Followers are nice. But you didn’t start this to collect a number that goes up. At some point, the goal is for all this work to actually pay you back.

Today is the revenue day. First I’ll show you the full picture, how Instagram actually pays and how fast each stream is growing, so you can see what’s possible. Then I’ll hand you the two streams I’d tell anyone to start with this week.

Here’s what I actually made last month. Six streams, $33,850.

And the biggest one isn’t even on Instagram, it’s the display ads on my blog. But here’s the kicker: $7,000 of that came from Instagram and Facebook traffic alone. Half of my biggest stream, traced right back to social.

That’s the part I want you to sit with. Instagram isn’t just where you get paid, it’s the engine feeding almost everything else, the blog traffic, the brand deals, all of it. The two you can start this week? Affiliate and your own offers. Those pay you straight from the app.

If you’re just starting, here’s the honest curve. It looks like nothing for a long time, and then it doesn’t:

Most people quit somewhere in the $0 stretch. Don’t. The curve is real, it’s just back-loaded, you put in the work long before it pays, and then it compounds fast.

And if you already have an audience? Totally different game. You’re not waiting to grow, you’re converting. That’s all engagement and stories, the warm room where views turn into sales and page views. The people already following you are the ones who buy, so the two streams below are exactly where you point them.

This is the lowest-lift money on the platform. When I use something I actually like, a pair of shorts, my favorite socks, a kitchen tool, a protein I keep buying, I put a photo of it in my stories with an affiliate link. When someone taps it and buys, I earn a commission.

The key word is actually like. Your audience can smell a forced plug from a mile away. I only link things I’d buy again, and I show them in the context of my real life, not a staged ad. A photo of the socks I’m actually wearing beats a polished product shot every time.

Amazon’s affiliate program is the easiest place to start. You can get a link for almost anything, and stories are the perfect low-pressure place to share them. Nobody feels sold to by a story.

One honest note so you know what to expect: stories are the easiest place to sell because they reach your warmest audience, the people already following you. But story views scale with your following, so these numbers grow as you do. Same mechanics at 500 followers as at 50k, there are just more eyes on each link the bigger you get. That’s not a reason to wait, it’s a reason to build the habit now so it’s already paying you as your reach climbs.

And I mean the habit. I share affiliate stories and recipe links every single day, not once in a while. Not to be salesy, but because daily is what keeps me growing at the rate I want, and those recipe links are the exact same taps that send people to my site (the traffic behind those site ads up top). One daily habit, feeding two of my biggest streams at once.

One non-negotiable: you have to disclose it. Both the FTC and Amazon require it, and skipping it can get your affiliate account shut down. It’s simple, add a small “#affiliate,” “commission link,” or “affiliate link” note on any story with a link, and once you’re approved, put “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases” somewhere your audience can see it. Being upfront actually builds trust, it doesn’t cost you sales.

This is the long game, and it’s the one you actually own. It’s a small slice today (that membership line in the chart above, plus your own products), but it has the highest ceiling on the whole list, because you set the price and you keep the customer. If you have (or build) a paid membership or subscription, Instagram becomes the top of the funnel that feeds it.

Here’s exactly how we do it with our Bite Club membership at Joy to the Food. We post recipe reels for recipes that are members-only. The reel shows the finished dish, the hook, the whole thing looks amazing, and then the call to action is: the full recipe is inside Bite Club. Join to get it. People who’ve been following for the free recipes see a members-only one they want, and that’s the nudge that converts them to paying members.

We run Bite Club through GRO’s software, so the whole thing lives on our own site, we own the members, not a third party. If you’d rather start simpler, a paid Substack or the paid-subscriber option built into most email providers does the exact same job: a dedicated newsletter people pay for. Same idea, different door.

You can do the same with a carousel: tease the value, show the transformation, and end with a clear CTA to join. The reel or carousel does the selling. The membership does the earning.

These two run on different engines. Affiliate scales with reach, more people seeing your stories means more taps and more commissions, so it grows as you grow. Memberships run on trust, and trust you can build at any size. A creator with 5,000 people who genuinely trust them can out-earn one with 50,000 who don’t. You’ve spent this whole month building both, the reach and the trust. This is how you let them pay you back.

Talk tomorrow,

Mika