Every food blogger wants to know how to make money from a food blog. Food might be your passion, and blogging could be a great way to showcase your talent to the world. But you still need to make money.
Creating recipes in your kitchen, trying them ten times before you document them, publishing them on your blog, and then doing everything you can to get your recipe read and liked by the audience is no easy task. It needs time, effort, and money. And hence you need to find ways and means to make money from a food blog.
Today, I will take you on a journey of monetizing your food blog. I will teach you strategies I have experimented with on anybodycanbake.com, which I have been managing since 2016. Anybodycanbake gets about 30K unique visitors every month despite us not working on the blog between Jan 2021 and August 2022.
So without further ado, let's get into action.
What is a blog?
The word blog is a shortened version of the term “weblog”, coined in 1994. It is an online journal open to internet users and a platform to share information through texts or images.
Blogs are categorized based on the information that the blogger shares in the blog. For example, if you share recipes or food images with experiences, you qualify as a food blogger. Similarly, there are travel bloggers, fashion bloggers, and so on.
Food blogging, or “weblogging,” started in 1997. However, like everything else, the popularity took time.
If you are still reading, you are most likely contemplating starting a food blog, or you already have a food blog and trying to understand how to monetize it. Let me reveal the ten different ways to earn money from food blogging that I have tried and tested, and they all work.
10 ways to make money from a food blog
The game is about the audience. If you have an audience coming to your blog, you could use one or multiple ways of making money from your blog. The more the audience, the better the earnings; it’s as simple as that.
And hence I always advocate bloggers to create content focused on a niche topic. It will help you build an audience that is passionate about what your blog offers.
Decide which type of cuisine, cooking style, or recipe theme best aligns with your interests and goals for the food blog. Once you do that, you could pick the following methods to make money. Nothing stops you from choosing more than one or all of them to monetize your blog.
Create an Affiliate Program
An affiliate program is a great option to consider for blog monetizing. You can offer readers discounts and special deals while also earning commission on any products they purchase through your affiliate links.
Most eCommerce platforms, including Amazon and Flipkart, offer an affiliate program. You get your commission when you promote, and users buy the products from eCommerce sites. The user does not pay anything extra, but the eCommerce platform incentivizes you to get the customer to their site and finally purchase.
Your blog provides valuable content and builds audience trust in yourself. Once you have created the trust, the audience will likely buy from you, i.e., your blog. You could also partner with companies with products related to your niches, such as kitchen tools, appliances, equipment, supplies, ingredients, cookbooks, etc.
Check out Kitchenguru.in, a blog based on the affiliate program.
You could also join an Affiliate Marketing Network site like Shareasale or SHE Media. You could promote affiliate products from the affiliate marketing networks and make some bucks. The affiliate network curates the advertisers under one umbrella, and you could choose your compatible program and start advertising them.
Leverage Sponsorships
Reach out to restaurants, food brands, or other businesses related to your blog's niche and offer them an opportunity to sponsor your content. This could include sponsored posts featuring their products, advertising opportunities in exchange for a fee, or product giveaways.
Check out the post of Foxtail Millet Triple Chocolate Millet Brownies, which is a sponsored post from Pristine on Anybodycanbake.com.
Offer Memberships
A great way to monetize your blog is by offering memberships. If you have subject matter expertise and can produce quality content for which the user is willing to pay, you can show that content at a premium under membership levels.
For example, 40 Aprons is a food blog by Cheryl Malik. It is a food blog about healthy eating. The growing popularity of her blog and people’s request to reduce ad content directed her to create a membership model. The payment subscription that works best is an annual membership.
A membership where people can access her e-books, meal plans on clean eating, and much more. This is how Cheryl came up with 40 Aprons Premium.
However, membership or subscription models are region specific. For example, at Bakedemy, we offered membership levels in Indian geography but gradually realized that the Indian audience does not accept the membership model.
We advise you to research well before diving into it.
