How Can I Earn Money With Instagram Reels?
You post Reels, or you are about to, and you want to know whether they can earn you money.
They can, in more than one way. Among them are Instagram's own tools, which are open to some accounts and come with conditions. There is also a brand that backs a video it can use, and a link your Reels lead people to.
By the end of this guide, you will know how to check what Instagram opens to you, how to read its conditions, and what else your Reels can lead to.
We do guided affiliation, and our affiliates post on Instagram. Other ways of doing this exist, and they are not wrong for being different.
Step 1. Switch to a professional account and open your dashboard
What you do: turn your account into a professional one, then open the professional dashboard in the app.
Where you check it: Instagram's help page on bonuses says they are only for business and creator accounts, and asks you to check your professional dashboard to see whether you have been invited to test a bonus program. The gifts you receive on Reels are tracked there too.
Step 2. Read the conditions of Instagram's own tools for Reels
What you do: for each tool your dashboard shows, read its conditions before you count on it.
Where you check it: in Instagram's help pages. Here is what they said in October 2026.
Gifts are only available to some creators at the moment. Viewers send them on Reels. To earn money from them, an account needs at least 500 followers, among other conditions, and has to be in one of the countries on the help page's list.
Bonuses are tests. Instagram offers them by invitation only, for a limited time, in the countries where it runs the tests. They come with rules: the content has to stay public, branded content is not eligible, and interactions have to be authentic.
These conditions change. The help page on the day you read it is the one that counts.
Step 3. Know the other ways your Reels can earn you money
What you do: look at what else a Reel can lead to.
Where you check it: in what each way asks of you.
A brand can back a video it can use. Instagram names tools for this, such as partnership ads and its Creator Marketplace, without saying which ones are open to you.
A Reel can also lead people to a link. On Instagram, the bio is where that link goes, and we look at that in can I do affiliate marketing with just an Instagram account.
We set out four ways posting videos can earn money, on any platform, in making money by posting videos from your phone.
Step 4. Decide what each Reel leads to, and keep posting
What you do: before you post a Reel, decide what someone can do after watching it. Then post regularly.
Where you check it: in your own Reels. A Reel that leads nowhere asks nothing of the person who watched it.
In guided affiliation: Reels made for you, clicks counted
In guided affiliation, the Reels are made for you. New ones land in a folder that is yours, every day, with their captions.
We create an account with you, step by step, and set up the profile, the bio and your own tracked link. You do not need followers of your own. We count the clicks on your link.
What is left to you is posting, from your phone, in about 15 minutes a day. The posting has to stay regular. None of this depends on which of Instagram's tools are open to you.
Your steps for Reels, to tick off
- I have a professional account.
- I have checked which tools my dashboard shows me.
- I have read the conditions of each one, on the day I read them.
- I know what each Reel leads to.