How to Monetize Instagram Reels in 2025 (6 Proven Strategies for Creators)

Instagram is more than just a place to share videos and photos. It can also be a powerful platform for turning your creativity into real-life earnings. If you have an audience and you’re not monetizing your Instagram reels in 2025, you’re missing out big.

While the landscape has changed since Instagram discontinued its Reels Play Bonus program in 2023, creators are still earning income through multiple channels. The good news? You don’t need millions of followers to start making money with Reels.

Instagram has over 2 billion monthly active users, making it a goldmine for creators looking to monetize their content. With features like Instagram gifts, subscriptions, and opportunities for brand partnerships, you have multiple ways to monetize reels.

In this guide, we’ll break down the most effective ways to monetize Instagram reels in 2025, plus how to use tools like SpotlightWP to increase earnings even if you don’t have a massive following. Let’s get to it!

Understand Instagram’s Current Monetization Ecosystem

Instagram’s monetization options have evolved significantly. The once-popular Reels Play Bonus program was discontinued in 2023. That program rewarded content creators for getting large numbers of views.

Nowadays, monetizing reels and other Instagram content is a bit less straightforward, but there are plenty of ways to do it, including:

• Instagram Gifts: Viewers can send you “stars” (worth $0.01 each) as virtual gifts on your reels
• Subscriptions: You can offer exclusive content (not limited to reels) to paying followers
• Affiliate marketing: You can earn commissions by promoting products, either through Instagram’s affiliate program or through direct partnerships
• Brand collaborations: Similar to affiliate marketing, you can partner with businesses to promote their products/services in exchange for sponsoring reels and other types of content (similar to how creators use sponsors on YouTube)
• Selling your own products: If you have products or services to promote, you can use reels to do it

To be eligible for monetization, you’ll need to follow Instagram’s Partner Monetization Policies, which prohibit content that’s sexually explicit, violent, promotes discrimination, or violates copyright laws.

Aside from that, your account needs to meet some basic criteria to qualify for Instagram’s monetization options. These criteria are:

• Professional account (Business or Creator)
• At least 500 followers (in the US) or 1,000 followers (outside the US)
• 18 years or older
• Living in an eligible region
• No prior policy violations on your account

How to do it:

1. Check your eligibility by going to your Instagram account settings and looking for the Monetization tab (this is only available for professional Instagram accounts).
2. Create a diversified income strategy using multiple reel monetization methods.
3. Review Instagram’s policies regularly, as requirements often change, and make sure your content doesn’t infringe on the platform’s policies.

Set Up a Creator or Professional Account (If You Haven’t Already)

If you’re still using a personal Instagram account, you’re locked out of most monetization features. Converting to a Professional account (Business or Creator) takes just a few minutes and unlocks essential tools.

Here’s a quick video where we show you how to switch your personal Instagram account to a Business account:

And here are step-by-step instructions going over that same process:

1. Go to your profile and tap the hamburger menu (≡).
2. Tap Account type and tools in the For professional settings.
3. Choose Switch to professional account.
4. Select either Creator or Business (Creator is typically better for individual content makers).
5. Follow the prompts to complete the process.

A Professional account gives you access to Instagram Analytics, monetization tools, the ability to run ads, and integration with tools like Spotlight. This step is non-negotiable if you want to make money with reels.

Create Reels That Align With Monetization Goals

Not all reels are created equal when it comes to monetization potential. The content that performs best tends to be. Some basic tips to create engaging reels include:

• High-quality: Use clear visuals and good audio. This is the baseline for reels, as users can skip your content in a second if they think it’s low quality.
• Engaging: Use Calls to Action (CTAs) to prompt comments, shares, and saves. If you want users to take a specific action, be explicit about it.
• Niche-relevant: The reels you create should speak directly to your target audience. If you’re making content outside of your niche, it can go viral, but it won’t convert as well.
• Trend-aware: Use popular audio or concepts whenever possible. Riding trends on Instagram is not a bad way to get at least some eyes on your reels, as long as you can make them work for your audience.
• Original: Don’t repost content from other creators or rip off their work. Riding on trends is one thing, but plagiarism can get your account in trouble.

Different monetization strategies call for different types of reels. For brand deals, you’ll want polished, professional content that showcases products naturally. For driving product sales, tutorial-style reels demonstrating how to use your offerings work best.