Sell Advertising Space
One way is to add Google Adsense to your blog website. This will let Google advertise to your audience while you make money from your food blog. You’ll notice that Bigger Bolder Baking, a food blog by Gemma Stafford, has a similar approach.
Media.Net is another competitive platform you may use against Google Adsense, as they claim their payout to be better than Google Adsense.
Another popular way to monetize your blog is to sell advertising space on your blog or website. If you can attract a good audience to your blog, the companies will like to buy space on your blog to advertise their products.
Selling Recipe eBooks
In addition to sponsorships & advertising, consider selling eBooks. Many food enthusiasts are looking for guidance in the form of eBooks.
You compile a recipe eBook based on the audience behavior analysis on your food blog. If there is more traffic on egg-free baking recipes, then you know where to start.
Check Anybodycanbake ebook at Amazon. This was a trial effort made in 2017, and AnyBodyCanBake continues to earn some money so far.
You could also look at Vegan Richa, who sells a lot of eBooks on her website.
Selling Recipe Book Hard Copies
Why stop at eBooks?
Try to find a publisher who is into cookbooks publishing. Finding a publisher could be done on LinkedIn. If you are able to pitch and convince the publisher, a lot of your hassles are taken care of in lieu of profit margin sharing.
Pooja Dhingra, the Le15 founder, chose to publish her book but Shivesh Bhatia, tied up with Harpers Collin to publish his books.
But it could be a tedious task.
Hence, most food bloggers prefer to publish their own cookbooks. Sell your hard copy of the cookbook in a pre-order format and create a buzz in your audience. Sell some copies, find a good quality printer and publish.
Checkout HandletheHeat website and check how they sell their cookbook on pre-order format.
Selling Online Products
Creating and selling your own products, such as tools, food products, and merchandise, can be a great way to monetize your blog. You can weigh your expertise and dive into it.
This is beneficial if you have an engaged audience interested in the niche you write about.
For Example, Archana’s Kitchen is a healthy food blog by Archana Doshi. Check out how she sells are on products of Healthy Millet Mixes.
Create Your Courses
If you are a food blogger with unique cooking or baking technique or food styling techniques, consider teaching these techniques. Cooking or baking is a life skill people want to learn, online or offline.
The best part is finding the audience for offline workshops and online masterclasses or courses. You can decide on the course topic based on your expertise and get going.
Sonia Gupta at AnyBodyCanBake is a baking blogger with expertise in Whole Wheat & Gluten Free baking. She translated her skills into her baking courses, and as I write in Jan 2023, she has taught more than 9000 students.
Offer Consulting Services
If you are a subject matter expert in a particular niche, consider offering consulting services to make money from your food blog. You could provide one-on-one coaching, host webinars, or speak at conferences and events in exchange for a fee.
You can consult with restaurants, cafes, or even brands for their new launches. This is especially great if you have built up a large amount of expertise in your niche and can offer valuable advice to readers.
One such blogger is Deeba Rajpal, the face behind, Passionate about Baking. She has offered her food styling & photography consultation in Chef Vikas Khanna’s cookbook, My First Kitchen.
Leverage Email Marketing
It is crucial to maintain a list of Email Marketing. If you have not been doing this, do start now! Read my blog on the 10 benefits of building an email list and how you can use it to make money from a food blog.
Email is still a personal thing. When you send an email to someone, it starts to build a one-on-one relationship. You could leverage this relationship to educate and sell affiliate products, your courses, and your own products, update them about the new blog posts you write and constantly attract the audience to your blog.
Check out Pinch of Yum. As soon as you subscribe to their mailing list, you will start to hear from them in your emails.
In the end
Making money from a food blog is possible!
By offering helpful advice and content, utilizing social media platforms, partnering with other bloggers, and taking advantage of affiliate programs, you can turn your love for cooking into a lucrative venture.
Don't wait any longer - take the first step towards starting your successful food blog today!
