Updated 2026
Have you ever wondered how food bloggers make money?
Whether you’re a food blogger looking to make some extra money from their blog, or just someone curious about how the industry works, there are actually lots of different ways food bloggers make money.
It can come from their blog, social media, working directly with brands, freelance work or other creative outlets.
Why Food Bloggers Should Be Paid For Their Work
Food bloggers especially seem to get a lot of flack for making money from their blogs or having adverts on them.
In particular, people seem to hate the fact that recipes usually have some copy before them. This typically covers things like hints and tips, what substitutions can be made in the recipe, how to store it and whether or not the dish can be frozen.
This means you might have to scroll for maybe five seconds before getting to the recipe you searched for.
This extra text isn’t just there to annoy you.
It can provide genuinely useful information about the recipe, it can help with SEO and, if a blogger runs adverts, it also provides additional space for advertising.
Most food bloggers provide a jump to recipe button too, so if you’d rather skip straight to the recipe, you can.
And while we’re on the subject, a recipe isn’t necessarily protected by copyright in the same way as the original written content around it. A simple list of ingredients or basic method generally isn’t the same as the blogger’s original written expression, which can be protected by copyright.
So, if you’re not happy to scroll, please go out and buy a recipe book!
The other thing that often gets forgotten is just how much work goes into a food blog post.
A blogger has to develop and test the recipe, buy the ingredients, cook the food, photograph it, write the post, edit the photographs, work on SEO and then promote it on social media.
And that’s before you even start thinking about video content, emails, Pinterest, TikTok and all the other things that come with running a food blog.
Most of this content is free for the reader.
So I don’t think it’s unreasonable for food bloggers to make money from the work they put into creating it.
Sponsored Blog Posts
Sponsored posts are one way for food bloggers to make money.
They usually involve the food blogger working with a brand, where the brand will provide the ingredients or a product and the blogger will create a dish or piece of content to help inspire their readers to do the same.
In turn, this can help drive sales of a particular product or generally raise brand awareness.
Alternatively, the blogger may review certain products or a food-related service.
More: How To Start A Review Blog
As well as being provided with ingredients or a product, most bloggers would also charge a fee for this type of post.
As I mentioned before, recipe creation requires a lot of time, energy and skill, as does taking quality photographs and maintaining an online presence.
In addition to the fee for creating the post, food bloggers will sometimes charge an additional fee for sharing the post on social media, or they may include social shares as part of a package price.
What each blogger charges will depend on a number of things, including their traffic, social media following, engagement and the type of work involved.
Some brands may also want additional usage rights for the content, which is something we’ll come back to later.
Here is an example of a sponsored post my lovely friend Paula did with Opies: Steak and Pickled Walnut Pasties.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is another type of advertising whereby bloggers use a specific link or discount code that is linked to them to earn money.
Here are some examples of affiliate programmes and places that host a range of different affiliates.
- Amazon Affiliate Programme
- Awin (previously Affiliate Window)
- CJ Affiliates
- TradeDoubler
When a reader uses this link to make a purchase, the blogger will make a small commission.
How much money they earn will depend on the brand and the affiliate programme.
For example, with Amazon, it’s likely the food blogger will only earn a few pence for each item purchased.
When recommending something such as a food subscription service, they could potentially earn much more for each referral but may be limited to five per month.
Affiliate marketing is a popular way for food bloggers to make money because once the links are added to a post, you don’t necessarily have to do much else.
However, it does pay to find the best affiliates for food bloggers to begin with, do some research and come up with an overall affiliate strategy.
Here are some quick affiliate tips for food bloggers
- Use descriptive link text rather than simply writing “click here”. For example, “Try this delicious cheesecake from BeautifulCheesecakes.com” gives the reader much more information than simply “Click here.”
- Use your analytics to take a closer look at your best-performing posts and start adding relevant affiliate links there, working backwards until you’ve covered your older posts.
- Affiliates tend to work better in posts where your audience is already primed to buy something. For example, links in a review post may be more useful than links in a fun story about how you burnt last night’s dinner.
- Don’t add affiliate links simply for the sake of having more links. They should be relevant to the content and useful to the reader.
Recipe Development For Brands
As I’ve mentioned before, recipe creation is quite a skill and many bloggers will work with brands to help create content for the brand’s own website and social channels.
Brands may use bloggers and freelance recipe developers because they can work with people who have experience or specialise in different areas of the food industry without necessarily needing to employ someone full-time.
For this type of work, food bloggers may charge a day rate where they go to the brand and work with them on recipe creation and photography for one day.
Alternatively, the blogger may work from their own home and charge according to the hours involved or agree a fixed project fee.
The work could involve creating one recipe, developing several recipes, photographing them and providing written content or social media assets.
This can be a really useful additional income stream for food bloggers because you’re essentially taking the skills you’ve already developed through your own blog and selling them directly to brands.
Related Post: How Do Travel Bloggers Make Money
Freelance Writing & Photography
If you’re a skilled writer then you could try to pick up freelance writing work, although this is trickier now with AI.