For example, many fitness creators produce different types of reels: workout tutorials that promote their fitness products, lifestyle content that attracts brand partnerships, and Q&A sessions that build community and drive subscriptions.

If you’re not sure what kind of content to create for your audience, experiment. Try different reel ideas and see what works and what doesn’t. As long as the content is relevant to your audience, it’s OK to try different ideas and formats out.

How to do it:

1. Study top-performing reels in your niche and identify patterns. Just try and focus on content in your niche and don’t get distracted by reels of puppies and fancy meals (unless those are your niches!).
2. Create a content calendar with different types of reels for different monetization goals. This isn’t strictly required, but planning out and scheduling content makes it much easier to see your strategy laid out.
3. Invest in basic equipment (good lighting, microphone, tripod) for better production quality.
4. Test different formats and types of reels and track which ones get the most engagement with your audience. If you’ve already been posting content on Instagram, you probably have a good idea of what your audience wants to see.
5. Maintain a consistent posting schedule, ideally 3-5 reels per week. That’s a lot of time spent on reels, though, so feel free to start small (with 1-2 reels per week) as long as you’re consistent. Using reel templates can help a lot in creating content faster.

Monetization Strategy #1: Direct Audience Support with Instagram Gifts

Instagram gifts enable viewers to send you virtual “Stars” as a way to show appreciation for your content. Each Star is worth $0.01, and Instagram pays out your earnings monthly once you reach the minimum threshold.

To enable gifts as a creator:

1. Go to your professional account’s settings
2. Tap Monetization
3. Select Gifts
4. Review and accept the terms
5. Complete setup

Gifts work best when you:

• Directly ask for support: Simply asking viewers to take action can have better results than you think. Don’t be scared to end the reel with a quick, “If you found this helpful, consider sending a gift!”.
• Acknowledge supporters: Shout out viewers who’ve already sent gifts or who may do it in the future.
• Create gift-worthy content: If you want viewers to consider paying, your content needs to be worth it. That means it needs to be highly engaging, educational, or of exceptional quality.
• Post consistently: Publish reels regularly and, if possible, on a schedule. That way, your audience will know when to expect new content.

The beauty of gifts is that you don’t need a massive following. Even creators with 500+ followers can start earning this way. Payoffs might not be significant with a small audience, but that’s why it makes sense to leverage multiple monetization methods.

How to do it:

1. Create a “thank you” template to acknowledge the people who send you gifts and thank them via DM.
2. Include a subtle reminder about gifts at the end of your most valuable reels.
3. Track which content types receive the most gifts and try to create more similar content.
4. Set up a payment method in your dashboard to receive earnings.

Monetization Strategy #2: Launch Instagram Subscriptions

Subscriptions provide recurring monthly income from your most devoted followers. Subscribers pay between $0.99-$99.99 per month for exclusive content, including subscriber-only reels.

To set up Subscriptions (if you’re eligible):

1. Go to your professional account dashboard.
2. Tap Monetization.
3. Select Subscriptions.
4. Set your monthly price.
5. Define what subscribers will receive.

To make subscriptions worth it for your audience:

• Create exclusive reels: These can be anything from behind-the-scenes content, extended tutorials, or early access videos. To make the subscription worth it, you need to offer your audience plenty of exclusive content and, ideally, new reels on a regular basis.
• Hold subscriber-only events: You can host Q&A sessions, coaching calls, interviews with followers, and more. The goal of these events is to make your audience feel closer to you or the brand you represent.
• Offer personal feedback: Review subscriber submissions or answer their questions. You’d be surprised at how much of a difference it can make to have the account owner responding to comments and answering questions on reels and posts.
• Provide resources: These can be anything from templates, guides, or checklists related to your niche. Your goal, just as with exclusive reels, is to make subscribers feel like they’re getting their money’s worth.

The key to monetizing subscriptions is consistency. Subscribers need to feel they’re getting consistent value for their money. Many successful creators post exclusive reels at least 2-3 times per week for subscribers.

How to do it:

1. Start with a lower price point ($4.99 or less) to build your subscriber base.
2. Create a content calendar specifically for subscriber content.
3. Regularly promote the benefits of subscribing in your public reels, posts, and stories.
4. Survey subscribers to understand what kind of content they like to see and double down on it.

