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How Much Money Can You Make Blogging? A Reference for Bloggers

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Oh yes indeed. A question we’re all asking… unless you’re an uber-blogger earning $1,000 a day plus. You could be thinking about starting a blog or a be a relatively new blogger. You may even have been blogging for a while. It doesn’t matter… we’re all trying to figure out an answer to the question… how much money can you make blogging?

At this point I could roll out dozens of examples of all the big hitters in the blogging world to talk about the fabulous amounts of money it’s possible to make as a blogger. It would be highly aspirational and by then end of it we’d all be fired up ready to take the blogging world by storm.

However, I’m not going to do that in this post because I’d be doing you a disservice.

The truth is that most of us will never earn the six-figure per month sums that uber-bloggers talk about in their income reports. Sure these reports can be inspiring, but they can also set expectations way beyond what’s even remotely realistic for most of us. That way leads to disappointment and the likelihood that your motivation will tank and your commitment wane.

So instead, I’m going to explore the subject of how much you can make blogging by referencing people who perhaps you haven’t heard of before. These are bloggers who, for the most part, like you and I.

They’re carving out an income for themselves out of something they’ve built with their own hands.

Setting Expectations

My overall intention is to provide you with a counterbalance to the uber-blogger stats and show you bloggers making a range of different amounts through their blogs. These show it’s possible to make blogging a great side-hustle or a proper full-time income. The aim is to help you remain grounded in a way the income reports on the super-high earnings of famous bloggers simply do not.

So to end this preamble, I’d like to introduce you to the following bloggers and talk about the income reports they’ve shared recently. I’ll also provide some context to give you an idea of the kind of money it’s possible to make blogging for committed bloggers.

Introducing 21 Hard Working Bloggers & Their Monthly Income Examples

Please note… the incomes mentioned below do not factor costs and so they do not represent profit. Please see each individual income report (linked) to understand the actual profits each blogger has made.

Shannon Mattern

Shannon Mattern - Web Design & Marketing

Shannon helps solopreneurs set up their websites and market their businesses online.

I want to be an example to other people of what’s possible. For people who want to replace their paycheck so that they quit their day jobs.

Shannon Mattern

Shannon’s income report is one of the higher examples in this post. She had a lot of WordPress experience from 10 years working in marketing and IT roles and she’d started a freelance web design business prior to setting up ShannonMattern.com.

Although Sharron is publishing a very healthy income report nowadays, she’s encountered many of the same feelings we all share when starting out, such as imposter syndrome and self-doubt. However, she remained committed regardless and worked hard for 3 years until she was earning enough to quit her day job in 2018.

Sharron’s example shows you can make serious money blogging if you work hard, remain focused and make a commitment over time.

Jeremy Jones

Jeremy Jones - Living the Dream

Jeremy began the Living the Dream blog to focus on a personal quest to live a life full of travel.

We have two blogs (one global travel and one local travel) and our income is based on the combined total of the two.

Jeremy Jones

Jeremy initially started Living the Dream to document a long-term trip he was planning. Nowadays the blog focuses upon travel advice, blogging tips and lifestyle design with honesty and practicality.

In 2015 he founded Discover the Burgh (a local Pittsburgh blog) and with the combined earnings from both blogs quit his day job to work full-time as a blogger.

Jeremy proves you can funnel your interests into a blog that makes money.

Danielle Wolter

Danielle Wolter - Went Here 8 This

Danielle started her blogging journey with Went Here 8 This in 2016. Her blog focuses on creating new and unique dishes using international flavors.

Just get started. Seriously. Dive in and learn everything you can possibly can and get that blog up and running. Hopefully this income report will inspire you to do so.

Danielle Wolter

I love Danielle’s journey. She started Went Here 8 This with no previous blogging experience and has grown it from nothing into a pretty impressive income report for December 2019.

Danielle has posted income reports since January 2019 to show about what it takes to run a food blog and the truth about making money from blogging.

Jasmine Martin

Jasmine Martin - Blogging and Living

Jasmine began Blogging and Living to cover things such as lifestyle, cooking, fashion, beauty, blogging, social media and money tips.

Sometimes I would wonder how different blogs even reached that point of making as much because it seems unimaginable for me. Sometimes it still seems out of reach, but I would still like to become a full-time blogger completely at some point.

Jasmine Martin

Jasmine is working hard in the competitive fashion and lifestyle niche. She started Blogging and Living in 2018 and is steadily growing her blogging income.

She’s very open about her feelings that a full-time income is out of reach and this is something we all feel at times. However I love her commitment to working towards blogging full-time.

We all have periods where we question if a full-time blogging income is really possible. Of course we see many examples showing it is, but many high-income bloggers have only achieved this through dedication over many years.

