How much do influencers make? How Youtubers, TikTokers make money

Still, millions are plunging forward — and some are having a lot of success. These 10 creators, with followings large, small and in-between, opened their wallets to share the economics of running a creative business in the wilds of the internet.

Here’s a breakdown of their finances for one month in 2023.

Niccoya Thomas’s career started as a pandemic-era bet with her cousin: Who could get to 10,000 followers first? After a month of work, Thomas won the bet — and within the year, she had skyrocketed to 1 million.

At first, the Memphis-raised, Atlanta-based creator just posted videos telling stories. “When I was just starting out, it seemed wild that you can get paid to live your everyday life,” she said. More recently, she’s pivoted to lifestyle videos: Mopping her floor for the first time. Reviewing Taco Bell’s new strawberry cinnatwist. Asking people to appreciate the ability to breathe through their noses.

Thomas’s financial foundation comes in the form of long-term brand partnerships — deals that pay a set fee for a specific number of posts using or describing a product. One such partnership is with Spotify, so she frequently incorporates podcast and playlist recommendations into her videos, which TikTok labels with a “paid partnership” tag.

Most social media applications have some form of reward for creators who earn a significant number of views, from YouTube’s ad revenue to TikTok’s Creator Fund to Instagram’s creator bonuses. In 2022 alone, Thomas made $24,833.18 in ad revenue, most of it from YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, Instagram and Facebook.

Thomas used to work with a management company that took 20 percent of her income in exchange for negotiating brand deals. To save money, she now hires her friends to coordinate brand outreach and transportation — keeping a sharp eye on the bottom line. “As a Black woman, I know that brands are undercharging me,” she said.

Thomas is also selective about which deals she accepts: “You’re not a sellout if you choose the brands that you love.”

Seven years ago, Brian Lindo created his Instagram account, @briancantstopeating, as a way to share restaurant recommendations with friends. As his follower count grew, Lindo started traveling exclusively for food, hired a manager and editor, and left his full-time job in sales for Salesforce.

In October, his video from the Brooklyn bodega Farmer in the Deli received 18 million views and inspired Food Network chefs to re-create the chop sandwich. “It was cool to get such a small little neighborhood spot exposure on such a national level,” Lindo said.

While Instagram has shifted from highly saturated photos to personality-driven videos, the audience remains hungry. Lindo, who eats out three to five times a week for his account, credited his appreciation of well-crafted food to his Jamaican heritage, immigrant family and exploration in NYC. “Food is the best vessel for communication,” he said.

Brands like American Express and Resy invite Lindo to food and dining events to promote their services. Such companies require him to have insurance that covers any damages caused by filming or fan interactions.

Though free meals might seem like the ultimate perk of food content creation, Lindo said he still pays for 95 percent of his meals because “I don’t want to feel ever pressured to post anything that I don’t feel comfortable posting.”

Todd Naylor II was the kid who always came to dinner with a “fun fact” to share. Now he’s turned that enthusiasm into a full-time job as a trivia host on social media.

His videos on TikTok challenge followers to answer questions, from the general (“How many planets are in our solar system?”) to the complex (“If 23 people are in a room together, what are the odds that two of them will have the same birthday?”).

Naylor — who often records his videos in front of a cardboard cutout of a two-headed Elon Musk, whom he admires — partners with brands to sell trivia games and occasionally promotes finance companies. He also makes money from affiliate links, or personalized links that followers can click on to purchase products. If they buy something using his link, he gets a small portion of the sale.

He got his first paycheck from the TikTok Creator Fund in March 2022 — for $2.60. “It was really cool,” he said, “sort of like confirmation that it’s possible to make money from this.”

As his trivia quizzes grew more popular, he soon hit 30,000 followers. That led to his first brand deal with investment platform Bloom: $100 for two videos. But Naylor didn’t see a flood of interest from brands until he hit about 200,000 followers.

Naylor credited his budding career to advice from his dad: “Find something you love to do and figure out a way to make money from it.”

