How Much Money Should You Charge as an Influencer?

If you're serious about your business, you can make serious money as an influencer. You've created beautiful content, your influencer is portfolio is ready to go - but how do you know how much money to charge? 

What are brands actually paying for?

Brands are paying for advertising. As influencers, we are advertisers. Brands are paying to get their product in front of our audience, just as they would if they paid a TV station to run a commercial. As an influencer, your audience is your product. This is why it's SO important to be crystal clear on your audience. 

The difference here is that influencers already have a connection with their audience - they already know, like and trust the influencer. This is why influencers can charge a premium - it's an endorsement to a higher-quality audience.

Standard benchmark rates for posts

The standard benchmark is around $100 per 10,000 followers on Instagram. This means that if you get a brand sponsorship, you can expect to earn about $100. This may be a little less if you're going through an influencer marketing platform, as they usually will take money off of that deal. 

This is not a hard-and-fast number - maybe you have exceptional audience engagement. Brands might be willing to pay even more for extras like this.

How you can maximize the amount of money you charge a brand

If this isn't just a hobby for you and you treat being an influencer as a business, you'll need to maximize how much you charge every brand you work with.

How do you do this? It's easy - packaging. 

Sure, you can charge $100 for a single Instagram post, but creating packages that you can offer to brands increases your value and the amount of money you can charge. Creating packages can include blog posts, YouTube videos, E-mail newsletter giveaways, or posts on any of your influencer channels. $500 for a package sounds a lot better than $100 for a single Instagram photo, right?