A list of 17 of the highest paid bloggers that will inspire you to build a blog and make money online.
People often ask if blogging is still profitable in 2021. The short answer is yes.
What I find craziest about blogging and making money online is that there is basically no cap on how much money you can make.
As long as you’re willing to put in the time, effort, and hard work, you can make money with blogging as well.
As we’ll see below, many bloggers can make well over six figures a month. 🤯
What type of blogs make the most money?
Hands down, the most profitable blogging niche is a personal finance and making money online niche. When audiences are all about making money, they’re also willing to spend money.
This is easily done through affiliate marketing, selling digital courses, display advertising, writing sponsored posts, and more. I’ve written on seven ways to make money blogging in depth.
Although personal finance is a highly profitable niche, it’s also super-competitive and hard to rank for.
You can make money blogging in thousands of niches. As long as there’s an audience and products to recommend/sell, you can make money with blogging too!
I’ve made sure to include bloggers from various niches, like traveling, lifestyle, food recipes, and even succulents. This is so you can see that many niches are still profitable in 2021.
Also, I barely scratched the surface on the highest paid bloggers. I left out agencies like Huff Post because although they’re technically a blog, they have over 900 employees and post hundreds of articles a day.
This isn’t exactly relatable, in my opinion.
Let’s get onto the list of the highest paid bloggers in 2021!
If you’d like to start a blog, read this step-by-step guide on how to create a profitable blog today
Top Paid Bloggers
1. Succulents And Sunshine – $16,000+/month
Cassidy Tuttle runs Succulents and Sunshine, a blog covering everything you need to know about succulents (I recently killed my succulent from IKEA, so I’m bookmarking this one 🤣).
How she makes money:
Cassidy makes an even split of income from affiliate marketing, display advertising, and selling products.
Takeaways:
Obscure niches like this one are still highly profitable. It’s also important to diversify your income streams for blogging and not rely too heavily on one source.
2. Horkey Handbook – $18,000+/month
Gina Horkey runs Horkey Handbook, a blog about becoming a virtual assistant.
How she makes money:
Gina makes around 57% of her income from course sales and services (writing, VA work, coaching) and affiliate marketing.
Takeaways:
Selling courses is an excellent way to expand your income in a relatively narrow niche.
Recommended: My 3 Month Blogging Update [Income Report]
3. Finsavvypanda – $22,000+/month
Ling runs Finsavvypanda, a personal finance blog. Ling started this blog in 2018.
How she makes money:
Ling makes around 68% of her income from affiliate marketing, with the rest coming from display advertising and digital products.
Takeaways:
After you’ve built your blog and posted over 100 posts, your blog can begin running on autopilot and earning passive income. In her latest income report, Ling talks about spending only 2 hours a day on her blog.
Social media is also highly valuable to Ling, as she drives a large chunk of traffic to her blog purely from Pinterest.
Recommend Read: How to Make Money Blogging in 2021
4. Home Studio Corner – $25,000+/month
Joe Gilder runs Home Studio Corner, a blog dedicated to helping musicians make better music in their home studios. Joe started the blog way back in 2009.
How he makes money:
Joe makes money by selling 13 products and running two membership sites.
Takeaways:
An extremely narrow niche like Joe’s blog can still make excellent money. This goes to show you that as long as there’s an audience in a niche, you’re able to capitalize off of it.
5. Local Adventurer – $28,000+/month
Esther and Jacob run Local Adventurer, a travel and lifestyle blog. Esther started the blog in 2012, with Jacob joining her three years later.
How they make money:
They make around 67% of their income from sponsored posts. The rest comes from display advertising from Adthrive and affiliate marketing.
Takeaways:
Writing sponsored posts is an excellent way to diversify your income, and it’s an excellent way to maintain a stable income if your page views ever drop.
6. Art of Manliness – $33,000+/month
Brett McKay runs The Art of Manliness, a men’s lifestyle and interest’s blog.
How he makes money:
Brett makes around 60% of his income from display advertising, with the other 40% coming from affiliate marketing.
Takeaways:
You can make a hobby super-profitable; you just need to dedicate a lot of hard work and time to make money.
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7. Ryrob – $35,000+/month
Ryan Robinson is the owner of RyRob, a blog that teaches people how to run a profitable side business.
How he makes money:
Ryan earns around 91% of his income from affiliate marketing, and the rest comes from his course sales.
Takeaways:
Handing out lots of valuable information is an excellent way to grow your email list and page views (precisely what Ryan has done).
8. 40 Aprons – $37,000+/month
Cheryl Malik runs 40 Aprons, a blog about healthy and family-friendly food recipes. She started this blog over ten years ago.
How she makes money:
Cheryl makes around 72% of her income from display advertising. The rest comes from affiliate marketing, digital sales, and sponsored posts.
Takeaways:
It can take a long time to make money with blogging. As we can see with Cheryl, this blog income wasn’t from a get-rich-quick scheme.