​​Alexandria Masse is a textile artist who specializes in making large soft sculptures and wearable art such as headphone covers, bunny balaclavas and dragon skulls. She began posting pictures of her work during the coronavirus pandemic and found that she could make a living as an artist with the help of the internet.

“I’d be a textile artist regardless of whether or not I was on social media,” Masse said. “But social media allows me to afford it, which I feel really grateful for.”

Because she lives in Canada, she is unable to benefit from programs like TikTok’s Creator Fund, which is only available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Spain. “I feel privileged to even get to do this for a living,” she said, “but it’s really frustrating to see other people get rewarded for doing the same thing when I know that’s not an option for me.”

Masse prioritizes her own art instead of chasing trends or copying other “crochetfluencers.” She has found financial success by approaching yarn brands for sponsorships and free supplies, and using social media to draw customers to her website and Etsy page. “The entire purpose now is to direct people to another platform, so they can buy things,” she said, “instead of just making content that gets a lot of views.”

She also sells patterns of her work, though making tutorials does not come naturally to her: “It’s like asking a grandparent for a recipe. They’re like, ‘I don’t know; I just make it.’”

Hannah Sterling’s social media presence is her side gig — she also has a full-time job working in commercial finance. But since she got her first brand deal in October 2020 with leather sneaker company Vobyo, she has hunkered down and started pitching to more and more brands.

Her TikTok following has grown steadily, sometimes by thousands in a single day — especially after she was featured in an Essence magazine article about best-dressed Black creatives on Instagram. “From there, I was like, ‘Let’s see how I can make money from this.’”

She now brings in about $3,000 per month, in part from recurring brand deals, which she’s held with travel brand Cincha and TikTok Shop products. Many of these deals involve companies paying Sterling a set monthly fee to make videos for their own pages — what’s known as “user-generated content” deals, or UGC.

Whatever the subject, Sterling said she only posts about things she enjoys. “If you’re posting a bunch of content you don’t like,” she said, “you’ll get burned out and you won’t see the success.”

Scott Westwood’s TikTok videos regularly get tens of thousands of views. But the British creator said he hasn’t made much money from social media.

“I’m struggling somewhat financially at the moment,” he said. “It seems like it’s almost an exclusive club to get into.”

Westwood’s videos riff on cozy and nostalgic TV shows such as “Gilmore Girls” or “Friends.” In his comments, followers reminisce with him about old episodes. But he hasn’t found a way to turn that engagement into cash — except for the few subscribers who donate to his Patreon fund, an online platform that allows fans to pay content creators directly.

Part of the problem may be that Westwood rarely makes videos about new movies or shows, so there aren’t obvious opportunities for brand tie-ins. When he does venture into videos about new shows, he said, the TikTok algorithm seems to limit his reach. Meanwhile, because he created his account when he was traveling in Australia, he isn’t able to benefit from TikTok’s Creativity Program Beta, which rewards creators in only in a few countries.

Doing all that work and not getting paid is demoralizing, Westwood said. Sometimes he takes months-long breaks from making content.

“Your motivation to create is to share, yes, but it’s also to get something back,” he said.

Maija Davis stumbled into content creation as part of her full-time job as a company marketing specialist. When she made a TikTok account for herself in 2021, she found it refreshing: Most of her followers were people she didn’t know in real life, rather the friends-and-family crowd from Instagram and Facebook.

Now she considers herself a “microinfluencer,” a creator with a follower count that is higher than most people’s personal accounts but lower than the big names — generally 100,000 or less. She thinks of content creation as a fun side job and is doubtful she’ll ever make it a full-time gig. Instead, she does it to make community connections and try out free products.

She often partners with local businesses and receives payment in free merch — skin care or beverages or dinners. But as her following has grown, she’s started to make cash for her work: Last month, she had two brand deals, netting $575.

“It’s a really saturated market,” she said of the creator industry. “I try every single day and am continually growing my following, slowly but steadily.”

Anthony Potero, known to friends as “Po” and fans as “Anthpo,” has been a creator since he was 10 and making Minecraft videos on YouTube. As a high school freshman, he found success with a sketch comedy group and began making his own funny videos, such as “Disturbing students as Perry the Platypus,” which achieved virality for its lawless whimsy.

