2024 Income Report

Ever wonder how food bloggers make money? Well, I’m gonna spell all the deets.

Hi, I’m Bianca!

I’m a food blogger based on Long Island, NY. I loveeee love love to make cute, easy recipes, like teddy bear cookies and frog cakes. I also like to share educational content on blogging and being a creator, hence this post.

Blogging used to be a hobby for me, but being in this industry really opened my eyes. Pinch of Yum’s Income Reports and Midwest Foodie’s Quarterly Income Reports have been incredible, incredible resources. Their transparency has not only shown me that food blogging is a legitimate career, but also revealed the many different revenue streams it offers. As a reader, they’ve pushed me to to take the leap and pursue food blogging full-time.

Fast forward to 2025: my third year as a full-time blogger. And I’m sharing my income breakdown for 2024 (spoiler alert: it was lower than 2023, but I learned so much along the way!). If you’re curious, feel free to check out my 2023 income report, where I dive more into my background and blogging journey.

How Food Bloggers & Content Creators Make Money

Food bloggers and content creators usually have multiple streams of income, which include:

• Blog ads: These are the pop-up ads you see on websites. Ad agencies can pay very well if your website has high traffic.
• Affiliate links: Creators usually receive a percentage based off their audience buying products from links you share. One example is the Amazon affiliate program.
• Paid partnerships: This is when companies hire food bloggers/creators to make content showcasing their product or service.
• Freelancing: This can include writing articles or developing recipes for other brands.
• Misc: Reels bonuses, gifts.
• Products: Ebooks, apparel, equipment.
• Services: Coaching, courses, subscriptions, audits.

Similar to 2023, most of my 2024 income was from paid partnerships. My goal for the next few years is for my income come more from blog ads. This is because it is the more stable (if you have direct traffic, a large subscriber list, etc.), while pitching brands and relying on partnerships can truly ebb and flow.

My 2024 Statistics

Here’s how my following has grown, from the beginning of 2024 to the end of 2024:

• YouTube: 900 subscribers -> 1,470 subscribers
• Instagram: 70,000 followers -> 91,000 followers
• TikTok: 24,000 followers -> 25,700 followers
• Blog newsletter: 100 subscribers -> 2,700 subscribers

I didn’t really post anywhere except my Instagram and blog. It’s been hard trying to juggle everything, honestly. But I’m ecstatic with the growth, and hope to hit 100k in Instagram followers this year.

As far as my blog traffic, I more than doubled it from 2023. Here is my 2023 traffic:

Aaaand here is my 2024 traffic report:

Sorry I couldn’t put it on one graph. I had Google Analytics set up on an old Gmail, which is a whole other story, hahaha!

My 2024 Income Breakdown

When writing my 2023 income report, I was so proud of where I ended up—$77k in revenue! Unfortunately, 2024 was a whoooole different story. Let me explain…

I took a big financial hit

Early in 2024, I signed with a talent agency. It was probably the worst mistake of the year, for a multitude of reasons. Because I was with them, I thought it would be a very brand partnership heavy year. Unfortunately, I was wrong. 🙁

I ended up not receiving any significant brand deals for over 5 months. They even took 20% of my inbound deals with companies I already had relationships with. So even though my rates did increase, the 20% commission ended up eating most of it LOL.

On top of other issues that were present, I also felt I was facilitating a lot of the deals. It was like I was doing more work for a tiny reward. Because of these factors, I exited the agency in May 2024.

I was (and am) very fortunate that I live at home with my parents and had savings to pull from. Working with an agency like that was a huge lesson. I now caution others who are thinking of signing with an agency without other reliable streams of income. It’s just too unpredictable.

Due to 5 months of barely any brand deals, I made significantly less than 2023. But that’s what happens when you have one stream of income making most of your money! That’s why it is so important to diversify.

I was a bit scared to share this info, but transparency is best. It’s not always rainbows and butterflies in this biz! (On the bright side, I have a new agent now, who I love! She came with such high recommendations—I enjoy working with her so much.)

Month-by-month breakdown

• January – $4,821
• February – $592 (yikes)
• March – $2,465
• April – $3,579
• May – $3,072
• June – $3,144
• July – $7,654
• August – $1,547
• September – $3,057
• October – $7,240
• November – $3,775
• December – $6,991

For a total of over $47,900!

These numbers aren’t bad. In fact, they’re more than what I made working in biology research! And since I now live with my family, I don’t have crazy rent + living expenses like before. But keep in mind that I have business expenses, and about 30% is always set aside for business tax payments.

Comparing my income to 2023, it is a big drop from $77,000. But going through the months, you can see my numbers slowly creeping up after leaving my talent agency in May.

The good news? I spent the second half of 2024 building brand relationships and posting more blog recipes. In November and December, I completed a number of brand deals that I got paid out in January 2025. So, I was luckily able to start off 2025 on good footing.

I’m typing this blog post on February 6th, 2025, and I can say I secured $49,000 in brand deals for this year, which is already more than what I made in 2024!!! Things are looking UP.

A big reason why my blog ads increased so much is because I moved from SHEMedia to Raptive in July! I was able to get into Raptive at 30,000 pageviews/month because I was part of their 2024 Spring Remarkable Voices Cohort.

I have nothing but amazing things to say about Raptive. If you have any questions about them or are thinking of signing up, let me know! I also have a referral link if you are ready to switch now.

2024 Reflections

Let’s see what my 2024 goals were:

• Hit 100K on Instagram, 5K on YouTube, 50K on TikTok
  • I hit none of these LOL!
• Monetize on YouTube
  • Also didn’t hit this!
• Earn more income through blog ads
  • I actually did this. Yay!
• Update 70-80% of my old recipes
  • I updated a bunch, but not 70-80% worth! So many of them aren’t really SEO update worthy.
• Continue my relationships with past brand partners
  • Yes!

I had some strong goals, but my mindset shifted as the year went on. I went to a food blogging conference called Tastemaker and learned how much large bloggers make off of ad revenue. So, I shifted my mindset from promoting myself on socials to working on my blog.

I also got my website audited, which reallllly helped my blog grow over the past few months. One of the best investments ever.

2025 Goals

• Consistently hit 100,000 blog pageviews/month. Started off January with >70,000!
• Make at least $5,000 in one month solely off of blog ad revenue
• Make over $25,000 in blog ad revenue for the year
• Make over $70,000 in brand deals for the year
• Launch something super exciting that I can’t talk about just yet!

I know I may not hit some of these and that’s totally okay! But reaching for the stars is always fun and helps me remain focused.

Thanks for reading along. See you next year!