10 Ways to Make Money with Memes: Get Paid for Your Creativity!

Memes, if you don’t know, are an image that contains a piece of text that’s shared between people on the internet.

Memes are supposed to make you laugh, although there are some that have a more serious subject matter.

It’s safe to say that memes aren’t going anywhere. And, you can actually make a profit from them. Yes, you really can make money with memes!

Get Paid to Create Memes Online

Here’s how to make memes and earn money…

1. Make a meme channel on YouTube

Having your own YouTube channel is a good way to make money from memes because it offers lots of different options for monetization. YouTube is another one of those platforms with millions of viewers that you can earn an income from.

Lots of people make meme compilation videos and post them to YouTube. Many of these videos get 1,000s of reviews.

How exactly can you make money from YouTube though?

It’s simple really. Once you gain enough channel views you become eligible for the YouTube Partner Program. As a YouTube Partner, you earn money from the ads that play on your videos.

Although YouTube itself doesn’t state how many videos creators make from the platform, online reports suggest that it’s anywhere from $0.25 to $7 for every 1,000 views.

With YouTube, you won’t make money from the outset because you first need to gain enough views to qualify for the YouTube Partner program. Once you’ve done that though, you’ll earn money. Some YouTubers also make money by creating sponsored videos for brands or by promoting brands in their videos. Many make money selling merch too.

Creating your own memes is a good idea so that you avoid getting in any trouble for copyright issues.

2. Earn money from your memes with PicturePunches

PicturePunches will pay you for posting memes. It’s really simple. Basically, each meme has a sponsored ad below it, and you earn from these ad impressions.

Now, to be able to upload your own memes, you will need to earn points. Points can be earned by rating other memes and channels.

There’s even a Reddit group all about it.

3. Sell your memes on Fiverr

You really can make money doing pretty much anything you could think of on Fivver. That, of course, includes memes. Yes, many people work freelance on there selling their memes for anywhere from $5 to more than $20.

You can actually charge anywhere from $5 to $10,000 for a service. The site does take a 20% commission though.

Making money on Fiverr isn’t necessarily a quick process as you will be competing with other sellers who’re selling memes. However, if you can land your first client and do a good job, you’ll build up your client base, and show up in more search results too!

A good tip is to get together a portfolio of memes you’ve created so that you can show them to potential clients. This can help you to land your first gig.

Just build up some good reviews from clients, and you’ll start making money selling memes on Fiverr.

4. Sell your memes on Zazzle

Want to put your memes on lots of different products like phone cases, mouse pads, mugs, and t-shirts? With Zazzle, you can!

Zazzle is one of those print-on-demand websites where you can design and sell t-shirts and many other customizable products. You can also put your memes on a variety of products and sell them.

What’s good about Zazzle is that it fulfills the orders and handles any customer service requests for you.

You can add designs to more than 1,500 blank products so you really can diversify your meme business here. For each sale, you earn commission and, handily enough, you can set your own royalties for your sales from 5% to 99%.

Give Zazzle a try if you’re looking to start your own meme store.

5. Drive traffic to your blog

Sharing memes is a good way to drive traffic to your blog, and you could even share memes within your blog posts.

If, for example, you run a cooking blog, then you could share food related memes. It’s a good way to boost your website traffic. People may share your memes and that encourages more visitors to your blog.

Creating your own memes is a good idea because it can help to build your blog’s brand, and it also helps readers to connect more with your blog and become loyal followers.

If you know how to monetize your blog, the extra traffic and engagement can increase your income.

6. Start your own meme shop on Etsy

We’ve all heard of Etsy, right?

That’s because while there are tons of sites like Etsy out there, it still is the platform that gets millions of visitors. You could set up your own store there where you can sell your memes on items like t-shirts and coffee mugs.

Etsy is pretty competitive so you will need to spend some time building up your reviews if you want to become a top seller. Make sure you optimize your store’s SEO as well to help drive more customers.

It costs $0.20 to list an item for sale on Etsy and when one of your products sells, you pay a 5% transaction fee and 3% plus a $0.25 payment processing fee. Etsy also pays to advertise your products across the internet through offside ads and if you make a sale from one of these ads, then you will also pay a 15% offsite ads fee.

7. Sell your memes onRedbubble

Redbubble is a site where you can sell your memes on a variety of items. If you’re looking for something easy where you don’t want to have to worry about printing memes on products yourself, Redbubble is worth a look.

The site makes selling stuff really easy. Basically, you upload your memes and when a customer makes a purchase, Redbubble will print them and handle everything, like shipping, for you.

You can have your memes printed on demand on a huge range of items from phone cases to mugs to t-shirts.