That, Potero said, is when “I realized I could make way more doing YouTube than doing some random 9-5” job.

Six years later, Potero describes his videos as “friendship-oriented, wholesome content” from a “quirked-up White boy.” His most recent video follows his unlikely success forming a K-pop group (OK-Pop) with four college friends, only one of whom is Korean. They have since earned $11,000 in music streams and $8,500 in merchandise sales.

Potero’s highly anticipated video counting down the days until the end of college brought in the most he’s ever earned on YouTube — close to $65,000 in ad revenue for the month of May alone. “Right now, brands will pay more for a view on TikTok, rather than YouTube, because it’s the hot new thing,” Potero said, but YouTube still reigns supreme for the direct benefit the platform itself pays in ad revenue. Monetizable virality on TikTok and Instagram fluctuate, but Potero says the audience on YouTube is more invested: “My word on YouTube means a 100 times more than my word on TikTok.”

Potero spent the summer in Greenville, N.C., “working at Beast” — meaning headquarters for MrBeast, the most famous YouTuber on Earth. Now Potero has his own team with seven interns and seven contractors who use a business credit card for expenses.

Two months ago, Potero took inventory of all the gear he’s accumulated — 114 hard drives, tripods, gimbles, cameras, PCs, lenses, 6×9 green-screen backdrops and other props valued at $36,988. He has an additional $10,000 in costumes.

Jenny Park shares personal finance tips and career advice on TikTok aimed at helping women improve their financial literacy. It’s a side gig, but Park has already blown past her income goal for the year, hitting $104,000 in December.

Park’s full-time job involves leading brand partnerships at a tech company. She started making TikToks about two years ago, earning most of her online money from brand deals. For a partnership with Secret, a deodorant company, for example, she makes videos sharing “secrets” for financial success — like opening a high-yield savings account. She also promotes affiliate links to a mindfulness planner, a pajama brand and a glass water bottle company and makes some money through TikTok’s Creativity Program Beta.

In January, Park made $19,000 in a single month. By September, she realized she needed some time off. She didn’t accept any new deals and only earned $253, mostly from passive affiliate links.

“I say no to a lot of opportunities or I take breaks when I want to,” she said, “because I really want to create from a place of joy and inspiration.”

Margaret Skiff has been making YouTube videos since high school and dipping a toe into Instagram since college. But she didn’t really get traction as a creator until 2020, when she began posting about a new pandemic hobby: caring for house plants.

Her TikTok account gained 10,000 followers in six months, she said — an exciting but ultimately unsustainable trajectory. Her followers were narrowly focused on plants, and eventually she got tired of judgmental comments from other plant enthusiasts.

So Skiff transferred what she learned from her plant account to her main TikTok account, where she posts about her life and fashion. A 2022 video tour of her sister’s tiny house garnered almost 9 million views.

Marketplaces where creators can apply to work with multiple brands helped her earn money until she got well-established enough to attract brand deals on her own. She also makes user-generated content.

Skiff edits her videos on her lunch break or in the evenings after coming home from her full-time job as a senior experience analyst in the hospitality industry. “My full-time job allows me to have freedom because I’m not relying on content creation,” she said. “The stability really helps.”

About this story

Creators were asked to share financial data from a recent month. Data was self-reported by creators themselves. Income calculated does not reflect their average annual earnings, but the earnings of one specific month in 2023. Data in the thousands were rounded to whole numbers while numbers in the millions were rounded to the first decimal point. Follower counts were counted as of Dec. 14.

Illustrations by Emma Kumer for The Washington Post. Images courtesy of creator unless otherwise stated. Photos of Alexandria Masse by Kaley Beecroft (spider) and Ashley Cline (headshot). Photos of Anthony Potero by Salma HQ. Photos of Niccoya Thomas by Ely Honkpo (balloon).

Editing by Karly Domb Sadof, Chloe Meister and Lori Montgomery.