How do food bloggers make money?
Food bloggers are not that different from other content creators, in a monetisation sense. From the big guys like All Recipes to the home chefs on Blogger, it’s all about paid ads.
If a recipe was free, then most likely you saw some ad preroll in the video or ads within the text of the recipe. I mean, recipe creators have to eat, right? Apart from the most straightforward and commonly known options, there are a few other ways that are a bit more advanced.
Here are some ways food bloggers can make money off of their recipes.
Openplate
Recipe creators work hard to share their recipes on Instagram or YouTube, and all of this is great, and must be done. However, when you want to earn off a recipe, Openplate helps recipe creators sell individual recipes while building a personal connection between the creator and consumer.
Openplate was built for home chefs to expose their recipes and cultures to the culturally curious. Upload your recipe video, instructions, and ingredient and set a price. Build your personal profile page which lists all your recipes. You can then share this page with your followers to go purchase individual or all recipes.
Coming soon, followers can request you to make it for them – if you are in the same zipcode and if you offer that. Also, consumers can book consultations with you. We hope to foster a relationship between food, creators, and consumers.
Paid ads
Like we mentioned already, paid ads is one of the most common way to do this. If you’re a beginner, then creating a Google AdSense account is probably the easiest way to get started. Configuring it is super easy and all you’d need to do is paste a snippet of code on your website.
Sponsored posts
When creators gain some traction, the next step would be to get sponsored posts. If you use a specific pan in your recipes, then you could reach out to that company and have them sponsor the video.
YouTube
If you monetise your YouTube channel – which can take a long time as there are specific requirements with the number of videos you must have, then number of subscribers, and also the number of comments or views.
Once you get over that threshold, monetisation depends on the number of views. A lot of people ask me, why anyone would post on Openplate when they can post on YouTube? Well, before you make your first dollar, you have to create a bunch of recipes, grow your channel subscribers, engagement, and views.
With Openplate, you can make money from even just one video. Just share it with your followers. But do ensure your recipe is done well. High quality, make it personal.
Affiliate marketing
This is also relatively easy to set up. You can sign up for various affiliate programs like Amazon Associates, ShareASale etc. When you do this, you’d get a specific link. So when you mention your favourite knife for example, and you link to this knife on Amazon with your special link.
When someone buys it, you get a commission. Just a quick FYI, affiliate links will be an option soon in Openplate – so you can earn even more.
Products
As a food blogger grows up in their career, a recipe book or products are most likely in the path of that growth. However these require significant brand recognition or trust for users to buy a product from a food blogger. It takes a while to build that relationship.
The best way, I really think, is social media + Openplate
If you are building your followers on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or even Facebook, then you should continue to do that. Give away free quick recipes and guide your users to your Openplate profile to purchase the more intricate or personal recipes.
Here’s how you can get started.
- Go to https://www.openplate.co/ and create an account. It is 100% free to create and sell.
- Upload an intro video, so your consumers can buy “you” before they buy your recipes.
- Then upload your recipes. You should get your profile page at openplate.co/your-username
- Share this or share specific recipes in your newsletter, social media channels or what not
- One recipe can make repeating sales over time
So food blogger, ready to cook up some business?