Monetization Strategy #3: Promote Digital or Physical Products

Your Reels can be powerful sales tools for your own products, whether they’re digital downloads or physical merchandise.

Here’s how to effectively sell through reels:

• Create tutorial reels: These can help you show off products and services in the best light possible. Seeing products or services in action can influence your audience to purchase them.
• Share before/after results: This doesn’t apply to all products, but it’s something that audiences tend to love. Before/after results reels can act as a kind of social proof and they’re very fun to watch!
• Post customer testimonials: Nowadays, people rely a lot on social proof to make purchasing decisions. Having reels showing real user testimonials can sway plenty of people to convert.
• Use product tags: You can add product tags in reels to promote third-party products or your own. If you have access to Instagram Shopping, you can link to products from your shop through reels.

For digital products like courses, templates, or ebooks, create teaser reels that showcase their value without giving everything away. For physical products, focus on unique features, lifestyle benefits, and showing off the product’s quality through videos.

The most successful product promotions don’t feel like ads. They provide genuine value while naturally leading viewers to conclude that they need to buy them. A lot of beauty and lifestyle creators have found success by creating helpful tutorials that showcase their products in action and this can work for other niches too.

How to do it:

1. Set up Instagram Shopping if you’re selling physical products.
2. Create a series of reels showing different aspects of your product or service.
3. Include clear call-to-actions in your captions (“Link in bio to shop!”).
4. Use the countdown sticker in stories and reels to build anticipation for launches.
5. Track which product reels convert best and try to scale them!

Monetization Strategy #4: Brand Collaborations & Sponsored Content

Brand deals remain one of the most lucrative ways to monetize Instagram reels. Even micro-influencers with just a few thousand followers can command hundreds of dollars per sponsored reels if they have niche audiences and a proven track record of engagement.

To attract brand partnerships:

• Create a media kit: Showcase your audience demographics, engagement rates, and previous collaborations
• Join the Creator Marketplace: You can join the Creator Marketplace to make it easier to connect with brands that are already on the platform. This can be a fantastic way to start getting brand deals if you don’t have outside offers or connections with businesses looking to sponsor content.
• Pitch directly: If you want to skip the Creator Marketplace, you can reach out to brands directly, pitch them, and try to work out private sponsorships. Brands might also reach out to you directly, but this usually only happens once you have a sizable audience.
• Deliver measurable results: Track metrics like click-throughs and conversions. Instagram Analytics does a lot of this for you, but you want to be able to show businesses looking to sponsor you as much data as possible about your audience and conversion rates.

Authentic brand collaborations perform best. If you wouldn’t use the product yourself, your audience will typically see right through it. Many successful creators focus on building relationships with brands that align with their values and audience interests, which ultimately leads to more authentic content and better results.

How to do it:

1. Research brands that align with your content and audience.
2. Create a professional one-pager showcasing your engagement metrics.
3. Start working with (and pitching) smaller brands to build your portfolio of sponsored content.
4. Propose multi-reel packages to try and “lock in” brands. This also gives you multiple chances to hit the nail on the head with your content.
5. Always disclose sponsored content according to FTC guidelines. Instagram requires you to specify if any content that you publish is sponsored.

Monetization Strategy #5: Use Affiliate Marketing to Earn Commissions

Affiliate marketing lets you earn a percentage of sales when your audience purchases products you recommend through your unique tracking links.

To succeed with affiliate marketing in reels, you’ll want to:

• Join relevant programs: Start by looking at platforms like Amazon Associates, ShareASale, or brand-specific programs for opportunities. Not all niches lend themselves well to affiliate marketing, but chances are you have options to choose from.
• Create honest reviews: Audiences tend to be very good about spotting fake or dishonest content. Promoting products that don’t benefit your users might get you some money in the short term, but it can also tank your credibility.
• Add swipe-up links: Use the Link sticker in stories and reels to drive traffic.
• Disclose partnerships: Always add #ad or #affiliate hashtag or notice to stay compliant and make sure your viewers know when they’re looking at affiliate content.
• Track conversions: Use different links for different reels to see what works and track conversions to determine what kinds of products or services do best with your audience.

