How Exactly Does The Bank Engine Make Money?
For years, I have been sharing the profit and loss report on a regular basis showing you where the income for my business comes from and where it gets spent, but I haven’t actually shown you the ins and the outs of how I make money from the page. I have had many questions recently from people who want to see similar results with their online platforms and so I thought it would be helpful to share what I have learned and perhaps how you can implement my strategies into your own businesses.
Please note that this is for informational purposes only, and just because I do something and it works, does not mean that it will also have the same results for you.
How I have made £10,000s on Instagram with less than 10,000 Followers
So I think that this is the really interesting thing, and is certainly something that I thought for a long time; you need a lot of followers to make money from a social media platform. However, over the last few years I have proven time and time again that this is not true.
If you truly want to make money from social media, you need to do a few things well and you cannot go wrong;
Understand what purpose you are serving your audience. For me this is:
a) Helping people understand how the intricacies of money work so they can take control of their finances and improve their lives;
b) Teaching people how small changes in their lives can give them a better quality of life and turn their lives around;
Being completely and utterly open and honest with your audience. Examples being:
a) Sharing how much I make regularly, how I make it and whether it is worth doing or not;
b) Putting my hands up when I make a mistake, recently I shared an offer that didn’t work and paid £50 out of my own pocket as compensation for costs incurred in order to meet the offer that had stopped working;
Being as consistent as humanly possible, emphasis on the human.
With building this alongside a full-time 9-5 job, I sometimes don’t have the energy to meet my own standards in content. Rather than pushing myself to put out sub-par content I maintain other forms of consistency that I can ensure are good quality.
Over the last 18 months there have been 2 forms of consistent content that I have built into my schedule; my weekly email and my weekly quiz. More on these later.
From doing the above, I have noticed that people really engage with my content and find me considerably more relatable than similar pages that are more like “content factories” than real people sharing their day-to-day experiences with money and their viewpoints on life.
How I make money online without having ever sold a product
This is the real kicker for me, that I know gets some controversy with similar sorts of creators (if you can even call me that, who knows what I should really be referring to myself as). I have been posting financial content online for years now, and have never ever sold anything or taken money from anyone.
That has been the business model that I decided on before I even created my Instagram page, before I made the website and before I was even certain I wanted to embark on this project. Whilst I have seen the money that other creators make from selling courses, spreadsheets, notebooks and being slightly distracted by the possibilities I just don’t necessarily see this as an avenue that I wish to go down.
This is not anything against those who do charge for the aforementioned products, but when I am making a considerable amount of money without needing to do that, I don’t believe it currently aligns with my vision for the future. But this begs the question, “how do I make money?”
The Bank Engine is almost entirely funded through referral schemes and affiliate schemes. This is where a business wants to acquire new customers and will pay someone who introduces said new customer to their business either a set fee or a commission in the process.
Referral Schemes
Referral schemes are available to most (if not, all) users of any app and a rife amongst the personal finance apps (think investing apps, budgeting apps, etc.) Ordinarily, the referrer (introducer) and the referee (the introduced party) both get something out if it (cash, a free share, etc.)
I have already mentioned that I believe in full transparency, so here are the referral schemes I make the most money from looking at the figures from February.
Monzo - £355 (3 x New Monzo customer referrals at £10 a piece and 65 x Monzo Investing referrals at £5 a piece)
Monzo had a pretty good referral scheme in place already but in February introduced a Monzo investing feature which allowed existing customers to be referred again and both the referrer and referee would each get £5 cash immediately. Tap here for details on this offer which should still be available.
Tembo - £100 (6 x New Tembo customer referrals; 5 at £15 a piece and 1 at £25 a piece)
Tembo introduced a referral scheme in February that offered new customers between £15 and £250 when they opened an ISA with them and deposited or transferred £500. As this is the market leading rate for Cash Lifetime ISAs this was a quite popular one considering the deposit requirements.
Revolut - £50 (1 x New Revolut customer referral at £50 a piece)
Revolut’s referral schemes float around offering various amounts every now and then, but as they never offer anything for the new customers signing up I always offer cashback out of the amount I earn and in February was offering £35 cashback which builds in a small profit for me and ensures whoever completes the offer earns a good amount!
SumUp Pay - £40 (2 x New SumUp Pay customer referrals at £20 a piece)
This was a new one towards the end of February and is pretty good going as you only need to spend £10+ on a virtual card over 3 transactions to get £20 cash plus 0.5% cashback on those transactions. This offer caps at 5 referrals per person which I maxed out on in the first week of March when credited to my account and therefore I am now sharing community members’ referral codes so everyone wins. Message me “SUMUP” for a code.
