Every day, billions of people open photo and video apps to scroll through friends' posts, short clips and stories without paying anything. The servers, the engineers and the systems that pick what to show next cost a great deal to run, so the money has to come from somewhere else.
Search for how one of these apps makes money and most answers are about the people posting on it, with their brand deals and creator bonuses. That is a different question from how the app's owner gets paid. The owner also makes it harder to answer, because it publishes no separate revenue figure for the app.
Free social apps mostly earn by selling the space in front of their users to advertisers. Those advertisers bid to place a post or a video between the ones people came to see. Many now add a second, smaller stream on top, charging people and businesses a monthly fee for extras that the free version leaves out.
Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms, is one of the largest examples of that model, and what it earns reaches investors through Meta's share price. On BloFin you can hold that price as a token on the METAX/USDT Spot market. You can also open a leveraged long or short trade through the METAUSDT Perpetual, and both move with what Meta reports.
How does Instagram make money?
Instagram makes money for Meta mainly by selling ads that appear in its Feed, Stories, Explore tab and Reels. A smaller stream comes from paid plans such as Meta Verified and Instagram Plus. Meta does not report Instagram's revenue, but its own court filing in April 2024 put Instagram's ad sales at $32.4 billion for 2021 (source: Meta's statement of facts in FTC v. Meta).
Three groups pay. Advertisers pay to put their posts and videos in front of the people scrolling, and they are by far the biggest source of money. People pay a monthly fee for extra features or a checked badge, and businesses pay for plans that add tools to their accounts. Posting, following and watching all stay free for everyone else.
Meta reports Instagram inside its Family of Apps segment, with Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Threads. It splits revenue by type, so no line carries Instagram's name. Every Instagram ad is counted in advertising. Meta Verified subscriptions go into a much smaller line called other revenue, next to WhatsApp's paid messaging (source: Meta 10-K for 2025). Advertising is by far the larger of Meta's revenue sources.
Instagram and Facebook are the main ad businesses that pay for nearly everything else at Meta. That includes Reality Labs and the data centers behind Meta's capital spending on AI. How quickly Instagram's ad sales grow is one of the main things that decides how comfortably Meta can afford that spending.
Where Instagram ads appear and when each began
Instagram ads appear in four main places: the Feed, Stories, Reels and the Explore tab. The Feed started showing ads in late 2013, and Stories ads went into testing in January 2017 (source: TechCrunch, Stories ads). Reels ads opened to advertisers worldwide in June 2021, and they also show when you watch Reels from the Explore tab (source: TechCrunch, Reels ads).
Where the ad appears | What you see | When ads began |
|---|---|---|
Feed | A sponsored photo or video between posts from accounts you follow | Late 2013 |
Stories | A full-screen ad between friends' Stories | Tested from January 2017 with 30 brands |
Reels | A full-screen video ad of up to 30 seconds between Reels | June 2021, worldwide |
Each new placement gave Meta more space to sell without crowding the Feed. Advertisers buy that space through an auction. When Stories ads arrived, they were priced per thousand views, with the rate set by bidding (source: TechCrunch, Stories ads). Every time you open the app, advertisers compete for the slots in front of you, and Meta decides which ad fills each one.
Say you open Reels and watch a few cooking clips. Between two of them, a full-screen video from a kitchenware brand plays with a button to shop, and you can skip it, save it or tap through. The brand paid Meta for that slot, so the moment the ad reached your screen, Meta added one more ad impression to the total it reports each quarter.
Those two figures, how many ads Meta shows and what advertisers pay for each one, drive the whole ad business. Meta publishes the change in both every quarter as ad impressions and average price per ad, and Instagram is a large part of each.
Reels revenue, call by call
Reels, the short-video format inside Instagram and Facebook, went from a drag on Meta's ad revenue to one of its largest ad products in under three years. On October 29, 2025, Mark Zuckerberg told investors that Reels had an annual revenue run-rate of over $50 billion (source: Meta Q3 2025 earnings call).
A run-rate takes a recent stretch of revenue, usually one quarter, and scales it up to a full year. Meta's Reels run-rates cover Facebook and Instagram together, so they show how big Reels has become while leaving the split between the two apps unknown. A Reels ad also counts in the same advertising line as a Feed ad, which makes these run-rates the only regular sign of the format's size.