Karissa Ancell

Karissa Ancell - A Fresh Start on a Budget

Karissa blogs about money, organization, parenting, marriage. She has worked on A Fresh Start on a Budget since 2012 and has a huge Pinterest presence: presently +108k followers and 4.6m unique monthly viewers!

I want you to know that it’s possible to make money blogging. I wasn’t sure if I would ever make money with my blog and I now am and you can do it too!

Karissa Ancell

I’m really enjoying seeing Karissa’s income reports, which show how she’s grown her monthly income over the past year. It’s great to see this progression as it exemplifies the tipping points during a blogger’s growth.

Check out Karissa on Pinterest: @freshstartblog.

Kylie Lato

Kylie Lato - Midwest Foodie

Alongside running the Midwest Foodie blog Kylie also works 30 hours a week as an administrative assistant at a hospital! It’s incredibly inspiring to see how she’s built up her food blog alongside the demands of practically a full-time job.

It feels awesome to be over 200,000 page views this month as there was a time (not too long ago) where it seemed like I would never even get to 100,000 a month!

Kylie Lato

An avid foodie, Kylie began Midwest Foodie as a way to keep track of all of her recipes. Initially Midwest Foodie was a pet project but Kylie stepped things up mid-2018 to really try to grow traffic. She also didn’t monetize her blog until January 2019!

Kylie posts 2-3 times per week, showing the importance of a consistent blogging schedule.

Find out more about Kylie and her blogging journey in this great podcast at Dishing with Delishes.

Allison Strickland

Allison - Financial Flamingo

Allison writes on the Financial Flamingo blog about how to find balance in your financial life after striving to find a personal finance system that works for her.

I think sharing my progress and being transparent about what time commitment I’m putting in to get the income results I’m getting is a good way to show people the realities of blogging as a side hustle.

Allison

Incredibly Allison started making a profit from her blog within 7 months of starting it. This is hugely inspiring and shows once again that you can make money from a blog.

Allison is clearly working hard since she also has a pretty impressive YouTube channel packed with useful PF advice. You can find it here: Financial Flamingo on YT.

Maria Julia

Maria Julia - ChicPursuit.com

Maria began blogging full-time on The Chic Pursuit in 2017 and struggled for a long time to make things work for her. But as you can see from her income report below, she’s now reaping the benefits of the effort and risks she has taken.

I honestly can’t believe that I was able to break this goal already in 2019. Of course I wanted to make it happen, but at the same time it was one of those “I think it would be possible, but it’s probably not going to happen” kind of things.

Maria Julia

Maria has an exciting tale of how she became a full-time blogger. I urge you to read her interesting backstory to understand what the realities of starting a blog can be. Her story is very inspirational.

Cassie Mahon

Cassie - Get Your Holiday On

Cassie’s blog, Get Your Holiday On, shares tips and ideas on motherhood, gifts & projects. She is also a foster parent and runs the Foster to Adopt blog, to promote adoption.

I am a stay at home mom and foster mom that turned my blogging side hustle into receiving a paycheck and now a fulltime income. I am here to tell you that it is obtainable to earn an income from it.

Cassie

I’m always pleasantly surprised to see people making money through niche blogs I would consider difficult to crack! It’s super-impressive to see Cassie doing so well in the niche she’s chosen.

I love Cassie’s positive messages that while it’s hard work, anyone can make money blogging.

Shannon Cairns

Shannon Cairns - The Frugal Foot Doc

Shannon is The Frugal Foot Doc… a mom, blogger and podiatrist!

There’s really nothing about blogging that I don’t love. The bad news? It absolutely is NOT the world’s easiest side hustle. If you want to start a blog to make money, get ready to work harder than you ever have before!

Shannon Cairns

Shannon’s journey has seen her take to blogging to reduce the mountain of debt she and her husband acquired from medical school and setting up their podiatry practice.

Initially Shannon had a “mom blog” to post about her expereiences with parenthood but to try to overcome their $500k debt, Shannon converted her it” into a personal finance blog. Hence, The Frugal Foot Doc came to life in mid-2018. She offers tips for frugal living, reducing debt and shares each step of her debt free journey.

Mila Clarke Buckley

Mila Clarke Buckley - The Hangry Woman

Mila started The Hangry Woman blog in 2016 after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes with the aim of sharing accessible resources on the condition.

Always keep learning. Even if you think you’re good, you can be better.

Mila Clarke Buckley

Mila’s blog provides tips on diabetes management, cooking, travel self-care specifically for people living with type 2 diabetes. Her income reports detail what it takes to make money blogging and document her objective to become debt-free.