I am lucky enough to have ongoing freelance work, which is very appreciated on months when blogging work is quieter.
As most bloggers enjoy writing, this can be a great way to make money either as an ongoing partnership or for occasional one-off pieces.
Bloggers who are stretched for time may also pay other bloggers to create content for them.
There are lots of places where you can look for freelance writing work, including freelance platforms, LinkedIn and even networking within blogging groups and communities.
Food bloggers may also be able to find work writing for food brands, magazines, other websites or creating recipes for businesses.
And writing isn’t the only skill you can sell.
If you’re good at food photography, you could also pick up photography work for brands, websites, restaurants or other bloggers.
There are lots of places online you can find freelance writing work, including Fiverr, Upwork, People Per Hour and LinkedIn.
Selling Photography & Photography Rights
Food bloggers who are skilled at photography could also consider selling their images.
There are lots of things to consider here, such as whether a website is looking for exclusive rights to your image.
Typically, each selling platform will take a cut of your sales, but it can still be a great way to make some money from images you already have.
One thing I think is worth mentioning here is that your photography rights can be worth a lot of money.
If you’re selling an image as a stock photograph or licensing it as your own product, that’s one thing.
However, be wary of brands wanting extensive photography rights as part of a brand campaign.
You might agree to create a recipe and take photographs for a brand, only to find that they also want to use those photographs on their website, social media, emails, paid advertising, packaging or other marketing materials.
Those rights have value.
If a brand wants to use your photography for a few months as part of a particular campaign, that is very different from asking for the right to use it forever.
Make sure you understand exactly what you’re agreeing to and don’t be afraid to charge extra if a brand wants extensive or long-term usage rights.
Display Advertising
In-content ads are one of the easiest ways food bloggers make money because, once they are set up, you don’t really need to do anything.
The big downside is that you generally need a reasonable amount of traffic before display advertising becomes a significant income stream.
How much you can make from ads will usually depend on how much traffic you have, where your readers are based, the time of year and the type of advertising available on your site.
The country your readers are in can make a surprisingly big difference too.
This is one area where US-based food bloggers can sometimes have an advantage, as advertising rates can be higher for traffic from the US than for traffic from the UK. Individual results vary enormously, though, so I wouldn’t use someone else’s RPM as a guarantee of what you could earn.
There are lots of different ad networks available to bloggers, and the requirements and rates can change over time so the figure below are approximate.
Bloggers with under 10k Page views – Google Adsense, Journey By Mediavine
Bloggers with 10K to 50k Page views – Ezoic or Monumetric
Blogger with over 50k Sessions – Mediavine
Social Media, TikTok & UGC
Social media can be a great way for food bloggers to make money, although it can take time to build a following and start earning.
While the majority of food bloggers have a website, there are also plenty of creators who primarily use social media.
That doesn’t mean they can’t make money.
Food creators can earn money for reviews, sponsored posts, advertisements and other brand collaborations on social media.
This could be advertising a new product, reviewing a service or meal out, creating a recipe using a particular ingredient or even just providing a general shoutout.
TikTok
TikTok is another potential income stream for food creators.
TikTok provides opportunities for creators to work with brands on paid content and other collaborations, although the exact opportunities and eligibility requirements can vary by region and project.
For food bloggers, this could mean creating recipe videos, product demonstrations, reviews or other branded food content.
And you don’t necessarily need to think of TikTok as completely separate from your blog.
A recipe you’ve already created could potentially become a blog post, Instagram Reel, TikTok video, Pinterest video and YouTube Short.
The more you can get from the content you’ve already created, the better.
What Is UGC?
UGC stands for user-generated content, although when we’re talking about creators and brands, it usually means content created by a creator for a brand to use in its own marketing.
This could be a recipe video, product demonstration, photograph or short video showing someone using a particular food product.
One interesting thing about UGC is that the creator’s own audience isn’t necessarily the main selling point.
A brand may be paying you for your ability to create good food content that they can use themselves rather than paying you to reach your followers.
This means UGC can potentially be another option for food bloggers who have good photography or video skills, even if they don’t have a huge social media following.
While the amount of money you can earn from social media work varies hugely, it will usually depend on things such as your niche, audience, engagement, the type of content you’re creating and what rights the brand wants to use.
Reviews can be paid or unpaid.
It’s also worth remembering that if you receive products or other benefits in exchange for work, there may be tax implications depending on your circumstances. If you’re making regular money from this type of work, it’s worth checking the current rules or speaking to an accountant.
YouTube
Starting a YouTube channel can take time, especially if you’re starting from scratch and need to build up an audience and watch time.
The great thing about YouTube content, though, is that it can often be repurposed across other social channels.
A food blogger could turn a recipe into a full YouTube video, then create shorter clips for TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.
YouTube Ads
Many food bloggers run a YouTube channel alongside their blog and this can be a great way to monetise their content and recipes.
YouTube has several different monetisation thresholds.
