AI influencer earnings
An AI influencer is a made-up character, drawn by AI or 3D software, who posts on Instagram or TikTok like a human creator. Brands pay it to show their products.
Six virtual influencers have earnings figures that a named outlet has published. Two of them, Nobody Sausage and Barbie, are 3D-animated characters.
Lu do Magalu, the Brazilian retailer Magazine Luiza’s character, has the largest recent figure. Kapwing estimates $2,539,680 from her Instagram sponsored posts over the 12 months to May 2025 (Kapwing, 15 July 2025). OnBuy’s 2020 research gives the largest figure on the page, $11,700,000 a year for Lil Miquela, by a different method.
Most published figures are estimates built from follower counts. Only one comes from the people who run the character: Aitana López’s creators told Euronews in 2023 that she made about 3,000 euros in an average month. The table gives each character’s best-sourced figure, preferring one its creators gave, and says who produced it.
| Influencer | Best-sourced published figure | Who produced the figure | Outlet and date | Instagram followers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lu do Magalu Magazine Luiza’s brand character | $2,539,680 over 12 months, from 74 sponsored posts | Kapwing, estimate | Kapwing, 15 Jul 2025 | 10 million |
| Nobody Sausage Animated character | $33,880 per sponsored post | Kapwing, estimate | Kapwing, 15 Jul 2025 | 7 million |
| Barbie Mattel’s brand character | $15,400 per sponsored post | Kapwing, estimate | Kapwing, 15 Jul 2025 | 4 million |
| Lil Miquela CGI musician and model | $73,920 over 12 months | Kapwing, estimate | Kapwing, 15 Jul 2025 | 2 million |
| Noonoouri Digital fashion character | $2,600,000 forecast for 2020 | OnBuy’s ranking, as The Register reports it, forecast | The Register, 21 Aug 2020 | 454,000 |
| Aitana López AI fitness model, The Clueless agency | Up to 10,000 euros a month, about 3,000 on average; just over 1,000 per advert | Her creators for the monthly figures; Euronews for the per-advert figure | Euronews, 22 Nov 2023 | 404,000 |
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BBC World Service reported on AI models earning on Instagram in November 2024, with the agency behind them quoting monthly figures.
All 12 figures, older ones included
Three characters carry more than one figure, and the figures disagree. This table lists all 12, newest first within each character.
| Influencer | Figure | Kind | Outlet and date | Followers then |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lu do Magalu | $2,539,680 over 12 months | Kapwing, estimate | Kapwing, 15 Jul 2025 | 7.8 million |
| Lu do Magalu | $34,320 per sponsored post | Kapwing, estimate | Kapwing, 15 Jul 2025 | 7.8 million |
| Lu do Magalu | 26,700 pounds per sponsored post | SAP.com data, estimate | Startups.co.uk, 28 Feb 2024 | Not given |
| Nobody Sausage | $33,880 per sponsored post | Kapwing, estimate | Kapwing, 15 Jul 2025 | 7.7 million |
| Barbie | $15,400 per sponsored post | Kapwing, estimate | Kapwing, 15 Jul 2025 | 3.5 million |
| Lil Miquela | $73,920 over 12 months | Kapwing, estimate | Kapwing, 15 Jul 2025 | Not given |
| Lil Miquela | 12,900 pounds per sponsored post | SAP.com data, estimate | Startups.co.uk, 28 Feb 2024 | Not given |
| Lil Miquela | $11,700,000 a year, as of August 2020 | OnBuy’s research, as The Register reports it | The Register, 21 Aug 2020 | 2.5 million |
| Noonoouri | $2,600,000 forecast for 2020 | OnBuy’s ranking, as The Register reports it, forecast | The Register, 21 Aug 2020 | Not given |
| Aitana López | Up to 10,000 euros a month, about 3,000 on average | Her creators | Euronews, 22 Nov 2023 | 343,000 at the December 2024 update |
| Aitana López | Just over 1,000 euros per advert | Euronews’s own reporting | Euronews, 22 Nov 2023 | 343,000 at the December 2024 update |
| Aitana López | $11,000 a month in brand deals | Unattributed | Entrepreneur, 28 Nov 2023 | 149,000 |
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What the numbers mean
Most of these figures measure followers. Kapwing multiplied each account’s follower count by the average price real influencers charge per follower, taken from Hopper HQ’s Instagram Rich List. Its three per-post figures all work out at $4.40 per 1,000 followers. So a per-post estimate tells you the account’s size at the date of the study, and nothing about a contract.
