Instagram has announced that it’s now facilitating over 2 million creator subscriptions in the app, providing more opportunities for people to make money doing what they love via IG.
Instagram has been offering creator subscriptions since 2022, which enables creators to offer exclusive content to paying fans, and make money directly from their most dedicated audience.
Instagram has been steadily improving its offering on this front, and to mark this new milestone, it’s also adding some new elements to consider within creator subscriptions.
First off, Instagram’s rolling out new data for creators, with sticker tap insight.
As you can see in this example, Instagram will now provide notes into how much engagement your stickers are drawing in the app.
Instagram’s also expanding its subscription stories teaser display, which will show non-subscribers when a creator has posted subscriber-only content, giving them the option to sign-up to view.
That could be another way to boost sign-ups.
Instagram’s also adding new ways to prevent screenshots and screen recordings, in order to help protect a creator’s exclusive content, while it’s also sharing new case studies, best practice tips, and more, within its professional dashboard.
The added tools will provide more opportunity for IG creators, though it is also worth noting that the success rate for creators is still fairly slim, even with more than 2 million subscriptions now enacted in the app.
Because while the platforms themselves are keen to tout the “Creator Economy”, and the broader opportunity of making money from your online content, really, only a fraction of creators ever make money from their efforts.
Case in point, of Instagram’s reported 1.4 billion users, just 2 million, or 0.14%, are paying for creator subscriptions.
Of course, that could also mean that this is an untapped opportunity, and that more creators should try it out. But it may also indicate that getting people to pay you is not always as simple as offering them a means to do so.
You need a plan, a strategy, and it’s a lot of work. And according to research, only 4.3% of creators make more than $100k per year.
That’s a bit of a downer note on what Instagram’s promoting as a positive news story about its creator subscription growth (apologies), but the fact of the matter is that making money online is not the green fields opportunity that the platforms themselves want to project.
But at the same time, many creators are making money from subscriptions on IG, which could mean that you too have the potential to monetize your interests.
But it does take actual work.