For full advertising revenue through the YouTube Partner Programme, creators currently need 1,000 subscribers and either 4,000 qualified public watch hours from long-form videos in the previous 12 months or 10 million qualified public Shorts views in the previous 90 days.
There are also lower thresholds for some other YouTube monetisation features, so you don’t necessarily have to reach the full advertising threshold before you can start making money from your channel.
YouTube definitely takes some work before you can start earning significant money from it, but it can potentially be a great long-term strategy for making money as a food blogger.
Brand Ambassadorships
Another way food bloggers make money is by being a brand ambassador.
This role can entail a multitude of tasks, from creating recipes and promoting the brand on social media to speaking at or attending events.
One of the great things about being a brand ambassador is that it can bring regular work over a longer time period, such as six months or a year.
As professional food bloggers are often completely freelance and self-employed, working with a brand on an ongoing basis is often a much-coveted opportunity.
Even when a brand collaboration such as this has ended, it can still help bring in future work, as it’s great to have previous high-profile or well-known brands in your portfolio.
Selling Links
Link selling can be a really great way to make money.
But it does come with some huge caveats and warnings.
It’s something I do on some of my websites but not all. On the ones where traffic is my main earner, I don’t do it.
One of the reasons is that brands will often specifically ask for a dofollow link.
This is usually where the money is.
In my experience, brands very rarely approach bloggers wanting a nofollow link. When they’re paying specifically for a link, they usually want it to be dofollow.
Occasionally, a larger brand will want a nofollow link as part of a much wider campaign involving things such as social media promotion, content creation and other advertising.
In those cases, the link may be much more about sending people to the brand’s website and being able to track the traffic and results from the campaign.
Google considers buying or selling links for the purpose of manipulating search rankings to be link spam. Paid advertising links can be used legitimately when they are appropriately qualified, such as with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow".
This is something I think bloggers need to understand before they start accepting link-selling work.
I’ve been blogging for years and I’ve never personally known a blogger to be hit by a Google penalty because they sold a link.
What I have seen, however, is brands that bloggers have linked to getting hit with one and subsequently being asked to remove the link.
That doesn’t mean I can say the links were definitely the reason those brands were affected. But it has made me much more aware of the risks.
If your website relies heavily on Google traffic, this is something I’d personally think very carefully about.
For me, that’s why I don’t sell links on every website I own.
Some of my websites have other income streams that I want to protect, so I’m much more cautious about putting paid links on those sites.
I’m not saying don’t sell links, just ensure you understand why the brand wants the link to be do follow and to understand the potential risks before you agree to it.
Other Ways Food Bloggers Can Make Money
There are also lots of smaller or less obvious ways food bloggers can make money.
These might not provide a full-time income on their own, but several smaller income streams can add up.
Social Advertising Platforms
There are platforms that connect brands with creators and allow bloggers and social media creators to find paid advertising opportunities.
These can be useful if you don’t have established relationships with lots of brands yet.
One example of this is Social Tip.
Selling Digital Products
Food bloggers could also make money by creating and selling their own digital products.
This could include things like recipe ebooks, meal plans, cookbooks, printable shopping lists, freezer guides or other resources related to their niche.
The advantage here is that you create the product once and can potentially sell it repeatedly either from your own website or on third party platforms such as Etsy.
Creating Courses
If you’ve developed a particular skill or area of expertise, you could also create an online course.
For a food blogger, this could be anything from food photography and recipe development to blogging, social media or even teaching other people how to start a food blog.
Memberships
Some bloggers also use memberships or subscription services to provide additional content to paying readers using sites such as Patreon.
This could include exclusive recipes, meal plans, behind-the-scenes content, newsletters or other additional resources.
It won’t be right for every food blog, but it’s another possible income stream from food blogging.
How Much Money Do Food Bloggers Make?
This is probably the question most people really want to know the answer to!
Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple figure because food bloggers can make anything from a few pounds a month to a full time income.
It depends on things like traffic, where your readers are based, your social media following, the number of other income streams you have, the type of brands you work with and how much work you’re willing to put into your business.
Some bloggers will make most of their money from advertising, while others might make more from sponsored content, affiliate marketing, freelance work, recipe development or selling links.
For many bloggers, it’s a combination of several different income streams rather than one single way of money.
And that’s probably one of the biggest advantages of blogging as a business.
You’re not necessarily relying on just one way of making money. That said it can still be very up and down from one month to the next.
How Do Food Bloggers Make Money?
As you can see, there are lots of different ways food bloggers make money.
You don’t necessarily need millions of followers or hundreds of thousands of page views either.
You can make money from the skills you’ve developed as a blogger, including writing, photography, recipe development, video creation and social media.
Some income streams take a long time to build, while others can bring in money much more quickly.
For me, the most important piece of advice would be not to rely on just one income stream when trying to make money from your food blog.
Ultimately, if you’re creating useful content that people enjoy and you’re putting hours of work into it, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with finding ways to get paid for that work.