The spread on one character shows how far the methods diverge. OnBuy’s research, as The Register reported it in August 2020, put Lil Miquela at $11,700,000 a year. Kapwing, which counted only the sponsored posts it could see over 12 months, put her at $73,920. The first is 158 times the second (11.7 million divided by 73,920).
Lu do Magalu, Kapwing’s top earner, belongs to Magazine Luiza, and Barbie to Mattel. An independent creator starts without that brand behind the account. Kapwing puts Lu’s 12-month total at 34 times Lil Miquela’s, the next highest it found.
Only Aitana López’s monthly figures come from the people who run her, and they are the smallest: about 3,000 euros in an average month. Entrepreneur’s $11,000 a month, six days later, names no source, and the only interview it cites is Euronews’s.
Kapwing ranks Lil Miquela second, at $73,920 from sponsored posts, so every other virtual influencer it counted earned less. The six accounts here hold between 404,000 and 10 million followers, and brands pay for that reach.
Platform programmes spread smaller sums wider. Higgsfield, which runs one called Earn, says it has distributed over $1,000,000 to more than 10,000 verified creators (trust page, read 24 October 2026).
How to earn as an AI influencer
The five ways a character earns, with what each needs and costs, are in how to make money with an AI influencer. To build one, the AI influencer hub covers each step. Higgsfield’s AI Influencer Studio builds a character from menus for 1.12 credits a character generation (Higgsfield, 3 October 2026). Our Higgsfield AI Influencer guide walks through it.
How the table is built
A figure enters the table when a named outlet has published it, with a date. Each row says who produced the number: the character’s own creators, a named company’s estimate, or no one named. No figure here is ours, apart from the divisions shown in the text with their inputs.
Follower counts come from each character’s public Instagram profile, read on 24 October 2026. Instagram rounds them on the profile page. The second table also gives the count each source printed, where it printed one.
A row keeps the character’s name as its anchor, so a link such as /data/ai-influencer-earnings/#aitana-lopez stays stable. Corrections show in this page’s list of changes and on updates and corrections.
How to cite this data
adtestbench, "AI influencer earnings", https://adtestbench.com/data/ai-influencer-earnings/, updated .
- CSV file /data/ai-influencer-earnings.csv
Next on Higgsfield: the creator partnership programme
Sources
- Kapwing: Virtual Influencers: The Most Followed and Top-Earning AI Celebrities, by Emily Peng, 15 July 2025, data as of May 2025; follower count times the average cost per follower from Hopper HQ’s Instagram Rich List, times sponsored posts counted over 12 months. Checked
- The Register: If you can’t understand how Instagram influencers make millions, good luck with these virtual ones doing even better, 21 August 2020; a ranking from research compiled by the retailer OnBuy; Lil Miquela making 11.7 million dollars a year; Noonoouri expected to make 2.6 million that year. Checked
- Euronews: Meet the Spanish AI model earning up to 10,000 euros a month, by Laura Llach, 22 November 2023, updated 27 December 2024; monthly figures given by her creators; the per-advert figure and 343,000 followers in the article’s own reporting. Checked
- Entrepreneur: This Influencer Has Nearly 150,000 Instagram Followers and Makes Over Ten Thousand a Month, by Jonathan Small, 28 November 2023; the monthly figure carries no named source. Checked
- Startups.co.uk: How do virtual influencers now earn 9X more than us?, by Fernanda Alvarez Pineiro, updated 28 February 2024; per-post estimates from SAP.com data on 60 AI influencers, method not described. Checked
- Instagram: Instagram public profiles, follower counts as Instagram rounds them on each public profile page: magazineluiza, nobodysausage, barbie, lilmiquela, noonoouri, fit_aitana. Checked
- Higgsfield: Trust and Transparency, over 1,000,000 dollars distributed to more than 10,000 verified creators. Checked
Alexandre S.
Alexandre S. is a creative ad strategist and copywriter with ten years' experience in digital marketing across multiple channels.
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