The early problem was price. On February 1, 2023, Zuckerberg said Reels earned much less per minute watched than the feed. So when people swapped feed time for Reels time, "we actually lose money" (source: Meta Q4 2022 earnings call). He said Meta expected that drag on revenue to be roughly neutral by the end of 2023 or early in 2024.
Within six months Meta could put a number on the change. On July 26, 2023, Zuckerberg said the Reels run-rate across Meta's apps had passed $10 billion, up from $3 billion the previous autumn (source: Meta Q2 2023 earnings call). On the same call, chief financial officer Susan Li said Reels would keep earning less than Stories and Feed for some time. Her reason was that people scroll more slowly through video.
Set those run-rates against Meta's ad sales and the climb is easy to see. If a run-rate is one quarter's revenue times four, Reels brought in more than $2.5 billion between April and June 2023. That is more than 7.9% of the $31.5 billion of ad revenue Meta's apps made that quarter, worked out (source: Meta Q2 2023 earnings call). Between July and September 2025 the same sum gives more than $12.5 billion out of $50.1 billion, or about a quarter of all ad revenue (source: Meta Q3 2025 earnings call).
Meta's annual report still expects Reels to earn less than Feed and Stories for the foreseeable future, so moving time into video has a cost (source: Meta 10-K for 2025). For Instagram, the open question on each call is how fast Reels closes that gap.
Instagram Plus, Meta One and Meta Verified
Instagram also sells paid plans to its users. Meta's September 15, 2026 post on its Meta One plans lists Instagram Plus at $3.99 a month. It adds extras such as custom fonts for messages and Stories, and alerts when certain people view your Story. Meta One's Core plan at $7.99 and Premium plan at $19.99 add more AI tools (source: Meta Newsroom, Meta One).
Businesses and creators get plans of their own. The Essential business plan starts at $14.99 a month and adds a verified badge and protection against accounts that copy yours. The Advanced plan, from $49.99, lets a business schedule Stories up to 30 days ahead, put links in its regular posts and reels, and export its analytics (source: Meta Newsroom, Meta One). Creators on the plans can show a bold follow button on their reels, and Meta says prices and benefits can vary by region, app and account.
The post set out the plans, but Meta One was already on sale before it. On the July 29, 2026 call, Zuckerberg said Meta had just launched Meta One, and Susan Li called it an evolution of Meta's subscription portfolio (source: Meta Q2 2026 earnings call). Meta's September post adds that Instagram Plus launched earlier in 2026 and that the single-app plans are seeing strong retention. In early testing of the bundled plans, AI features such as Restyle and voice effects on Instagram were among the top reasons people subscribed.
The older paid product is Meta Verified, which Meta announced on February 19, 2023 and began testing on Facebook and Instagram that week in Australia and New Zealand. It gives a badge tied to a government ID, checks for accounts that pretend to be you, and a real person to help when your account has a problem (source: Meta Newsroom, Meta Verified).
All of this subscription money is counted in other revenue. In July 2026 Susan Li said other revenue had reached $1.0 billion in one quarter for the first time, up 73% in a year. WhatsApp paid messaging and subscriptions were the main drivers (source: Meta Q2 2026 earnings call). Across every app, that line is still small next to the $59.4 billion Meta made from ads in the same quarter (source: Meta Q2 2026 earnings call).
Even after more than three years of Meta Verified and a new set of plans in 2026, subscriptions remain a small extra on top of the ad business. Meta's third-quarter 2026 report is the first since Zuckerberg said in July that Meta had just launched Meta One, so it gives the first look at whether the plans move other revenue.
How much money Instagram makes for Meta
Meta does not report Instagram's revenue, so the most solid figures come from its own court filing. In April 2024, in the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust case, Meta put Instagram's ad revenue at $32.4 billion for 2021, up from $11.3 billion in 2018. That was 28.2% of Meta's 2021 ad revenue, worked out (source: Meta's statement of facts in FTC v. Meta) (source: Meta 10-K for 2021).
