How to Earn Money from Photography on Instagram
Who doesn’t want to earn income from Instagram? Instagram can be a fantastic tool for photographers to advertise their work and share their images for people to see. It can also provide a fantastic amount of passive income when used properly. In this article, I want to provide you with the best ways to make money from Instagram as a photographer and give my own experience each options that I personally use to earn income.
#1 - Sell Prints
Starting off this list, we have one of the most common and most utilized ways to make money as a photographer; selling prints. People are always looking to purchase artwork for their walls and office spaces. I would love to be able to tell you that you can sell prints and make enough to pay for your life but that is not true in today’s day and age for the majority of photographers. The truth is, the market is incredibly oversaturated with photographers and so to sell a lot of prints you really need to have great connections to large businesses (like hospitals, hotels, etc.), sign up for art shows, and have a unique photography style to help you stand out.
I personally sell prints through Pixieset which automates all my sales so it is 100% passive income. My style of photography is unique; capturing images of moody forests and landscapes in the PNW on days most photographers are indoors praying for sunny days. I do not push print sales or market in any way outside of posting on Instagram and on my website but do bring in a net profit of about $3,000 - $5,000 every year from the prints I do sell. I also do have over 200K followers at the time of this article which is something that not everyone has I realize so keep that in mind. As mentioned earlier though, I am terrible about marketing myself for prints and so if you put in some effort and approached businesses actively, I am sure you could beat my sales with relative ease.
#2 - Sell Presets
If you spend any time on Instagram at all, you will find photographers selling their presets. I personally used to be against selling presets because I believe people should learn how to edit on their own and find their style. As time passed by and people continued to ask me to sell my own presets, I decided to offer them for people to buy; and the results have been pretty great overall. Full disclosure, presets alone do not bring in enough money to live off of but they can add another stream of income that is completely passive. Last year alone, I made just over $2,000 off of my presets and it was completely passive other than the initial work to curate the content and presets for the download. I’ll take that any day. It is worth noting that to be successful selling presets, your style must be unique and having a cohesive feed to advertise that look helps a ton. The people who sell the most presets all share these things in common. If you’d like to take a look at my presets for reference, check out my Moody PNW Preset Pack.
#3 - Selling Calendars
Similar to selling prints, many photographers on Instagram sell calendars at the end of the year. I personally know photographers who bring in $3,000-$5,000 a year on calendars alone; but generally you do need a decent following to do so. Selling calendars can be great if you can automate it but most photographers tend to direct ship to customers which can be time consuming if you get a lot of orders.
#4 - Create a Masterclass
Creating a masterclass can be done by anyone with experience in a particular field. Masterclasses can take hours to create and curate but the payoff can be huge if you are successful in creating a unique product and desired outcome for your clients. The masterclass can about any topic you like and do not have to be super extensive by any means so long as they are worth the investment. Many creators create masterclasses via a video format and provide people with unique information to help them in some kind of way. Some people I know personally make over six figures with their masterclasses but they are truly masters of their crafts and generally have a pretty good following.
#5 - SELL E-Books
E-books have grown in popularity over the years. As opposed to a masterclass, E-books provide useful information via PDF documents or special subscription-model articles that clients can read. This information can be about anything that you think your followers may be interested in; from growing a business to getting paid to travel. The possibilities are endless. If you write good e-books and provide information that is worth the price tag, you can release a series of e-books that people will continue to buy time and time again.
#6 - Offer Consulting
Though this option does come with requirements of being incredibly specialized and experienced in a certain area, offering consulting can be a great way to make money through Instagram. If you have the expertise to give great advice and are well-known for what you do, you can charge people money for your time to just give advice or help problem solve. Often times people who get paid for consulting also have masterclasses and/or e-books that inspire people to reach out for more information and advice.
#7 - Offer Workshops
In-person workshops can bring in some amazing money and pay for just about any trip with ease so long as people see you as one who they would like to learn from. Workshops do take a good deal of planning in advance so they are not for everyone but teaching others can be very rewarding. There are plenty of great photographers out there who offer workshops and, if you are good at what you do, people will pay top dollar for hands-on learning in beautiful locations. Many of the people who I know who do workshops charge anywhere from $1,500 - $5,000 per person with groups of up to 8 people per trip but the earning potential can be unlimited if you are amazing at what you teach.
#8 - Affiliate Marketing
One of the best ways to make money from your Instagram is by becoming an affiliate marketer and promoting products you use and love through your Instagram profile and posts. The most popular affiliate program is the one offered by Amazon, though almost every company has some kid of program. Once accepted by Amazon into their “AmazonAssociates” program, you can create your own storefront with all your favorite items and get affiliate links to post wherever you like. Every time someone purchases one of the items in your storefront or through an affiliate link, you get a kickback. The kickbacks can add up and people make thousands of dollars a year from Amazon alone. Last year I personally wrote this article on The Best Cameras For Wedding Photography and earned right about $1,000 from that article alone off of affiliate links.
I personally just started getting into affiliate marketing last year and have made about $2,000 from my articles on my website alone. Again, it is not much; but if you learn to write articles and rank them on Google, you can easily live off of the income from affiliate marketing alone. There are tons of people who make tens and even hundreds of thousands a year off of this method. As with the other items mentioned above, affiliate marketing is completely passive and so it can be an amazing tool to earn income without having to do any work beyond the time it takes to write the articles initially. If you love blogging, this can be a fantastic tool.
#9 - Become a Brand Ambassador
Becoming a brand ambassador is not something you need a lot of followers to do. It all just takes connecting with the right brand and having a good portfolio. Though it can be rare to find a brand that is willing to give monetary compensation in trade for photography anymore (most prefer trading products for photography), it can happen. I know people who bring in $3,000 a month shooting content a couple hours each week for brands and the work can be super easy and enjoyable if you find the right products. When approaching brands, it is great to have a portfolio and clear terms of the agreement on both sides. I personally have worked with quite a few brands over the years. If the brand wishes to trade a product for my photography, I only take on brands with products I am actually interested in. Otherwise, I typically ask for some kind of monetary compensation.
As a related side note, one of my favorite trades is that of trading photography for stay at Airbnb’s. Last year alone, I had the opportunity to work with over 20 hosts across the PNW and Alaska and traded them photography for nights of stay as well as monetary compensation for the images. Doing so saved me over $15,000 in costs for stay at some amazing locations and I also pocketed over $15,000 for the photography as well. I have loved building these relationships with hosts and the trade has been mutually beneficial. If you would like to see some of my work, check out my PNW Airbnb Promotion page. At some point I plan to either offer an e-book and/or masterclass explaining just how I do this.
#10 - Push Traffic to Your Website or Blog
Every time I write a new blog post, I post my article to my Instagram stories for people to read. Pushing people to your blog and website can be a powerful tool that can get you hired for all kinds of work or create income through affiliate links placed in your blog and website. If you have a website, it can also be great to create a link-tree url from your website that allows people to see all the services you offer via a hub where they can find all kinds of information.
Final Remarks
I hope this article proved to be useful to you. Instagram can be a fantastic tool and way to earn money when used properly. Though not all of these options may allow you to retire from your job, the passive income opportunities can be amazing and the sky is truly the limit. I do want to note that there are of course other ways to earn income from Instagram like selling NFT’s, selling merch, and winning photography contests but each of these have their own risks or luck involved that I do not think is for everyone nor is a reliable source of income.
As always, let me know in the comments below if you agree or disagree or if you feel I missed anything. If you’d like to see my Instagram, give me a follow @zachnicholz.
How to Earn Money from Photography on Instagram
Written by: Zach Nichols
Updated Jan 21, 2024
© Zach Nichols Photography