A lot of hard work and effort over a decade has allowed Cheryl to earn this high monthly income.
9. Just a Girl and Her Blog – $41,000+/month
Abby Lawson is the owner of Just a Girl and Her Blog, a lifestyle blog. She started this blog way back in January 2013.
How she makes money:
Abby makes around 66% of her income from affiliate marketing and the rest from her digital products (courses, eBooks, and printables).
Takeaways:
Blogging is a team effort. Abby gets help from her sister to manage social media and her husband to write blog posts.
When you get to a high-income level (like $10,000+/month), it’s great to get help and hire others to grow your business.
10. Show Me The Yummy – $46,000+/month
Trevor and Jennifer are the creators of Show Me The Yummy, a popular food blog. They started this blog in late 2014.
They haven’t posted an income report for over four years, so this number may be drastically different in 2021.
How they make money:
Trevor and Jennifer make around 42% of their income from workshop sales. The other 58% comes from display advertising, Amazon Associates, and YouTube.
Takeaways:
Food blogs can be hard to monetize with affiliate marketing, so your best bet would be to join a good advertising network like Mediavine or Adthrive.
Recommended: 9 Best Books About Blogging in 2021
11. Adam Enfroy – $80,000+/month
Adam Enfroy runs the blog Adam Enfroy, a blog about teaching entrepreneurs how to grow their online presence and income.
How he makes money:
Adam makes around 71% of his income from affiliate marketing, with advertising, SEO consulting, and clients making up the other 29%.
Takeaways:
Adam is living proof of a blogger who could scale his online income super fast. He went from $11,609 in May 2019 to over $82,000 in November 2020.
That’s 7.1x income within 18 months.
12. Pinch of Yum – $100,000+/month
Lindsay Mostrom runs the blog Pinch of Yum, a food blog. She has been running this blog since August 2011.
How she makes money:
Lindsay makes around 55% of her income from Adthrive, with the rest coming from sponsored posts and affiliate marketing.
Takeaways:
Try to diversify your income with blogging as much as possible. Let’s say her advertising turned off for an unexplained reason; she would still have made around $45,000 for the month from all the different affiliate marketing platforms.
Never put all of your eggs in one basket (in other words, try not to rely on one stream of income).
13. Create and Go – $110,000+/month
Alex Nerney and Lauren McManus run the blog Create and Go, which is about blogging and making money online. They have been running this blog since 2016.
How they make money:
They make around 50% of their income from digital products and services, with the other half being affiliate marketing.
Takeaways:
Creating and selling your own digital course is an excellent way to diversify your income streams. They also run an affiliate program with their courses to eliminate most paid advertising costs.
14. Making Sense of Cents – $125,000+/month
Michelle Schroeder Gardner runs Making Sense of Cents, a personal finance blog. Michelle has been running this blog since 2011.
How she makes money:
Michelle makes about 50% of her money from affiliate marketing. The other half is from her course sales, sponsorships, and display advertising.
Takeaways:
She writes casually, and even though she is making over seven figures a year, she’s still really relatable.
15. Dollar Sprout – $180,000+/month
Jeff Proctor and Ben Huber run Dollar Sprout, a popular finance blog. They have been running this blog since February 2015
How they make money:
Proctor and Huber make about 98% of their income from affiliate marketing. The other 2% is from course sales and display advertising.
Takeaways:
They’re still relatable. Their income reports show us that blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, and we can see that they had many months of making no money.
It has taken them years to develop to this point.
16. Melyssa Griffin – $280,000+/month
Melyssa Griffin runs the blog Melyssa Griffin, a business and mindset blog. She has been running this blog since February 2013.
Griffin is one of the highest paid bloggers on this list.
How she makes money:
Melyssa makes about 91% of her money from e-course sales and 9% from affiliate marketing.
She hasn’t posted an income report for over four years, so this number might be even higher!
Takeaways:
Don’t be afraid to label the blog after yourself for fear of never making money. Griffin is a perfect example that a face behind a blog can make a tonne of money.
17. Timothy Sykes – $1,000,000+/month
Tim Sykes runs the blog Timothy Sykes, a penny stock trading blog.
How he makes money:
Tim makes most of his money from courses and teaching people about penny stock trading.
Takeaways:
Sykes frequently posts to his social media, including his 1.5+ million Instagram followers. He sells a lifestyle of travel and adventure, all while making money.
Selling the travel lifestyle is the perfect way for him to drive people to his courses and blogs.
Conclusion
So there’s the list of the highest paid bloggers in 2021.
Blogging can be an insanely profitable way to make money online. Still, it comes at the cost of hard work, lots of research, and perseverance.
One of my goals with Striving Blogger is to end up on one of these lists in the future.
Do you read from any of these highest paid bloggers?
Read Next:
– How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog in 2021
– 107 Blog Post Ideas to Attract More Readers