Meta filed that court statement on April 5, 2024, in support of its motion for summary judgment, which asked the court to end the case before trial. The statement gives Instagram $17.9 billion of ad revenue for 2019 and $22.0 billion for 2020 (source: Meta's statement of facts in FTC v. Meta). Over the same years Meta's whole ad business made $69.7 billion, $84.2 billion and then $114.9 billion in 2021 (source: Meta 10-K for 2021).
Year | Instagram ad revenue | Meta's total ad revenue | Instagram's share, worked out |
|---|---|---|---|
2019 | $17.9 billion | $69.7 billion | 25.7% |
2020 | $22.0 billion | $84.2 billion | 26.1% |
2021 | $32.4 billion | $114.9 billion | 28.2% |
Between 2019 and 2021, Instagram's ad sales grew 81.0%, while Meta's ad business as a whole grew 65.0%. That means Instagram supplied 32.0% of Meta's extra ad revenue over those two years, worked out. For the first half of 2022 the filing gave $16.5 billion, a pace of about $33 billion a year (source: Meta's statement of facts in FTC v. Meta).
The filing's figures stop in mid-2022, and Meta's quarterly reports since then give no Instagram line. Anything newer comes from Meta's comments on its calls, such as the Reels run-rates, or from outside estimates.
Any new Instagram figure Meta gives on a call can move the share price. To follow that reaction with crypto, open the METAX/USDT Spot market, or use the METAUSDT Perpetual market to take a leveraged view.
Outside estimates of Instagram revenue
Outside estimates of Instagram revenue are forecasts made by research firms from Meta's totals and their own models, and Meta has confirmed none of them. In December 2024, Reuters reported an eMarketer forecast that Instagram would account for more than half of Meta's US ad revenue in 2025 (source: Reuters, via WHTC).
The same research estimated that the Feed brought in 53.7% of Instagram's ad revenue in 2024 and Stories 24.6% (source: Reuters, via WHTC). Those splits give a rough picture of where the money sat while Reels was still catching up. They come from one firm's model, so treat them as a guide to scale.
Estimates differ widely from one firm to the next, because some count only US ad revenue and others try to cover the whole world. When you see a single Instagram revenue number, check who made it, which year it covers and whether it counts the US or the whole world.
Instagram users and time spent
Instagram had 3 billion monthly users by October 2025 and 2 billion daily users by July 2026, according to Mark Zuckerberg (source: Meta Q3 2025 earnings call) (source: Meta Q2 2026 earnings call). The daily count is the tighter measure, because it counts only the people who open the app on a given day. That is the group advertisers reach most often.
Time spent matters as much as the headcount, because every extra minute of scrolling makes room for more ads. In October 2025 Zuckerberg said video time on Instagram was up more than 30% on a year earlier (source: Meta Q3 2025 earnings call). In July 2026 Susan Li said global time spent on Instagram had grown by double digits, mostly from better Feed and Reels recommendations (source: Meta Q2 2026 earnings call).
Meta is also bringing business AI agents to Instagram. Zuckerberg said on the July 29, 2026 call that they were rolling out there, after their launch on WhatsApp and Messenger. Meta already sells extra Business Agent access on WhatsApp through its paid business plans (source: Meta Newsroom, Meta One), one of the newer lines in how WhatsApp makes money.
Rules that limit Instagram's ad money
Privacy rules and rules for younger users limit how Instagram can aim ads, and better-aimed ads sell for more. Since November 2023, people in the EU, the EEA and Switzerland have been able to pay for Facebook and Instagram without ads. Since November 2024 they can also pick free, less personalized ads, which Meta says are less effective (source: Meta 10-K for 2025).
The European Commission ruled in April 2025 that the no-ads subscription broke the EU's Digital Markets Act, and Meta warns that further changes to the model may be imposed while its appeal runs (source: Meta 10-K for 2025).
Younger users are the second limit. Meta's annual report names its services to younger users among the legal matters that could harm its business. Privacy, data use and advertising are on the same list (source: Meta 10-K for 2025).
The app's ownership has been tested in court as well. The FTC sued to force Meta to sell Instagram, bought in 2012, and WhatsApp, but on November 18, 2025 the court ruled for Meta after a trial. The FTC filed an appeal on January 20, 2026, so the case is not over (source: Meta 10-K for 2025).
