addition to standard federal and state income taxes, self-employed individuals are also obligated to pay self-employment taxes,” Pianoforte said.
Typically, you'll get paid per post, with your follower count and engagement rate setting the price. Nano Influencers, who have 500 to 10,000 followers, get paid between $10 - $100 per post. Micro influencers, who tend to have 10,000 to 50,000 followers earn about $100 - $500 per post.
Follower count: Micro-influencers typically have between 1,000 to 100,000 followers, while macro-influencers have over 100,000 followers. Engagement: Micro-influencers tend to have a higher engagement rate, meaning that their followers are more likely to like, comment, and share their content.
Mid-tier. 50,000 to 500,000 followers ($500 to $5,000 per post) Macro. 500,000 to one million followers ($5,000 to $10,000 per post) Mega. More than one million followers ($10,000 to $1 million+ per post)
500k is a common abbreviation for 500,000. So, when someone mentions having "500k Instagram followers," they are saying they have 500,000 followers on their Instagram account. This is a significant number of followers and is often associated with influencers, celebrities, and popular brands on...
As soon as you start making money, you can begin to calculate an average dollar value per follower. Let's assume, on average, you generate an average of $0.50 per follower each year. With 100,000 followers, you could expect to make $50,000. That's not bad.
0.62% of users have between 500,000 - 1,000,000 Instagram followers. Finally, users with more than 1 million Instagram followers represent only 0.76% of total users.
Introduction: My name is Frankie Dare, I am a funny, beautiful, proud, fair, pleasant, cheerful, enthusiastic person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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