Leah Ferezan

Leah Ferezan - Lifestyle with Leah

Lifestyle with Leah is a lifestyle blog centered on family, health, and wellness.

Remember that blogging is typically not a “get rich quick” scheme. It is a slow process that takes a lot of time and effort. Be sure to pay attention to what you have to say to your reader. What will their take-away be after reading your blog? Does your content provide value? Those questions are what’s most important.

Leah Ferezan

Leah started her blog to provide quality content to help improve her reader’s everyday lives and not as a way to make money. For me, blogging about something you enjoy is one of the best ways you can earn a side-income, if blogging full-time is not your primary goal.

Grace

Grace - Blog Blossom

Grace owns Blog Blossom, which is devoted to sharing blogging tips and making money.

  • Blog: Blog Blossom
  • Niche: Blogging & Making Money Online
  • Started: 2019
  • Platform: WordPress
  • Twitter: @blogblossomxo
  • Income Report January 2020: $289.75

I started this blog to show others that it’s totally possible to make money blogging. In fact, I was inspired to start this blog because of the income reports published by successful bloggers who are digital nomads and earn six-figure incomes a month.

Grace

Grace began publishing posts on Blog Blossom in April 2019… in 9 months she has got her blog to the point it’s earned her almost $290 in one calendar month.

This should be super inspiration for anyone thinking about starting a money making blog!

Alan Young

Alan Young - Freedom Through Blogging

Alan runs a number of blogs, which focus upon making money online.

  • Blog: Its Alan Young
  • Niche: Blogging & Making Money Online
  • Started: 2017
  • Platform: WordPress
  • Income Report January 2020: $2,767.02

With blogging, you don’t tend to see the rewards right away so it’s good to read other people’s successes and struggles to help inspire and motivate you to keep going.

Alan Young

Alan documents his journey to create a “set it and forget it business” in his blog, It’s Alan Young. He writes about blogging tools and offers hacks and tips on growing an online business.

One of the things I like about Alan is he’s completely upfront about what it takes to run a blog… it’s not all plain sailing and you have to treat it like a business!

Katya Salas

Katya Ann - The Fit Delish

Katya is a food blogger who started The Fit Delish in 2018. She makes money through blogging and Instagram, where she currently has 24k followers (@thefitdelish).

Blogging and generating content on Instagram is a freaking grind and you have to be committed and passionate with the process and content you are creating. I want to share every part of the journey and NO blogger ever started their page with immediate traffic and monetization.

Katya Salas

Katya’s very humble about her income report (“not a great amount of income”)… but let’s be honest about it, it’s impressive to make this kind of sum from a side hustle when you also have a full-time job.

Making money blogging doesn’t have to mean it’s something you do to quit your job.

Mimi McFadden

Mimi McFadden - The Atlas Heart

Mimi started The Atlas Heart in 2013 to share her personal experiences of travel and to encourage others to explore the world too. She’s now working hard to develop a passive income through her blogging activities.

My goal is to be as transparent as possible with these posts to give you a good idea of how much work goes into making a successful blog, and the different income streams that are out there for bloggers.

Mimi McFadden

Mimi has been on quite a journey (no pun intended) and documented many of her experiences on The Atlas Heart. If you have a moment, I’d recommend reading her excellent post about making changes in your life.

Miranda Nahmias

Miranda Nahmias - Miranda Nahmias & Co.

Miranda began Miranda Nahmias & Co. in 2015 to launch herself as an online entrepreneur. Today her blog is a platform for her digital marketing business.

Ever since my very first month in business (I made a whopping $87), I’ve been sharing my income and expenses for each month, in order to give other online entrepreneurs a good baseline of what a real business looks like during its start-up phase.

Miranda Nahmias

Miranda is perhaps a slightly different example to other bloggers in this roundup in that her blog is now the front to her marketing business, where she offers social media management, email marketing and content creation, among other services.

The majority of her income comes from client work, but she’s reported earnings of approx $1k for blog affiliate commissions and course sales in the income report above.

Jonathan Holmes

Jonathan Holmes - Crow Survival

Crow Survival is Jonathan’s blog in the outdoors niche. He’s been working on his blog for several years now, which he started in order to document taking a year out travelling in an RV with his wife and son.

The work to increase earnings really started at the end tail end of 2018. I was frustrated that what I was writing about wasn’t gaining any traction, and the truth of the matter was, it was the same content that everyone else was producing. It didn’t stand out and there was no reason why my content should have been ranked higher than anyone else’s. So, to that end, I decided to change my approach.

Jonathan Holmes

Jonathan’s 2019 income report for Crow Survival is a very interesting read. It shows real progression in his income throughout the year and compares it to the total he generated throughout 2018… check it out if you have a spare moment as it’s highly inspiring.

