People often ask, “But how do you make money?” — and it’s a fair question. Outside the industry, it can be hard to understand how influencers support a family and a team. We earn income through multiple channels: brand partnerships, products, affiliate links, and advertising. Below I break down the main revenue streams and explain what each typically involves.
Sponsorships
Brand sponsorships are the largest portion of our income, roughly 70%. We work with a management team that handles outreach, contract negotiation and logistics. Sponsors find us in a few ways: they email directly, our management pitches opportunities to us, or we reach out to brands we want to collaborate with. Once a partnership is agreed, it usually falls into one of several formats.
Sponsored Blog Posts and Social Campaigns
Sponsored blog posts and coordinated social campaigns are the most common form of sponsorship we do. Brands provide a brief that outlines messaging, product placement, required tags, links and timing. Some brands give creative freedom, while others supply strict guidelines we must follow. For blog collaborations, products often need to appear in a set number of images and be mentioned specific times in the text. We take the brief and propose a concept that feels authentic while meeting the brand’s objectives.
Most campaigns include social promotion alongside the blog post. That means sharing the content across our social platforms (Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and sometimes YouTube). Increasingly, some brands prefer to focus only on social, making Instagram or another platform the campaign’s “hero” content instead of a long-form blog post.
Events and Appearances
Brands host events for product launches, holidays or special milestones and sometimes hire influencers to attend and promote the event. If it’s public, we might promote it before and during the event; for private events, promotion is often limited to coverage from the event. Deliverables typically include specific product highlights or messaging. I also host workshops or co-host events when a brand wants deeper creative involvement, which requires more hands-on work and preparation.
Brand Ambassadorships and Long-Term Partnerships
Long-term partnerships, often called brand ambassadorships, include a series of posts, events and sometimes strategic work like meetings at a brand’s headquarters or creative input on product development. These deals can provide more predictable income and higher rates, but may require exclusivity within a category, which can limit other opportunities. The trade-off is stability and a deeper relationship with a brand that our audience can come to trust over time.
Products
Products we design and sell account for roughly 15% of our income. A dedicated team handles product negotiations while a partner company manages sourcing, manufacturing, distribution and advertising. Our role centers on concept development and promotion. Influencer product deals with third parties are commonly structured as guarantees (an upfront payment), royalties (a percentage of sales, sometimes only after a guarantee is met), or profit sharing. Exact terms vary by agreement.
Affiliate Links
Affiliate links make up about 8% of our revenue. These are links we include in blog posts or social captions; if you click through and purchase, I earn a small commission. It’s similar to a referral fee: when I recommend products you buy, I may receive a percentage of that sale. Affiliates are an important, performance-based revenue stream that aligns recommendations with real shopping behavior.
Banner Ads
Display ads on the site—sidebar ads, in-post placements and footer banners—account for the remaining roughly 7% of income. This is one of our more passive revenue streams: we get paid based on views or clicks. Rates fluctuate with seasonality and ad prioritization. Ad inventory is managed by a third-party partner that handles placements and optimization.
That’s the quick breakdown of how we earn money. Right now our income is heavily weighted toward sponsorships, and like many creators we’re working to diversify so revenue is more evenly distributed across products, affiliates and ads. If you have more questions, leave them below — it might inspire a follow-up post.