Successful affiliate marketers focus on products that solve specific problems for their audience. A lot of fashion and beauty creators, for example, have built sustainable income streams by promoting products that genuinely help their followers, creating content that educates and informs while also monetizing.

How to do it:

1. Apply to affiliate programs relevant to your niche. If you promote products or services your audience doesn’t care about, you won’t get decent conversions and it’ll dilute your brand’s credibility.
2. Use a branded link shortener to track performance.
3. Drive traffic from stories to reels with link stickers or swipe-up links.
4. Analyze your conversion rates and focus on high-performing products.

Monetization Strategy #6: Use Spotlight To Monetize Reels with a WordPress Site

If you have a WordPress website, Spotlight can supercharge your reels monetization strategy by helping you show that video content on your website as well.

Setting up Spotlight takes only a few minutes:

1. Install the Spotlight plugin.
2. Connect your Instagram Professional account to Spotlight (the plugin doesn’t work with personal accounts due to Instagram limitations).
3. Choose which reels to display (and which other content, including stories and/or posts). You can set up multiple feeds, each showcasing different content, and embed them throughout your website.
4. Customize the look and placement of the Instagram feed.
5. Add the feed to your site using shortcodes or blocks.

Spotlight is a great solution for sharing Instagram content beyond the social media platform. As far as monetizing reels goes, you can leverage Spotlight to do things like:

• Display UGC (user-generated content) reels, such as customer testimonials, on your site to build trust.
• Showcase sponsored reels for longer visibility and to use them as social proof on your site (i.e., even other brands love our products!).
• Use feeds to link to products using Shoppable Spotlight feeds.

Spotlight is not the only Instagram plugin for WordPress, but it’s the option that offers some of the best features for brands and content creators. With Spotlight, you get full control over what Instagram content to show on your website and how users see it.

Key benefits:

• Fresh, automated content keeps your site engaging.
• Social proof builds trust with potential buyers.
• Increased visibility to help you show reels to non-Instagram users.
• High-engagement Instagram feeds can keep visitors on your site longer.
• More conversion opportunities with strategic feed placement.

FAQs: Monetizing Instagram Reels (2025 Edition)

Can you monetize Instagram Reels without 10,000 followers? 

Yes! For Instagram Gifts, you only need 500 followers (in the US) or 1,000 followers (in other regions). Brand deals, affiliate marketing, and selling your own products can start with even fewer followers if you have a highly engaged niche audience.

Is the Reels Play Bonus still available? 

The Reels Play Bonus program was discontinued in 2023. Instagram occasionally tests temporary bonus programs with selected creators, but availability can vary depending on your region.

What’s the best way to make money with Reels as a beginner? 

Start with Instagram gifts if you meet the eligibility requirements. Meanwhile, build your portfolio with high-quality Reels to attract small brand deals or affiliate partnerships in your niche. Focus on creating value for a specific audience rather than trying to go viral.

How do I use affiliate links in Reels? 

Since you can’t add clickable links directly in reels, mention your affiliate link in your bio or create a story with a swipe-up link that complements your reel. Always include proper disclosures (#ad or #affiliate) to comply with regulations.

How can I add Instagram Reels to my website? 

The easiest way is by using Spotlight for WordPress sites. It automatically pulls your reels and other Instagram content and displays it in customizable, responsive feeds. You can filter which reels to display, add custom CTAs, and even create shoppable galleries.

Conclusion: You Don’t Need Viral Views to Start Monetizing Reels

If you’re a brand on Instagram, don’t spend all your time trying to chase viral content. Going viral can help you grow your account faster, but publishing consistent, quality content for a targeted audience is a more sustainable way to get views. The most successful creators in 2025 aren’t chasing or buying views. They’re building relationships with viewers who become customers, clients, and subscribers.

By combining multiple monetization strategies and extending your reels’ reach through plugins like Spotlight, you can create multiple income streams from the same content. Start with one method, master it, then expand.

Remember that success doesn’t happen overnight. The creators earning the most from reels in 2025 started long before they saw significant returns. Stay consistent, keep improving, and use tools like Spotlight to turn your Instagram audience into a business asset.

Ready to take your Instagram Reels monetization to the next level? Try Spotlight today to embed, automate, and earn from your Reels across multiple platforms.