You also get a lot of control over your income with Redbubble. The site doesn’t take a set commission from your sales. Instead, Redbubble has a base price for each product which is, basically, what it costs the site to print and sell your product. Then, you can set your own commission per sale, which is your artist margin. By default, it’s set to 20%. You can, however, change the commission rate. The final retail price that the customer is charged is the base price + the artist margin.

These are some of the things that sets it apart from many other sites like Redbubble.

8. Start a meme page on Instagram

Since it is such a popular platform, Instagram is another place where you can make money with memes. The social media platform gets millions of views and a lot of engagement too.

Unfortunately, it’s also a competitive space with tons of meme accounts vying for people’s attention.

That’s not to say that you can’t make money on Instagram with your memes though.

There are two options:

• Number one: Once you have gained a following on your Instagram meme account, sell sponsored posts or ads. So you post memes to your accounts, and then from time to time, you upload sponsored posts or promote companies on your account in exchange for payment.
• Number Two: Once you have gained a following, monetize that following by selling meme merchandise. See which of your memes is most popular and consider creating your own merch based on those popular ones.

Start up your account and start posting memes to it. Eventually, you will build a following and start opening up money-making opportunities. Make sure that you create your own memes too, rather than just posting other people’s because Instagram has, in the past, closed accounts of people who’ve used other people’s memes.

9. Sell memes on CafePress

If you’re looking to sell your memes, another option to try is CafePress. This is another print-on-demand marketplace where you can have your memes sold on lots of different products like calendars, notebooks, and t-shirts.

The company handles everything for you making it easy to sell your memes. You can also set your own markups (the profit you keep) on your product sales.

10. Sell your memes with Society6

Finally, we have Society6. This website is another option if you want to earn an income from memes.

You can upload your memes to the site and sell them on many products like phone cases and art prints.

You’ll earn 10% on each sale, and for art prints, framed prints, and canvas prints, you can set your own prices above the standard 10%.

There’s even an affiliate program that you can use to get an extra 10% on sales that you refer.

FAQ on Making Money with Memes

Making money with memes isn’t the easiest way to make money or the fastest because most of the options take time to build up before they actually become profitable. That being said, it is totally possible to make money with memes. I’ve given you many methods for doing so on the list above.

In this section, I just wanted to cover some FAQs. Hopefully, the answers below help you out.

What is the fastest way to make money in memes?

To be honest, all methods for making money with memes take time. Many, like YouTube and Instagram, require you to build up a following before you can start making money, and others, like RedBubble and Zazzle, require you to bring in sales before you’ll make a profit.

How do meme accounts make money?

Meme accounts on sites like YouTube and Instagram make money through:

• Ads
• Promoted content for brands
• Sponsored content
• Merch

Can I sell my memes?

Yes! You can sell memes your memes on:

• Etsy
• Redbubble
• Zazzle
• CafePress
• Society6

Make sure you check out the sections for those sites above to learn more.

How do Instagram memes make money?

As I mentioned above, Instagrammers can make money through their memes in two ways. Firstly, they can get paid to upload sponsored posts or promote brands on their account. But to do this, Instagrammers need a large following.

Secondly, Instagrammers can monetize their following by selling meme merchandize.

Are memes copyrighted?

This is a complex question. It can be argued that because a meme creator doesn’t just simply upload a photo from someone else, and they instead overlay text on the photo or alter it in some way, it transforms the original work and may qualify it under the Fair Use Doctrine. Fair Use, which is part of the Copyright Act, is a doctrine law in the United States that allows the limited use of copyrighted material without you first having to get permission from the copyright holder.

Now, rather than going into a ton of detail here, I want to refer you this article, which is all about copyright for meme creators.

I will also say that if you plan to sell merch with memes on it, using characters from well-known shows, TV shows, or movies, like SpongeBob Squarepants for example, is definitely NOT recommended. You will be infringing on copyright there.

I would highly recommend that you stay away from heavily commercialized images, characters, or brands. It’s best to stick with original content when selling memes on merch, and on social media accounts because copyrighted images can get your account banned. There are tons of royalty free images that you can use for memes on sites like Unsplash.

Closing Thoughts

There are so many ways to make money online and making memes has to be one of the most fun ways to do so!

Earning an income from memes isn’t a fast way to make money though because most of the methods for doing so require you to build up a following, sales, or traffic in general, so do keep that in mind. If you want a fun way to make money though, creating memes is such a good choice. And, what’s great about this money-making method is that there are options to suit everyone.

You can try selling memes on Fiverr if freelance work sounds good to you, you could sell your memes on Redbubble or Zazzle if you want to sell your memes on merch without the effort of printing anything yourself, or you could try and start a YouTube channel or Instagram account where you share your memes and make money from ads and sponsored posts.

Whatever the case, give these ways to make money with memes a try, and if you have any tips of your own, be sure to share them with us in the comments section below.