He puts this down to changing his strategy from spending time promoting his blog to pushing out 400 posts in 2019!

Cassie Scroggins

Cassie Scroggins - Cassie Scroggins

Cassie is the owner of the eponymous Cassie Scroggins blog.

Yeah, blogging isn’t a new thing but it is still booming now more than ever! With trends moving more and more online these days, it is easier now more than ever to make money blogging.

Cassie Scroggins

Cassie launched a DIY and mommy blog called Life on Waller in 2016. As time passed and her blog became more successful, she became increasingly passionate about blogging itself. So in 2018 she decided to rebrand her blog as Cassie Scroggins and focus more upon producing content for the blogging niche to help others to start their own blogs.

Since Cassie has been publishing her income reports for a while, you can see a clear progression over time to the point she’s now making a healthy blogging income.

Gabby Whitaker

Gabby - Mom Makes Joy

Gabby own the Mom Makes Joy blog.

  • Blog: Mom Makes Joy
  • Niche: Lifestyle & Parenting
  • Started: 2013
  • Platform: WordPress
  • Twitter: @MomMakesJoy
  • Income Report December 2019: $1,698.02

I suck at emailing my subscribers consistently. My on-site conversion rate needs work. I have no relevant background in business or copywriting, and no real claim to fame. So why do you want to bother with what I have to say? Because I’m just like you! Or if you’re new to blogging, I was just like you.

Gabby

Gabby started a DIY/Craft blog called Essentially Eclectic in 2013. As her blog grew she realized she wanted to move her blog in a different direction and relaunched in 2017 under the new title Mom Makes Joy.

Today she writes more about parenting and finding joy in your life. Her December 2019 income report is actually the first she’s published, since family life put blogging on the back burner for a while. It’ll be exciting to see what she achieves over the coming year!

Valerie Skinner

Valerie Skinner - Thyme and Joy

Valerie is the owner of Thyme and Joy, a blog that supports her personal chef business.

When it all comes down to it, I want to blog the way I want to blog and only blogging for a living takes me away from being myself in some aspects and I’m just not willing to do that. This is not to say I will never get to that place, but right now it’s not the time.

Valerie Skinner

Valerie is a personal chef who had started an Instagram account for her business before deciding to publish recipes for her creations on a blog in 2017. She is now happily making money blogging as a sideline to her main income from being a personal chef.

That’s one of the benefits of blogging: it doesn’t have to be your main source of income. Blogging can provide a substantial boost to your day job earnings.

How Much Money Will You Make Blogging?

In my opinion anyone can make money blogging… but as with most things in life, you don’t get something for nothing.

How much money you can make depends upon a number of factors, such as:

  • The niche you’re in.
  • Your commitment.
  • How well you network.
  • Your motivation.
  • How much time and effort you put in.
  • Your stamina.
  • How long you’re prepared to commit.

I won’t lie to anyone. Blogging is a fantastic venture and it’s something I believe everyone can and should do. At the same time, blogging is hard work with very little apparent reward when you start out.

The biggest problem facing new bloggers who want to make money is how to get visitors in large volumes. Without some form of financial investment in advertising it’s difficult to grow a blog to sufficient visitor volumes to make a heap of money out of the gate.

You can’t make money from your blog if nobody ever visits it.

For most people starting out this is absolutely the case. They may be fully motivated at the beginning of the journey, which is great. However, after a few weeks or months when they’re still getting very few visitors, a stark reality hits hard: blogging is a tough nut to crack. At this point it’s very easy to lose the motivation required to continue.

Loss of motivation is one of the biggest reasons why blogs fail!

So for most of us without a pile of money to advertise, we have to play the long game, build compelling content, find our audience and network.

This. Takes. Time.

Listen to the words of those who’ve worked diligently on their blogs over many years and understand you can make money blogging for yourself if you commit to the long-term.

Is it too late to start a blog? No. Is blogging hard? Yes. Is blogging profitable? It can be for sure… but not if you don’t put in the hours.

Anyways… I hope the reports above of bloggers making money help to provide more of a balance than the staggering income reports we’ve all read. Yes, you can make money blogging… but be realistic in how much you’re expecting to make and how long it’s likely to take you to get there.

How Much Money Do Bloggers Make?

Summary

  • You can see from the all the examples above that making money blogging is not something that happens overnight.
  • Most bloggers labor over years to make money.
  • All of us encounter the same stresses and doubts throughout our blogging journey and very rarely do people make stacks in the short-term.
  • The income reports of elite bloggers are inspiring, but they can also be demotivating.
  • Anyone can make money blogging. How much you make depends upon many things, but staying committed, working hard and overcoming your doubts all play a part.

Thanks for reading.

Paul

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