How do influencers actually make money?

CPC stands for cost per click, CPA for cost per acquisition. The shop decides which model applies, and some pay both. Disclosure for brand deals, affiliate links, discount codes and your own products follows the May 2025 guide of Germany’s media authorities (Medienanstalten). For videos, the guide also treats a product in the main role differently from one in a minor role. “Werbung” and “Anzeige” are the German words for advertisement.

With platform programmes, the money goes through the platform. In the YouTube Partner Programme, for example, YouTube Help says creators get a share of the revenue from ads that run in their videos and from YouTube Premium. With channel memberships and Supers, the money comes from your community, but the payout still goes through YouTube and your AdSense for YouTube account.

For example: you show a jacket you bought yourself in a story and add an affiliate link with an asterisk and a short note. Depending on the programme, you’re paid per click or earn a commission when someone buys through it. If a brand later sends you a jacket for a reel, that’s a brand deal paid in product. You label the reel as an ad, and if you get to keep the jacket, it counts as income.

For tax purposes, income isn’t just money in your account. The North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) tax authority gives a rule of thumb: money or benefits in kind that you receive because you work as an influencer are taxable, even if you don’t provide a specific service in return. Full-time or on the side makes no difference.

Taxable doesn’t mean income tax is due from the first euro. According to the NRW tax authority, you pay it once your total income from all sources, a job included, exceeds the annual basic tax-free allowance (Grundfreibetrag). In 2026 that is €12,348 (§ 32a(1) EStG). VAT has its own thresholds, for example under the Kleinunternehmer (small business) scheme. If you use it, no VAT is due on your sales. Otherwise, the Hesse tax guide says free products generally trigger VAT as well.

The tax authorities of Hesse (as of June 2026) and NRW list, among other things:

• money for advertising: posts, stories, placements, sponsorships
• income from affiliate links and discount codes
• platform income, for example from creator funds, subscriptions, ads or Twitch subs
• support from your community: donations, wish-list items, fan gifts
• sales of merch, coaching, online courses and webinars
• free products you promote and get to keep, at their monetary value, plus free services such as hotel stays

There’s no general follower count you have to reach before you can earn money. With brand deals, the brand decides. For your own products in your own shop there’s no outside threshold, but if you sell through a platform’s shopping features, its rules apply. Individual programmes set their own thresholds, as stated on their pages on 20 October 2026:

• YouTube, ad revenue: 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 qualified watch hours in the last 12 months or 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days. Anyone joining from 1 February 2027 needs 8,000 watch hours in 365 days or 20 million Shorts views in 90 days instead (YouTube Help).
• YouTube, expanded Partner Programme with channel memberships, Super Chat and Shopping: 500 subscribers and 3 public uploads in the last 90 days, plus 3,000 watch hours in 12 months or 3 million Shorts views in 90 days. This stays the same in 2027, and Germany is on the list of eligible countries (YouTube Help).
• TikTok Shop, e-commerce permissions for creators: 500 followers in the EU country you apply for, and a minimum age of 18 (TikTok Shop policy dated 3 September 2026).
• LTK: at least 5,000 followers (LTK FAQ for Germany).
• Stylink: at least 1,000 followers on Instagram or TikTok at sign-up (terms § 2(3), as of August 2026).

The basic rule: if you get something in return for a post, you label it as advertising. Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) made this clear on 9 September 2021 (I ZR 90/20, decided together with two further cases about influencers on Instagram).

Today the rule is written into the law, in § 5a(4) UWG (Unfair Competition Act): you make the commercial purpose of a post clear unless it is already immediately clear from the circumstances. For a post that benefits another business, there is no commercial purpose if you neither receive nor are promised anything in return from it. The law presumes you did receive something unless you can credibly show you didn’t.

Something in return doesn’t just mean money. According to the media authorities’ guide, products sent to you, covered travel costs or an invitation to an event can count too. For merch or your own cosmetics line, the guide also calls for “Werbung” where it isn’t clear that the business is yours.

For the Federal Court of Justice, influencers who sell goods, offer services or market their own image through social media run a business. For tax purposes, the NRW tax authority generally treats regular self-employed activity with the intention of making a profit as a trade (Gewerbe). For that case, it names registering with the trade office (Gewerbeamt). It names the tax registration questionnaire in every case: it goes to the tax office through ELSTER within one month of starting.

On wyrld, you build your own storefront with the products you actually use, from more than 90,000 partner shops, including Amazon. wyrld creates the affiliate links for you, so you don’t sign up with networks yourself. Depending on the shop, you earn per click, per sale or both, so both affiliate models from the table apply.

wyrld is free for creators, and the creator terms set no minimum follower count. Your storefront is live as soon as you sign up and appears in the creator overview once the wyrld team has reviewed your profile. So unlike a brand deal, you don’t have to wait for a brand to pick you.

Earnings are settled at the start of the following month with a self-billing credit note (Gutschrift). The creator terms don’t require exclusivity, so you can use your storefront alongside other programmes.