Instagram in Meta's quarterly earnings report
Meta reports four times a year, after the Nasdaq close, and Instagram shows up in each report in three places: advertising revenue, other revenue, and whatever Meta's leaders say about the app on the call that follows (source: Meta Investor Relations).
Start with advertising revenue and the change in ad impressions and average price, since Instagram is a large part of both. Then listen for a new Reels run-rate, an Instagram user milestone, and any number for Meta One subscribers or for business agents on Instagram. None of these has its own line in the release, so the call is where they appear.
Tokenized Meta (METAX) follows the share price. Its posted schedule runs day and night from Monday to Friday, so it can trade outside Nasdaq's opening hours when the report comes out.
If you prefer to own the token outright, you can buy tokenized Meta on BloFin with USDT on the METAX/USDT Spot market. The METAUSDT Perpetual lets you take a position on Meta's price moving either way, with leverage from 1x to 20x. Outside the Nasdaq session, which includes report night after the close, BloFin may accept only orders that reduce a position, so a new position may have to wait for the next regular session (source: BloFin stock futures notice). A report-night surprise can move the price sharply, and leverage magnifies the result in either direction. Learn about margin and liquidation on the Meta perpetual before you choose a size.
Looking to follow Instagram's growth through Meta's share price? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and go to the METAX/USDT Spot trading page or the METAUSDT Perpetual trading page.
Frequently asked questions
Can you pay for an ad-free Instagram?
You can if you live in the EU, the EEA, Switzerland or the UK. There, a paid plan removes ads on Facebook and Instagram, and Meta stops using your information for ads while you pay. The plan applies to the linked accounts in your Accounts Center, and each extra account adds a smaller monthly fee on top, which in the EU has applied since March 1, 2024. Prices on iOS and Android are higher than on the web, because they include the fees Apple and Google charge (source: Meta Newsroom, EU). Meta added the same choice in the UK in autumn 2025 (source: Meta Newsroom, UK).
How much does Meta Verified cost on Instagram?
At launch Meta Verified cost $11.99 a month when you sign up on the web and $14.99 a month through the iOS or Android app. Meta brought it to the US on March 17, 2023 (source: Meta Newsroom, Meta Verified). When it reached the US, Meta dropped the promise of extra reach and visibility from the plan, saying it wanted more feedback first. Since September 2026, a verified badge and impersonation protection also come with Meta One's Essential plan for creators and businesses, from $14.99 a month. Meta says prices vary by region, app and account (source: Meta Newsroom, Meta One).
Does Instagram make more money than YouTube?
It did in 2021, on each company's own figures. Against Instagram's $32.4 billion from Meta's court filing, Alphabet reported $28.8 billion of YouTube ad revenue for that year (source: Alphabet 10-K for 2021). That puts Instagram about 12.3% ahead, worked out. Alphabet still reports YouTube ads every quarter, while Meta gives no Instagram figure, so later years can only be compared through estimates.
Is Instagram profitable?
Meta gives no profit figure for Instagram, because it reports operating profit only for its whole Family of Apps segment. The app started from nothing. Meta's statement of facts in the FTC case says Instagram had 13 employees just before Facebook bought it in 2012. It also cites testimony from co-founder Kevin Systrom that the app had essentially no revenue (source: Meta's statement of facts in FTC v. Meta).
Can advertisers target teenagers on Instagram?
Since February 2023, advertisers can reach teenagers on Instagram using only their age and location. Meta removed gender as a targeting option at the same time. The posts and pages a teen has liked or followed no longer shape which ads they see. Teens can also tell Meta which types of ads they would rather avoid (source: Meta Newsroom, teen ads).
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include Meta's earnings calls from February 2023 to July 2026, its results date notice, its annual reports for 2021 and 2025, its April 2024 statement of facts in the FTC case, Alphabet's annual report for 2021, Meta Newsroom posts on Meta One, Meta Verified, the subscription for no ads in Europe and the UK, and ads for teens, and reporting by TechCrunch and Reuters, current as of October 2026.
Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold Meta in any form. Instagram's revenue is not reported on its own, so a slowdown in its ad sales may only show up as weaker Meta advertising growth, and rulings in Europe or in the FTC case could change how it earns. Meta's results can move the share price sharply in one session, METAX can fall just as fast, and a leveraged METAUSDT Perpetual position can be liquidated before its whole margin is gone. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.