JamDoughnut - £8 (2 x JamDoughnut successful withdrawals at £4 a piece)
JamDoughnut is a cashback app that offers relatively decent rates on UK shops and supermarkets, when people sign up with my code we both get a bonus of £4 or £8 (depending on the time of sign-up) once they reach £10 of withdrawable cashback. 2 people withdrew in February meaning I made £8 from this app.
Dscout - £7.63 (2 x Dscout Referrals at $5 a piece)
Dscout is a market research app and when someone who signed up through my referral link gets paid for a successful study I earn a $5 bonus for referring them. This maxes out at $50 per person and in February these were the first 2 rewards I received from Dscout so thank you to whoever used my link!
EverUp - £5 (1 x EverUp successful withdrawal at £5 a piece)
EverUp is very similar to JamDoughnut but tends to have better rates. If someone signs up using my link I get £5 bonus cashback when they reach a certain threshold of earned cashback. 1 person reached this level in February so I earned £5.
Roamler - £4 (2 x Roamler referrals at £2 a piece)
Roamler is one of my favourite mystery shopping apps and when someone signs up I get £2 per person, this is quite rare that I earn from this as it involves someone sending me an email address and I fully appreciate most people don’t like to do this. In February, I received £4 for 2 referrals. I also earn 2% of their earnings which I categorise as affiliate income. This tends to total about £2-£5 per month.
SmartSpotter - £2 (2 x SmartSpotter referrals at £1 a piece)
SmartSpotter is another of my favourite mystery shopping apps and when someone completes a certain number of tasks I receive a £1 bonus per person. 2 people reached this level in February so I earned a £2 bonus. I also receive a £0.05 bonus for each task any people I refer complete. This is still quite a new revenue stream for me but tends to be about £1-£2 per month so far, which I also categorise as affiliate income.
Affiliate Schemes
Affiliate schemes are effectively the same as referral schemes except I have signed a contract with the business that offers these meaning I can secure a better deal, whilst also ensuring you also benefit and can sometimes come with exclusive deals for you. Due to the nature of the contracts, I cannot disclose the exact amounts earned from specific schemes, but during February I received income from the following affiliate partners:
Outplayed (Matched betting software) - see my free matched betting guide here.
Roamler (2% commission on referees earnings)
SmartSpotter (£0.05 on referees completed tasks)
Free Share Schemes
These are similar to referral schemes but instead of getting cash, both the referrer and referee earn free shares worth £X which are convertible into cash and can usually be withdrawn in about a month. This is also another income stream that I do well from, and I do categorise income from another of my partners (Trading 212) in this category as I have opted to receive free shares in lieu of a fixed payment per referral.
Within this category tends to be income from 3 platforms (Robinhood, Trading 212 and Webull, although I also have an affiliate deal with Webull)
Due to the deals in play I cannot share an exact split between the 3 but during February I earned £342 from free share schemes.
How do I generate income from Instagram
In a word, strategically, which sounds menacing but it really isn’t. Instagram is not the best way to generate income but it can be when used appropriately. Here are the main ways I earn from Instagram:
Paid partnerships - these are few and far between as most brands that reach out to me don’t fit my strict partnership criteria so I will only share paid partnership posts (e.g: I post about a brand and I get paid £X) where there is a real connection and I believe in what I’m posting about.
Instagram Stories - if I find a new offer which I know will be popular I will add a story to Instagram detailing how it works as “being first” to share an offer is where I ensure that you all know about it as soon as possible, but it also allows me to secure revenue from said offer ahead of others. Generally, when there are good offers, I will be the first to share this on Instagram and if you haven’t seen me share it, it’s because I’m either not in the country or I’m not satisfied with the details of the offer and won’t share it with my audience.
Recurring Instagram Stories - the most popular stories I ever post are on a Sunday when I post my quiz, which has nothing to do with money but it’s a nice routine little way to give back to the community in a two-fold manner; firstly by offering something light-hearted but also someone will get £10 for taking part and I have given £1,000+ away from these stories so far. However, when engagement is high and story views are high I also take this opportunity to share hot “free money” offers as it will generally result in clicks which not only covers the £10 given away in the quiz but also builds in a slight profit.
Comment “X” - this may seem like I’m following a growing trend of creators that ask you to comment a specific word under a post in order for me to send you details of an offer, but there’s a reason behind this - I have recently integrated a piece of kit that picks up specific phrases and will automatically send you a link to whatever I’ve promised you. This isn’t me being lazy but is me ensuring you receive what I’ve promised in a timely basis and across hundreds of posts which receive a comment every so often.
In short, I don’t really make any money from Instagram itself, and it is incredibly difficult to. Every piece of revenue I tend to generate comes through my website and that is how I always see it will be going forwards as I can completely ensure that you have all the details you need for the offers and side hustles that both you and I may be able to make money from.
By having a website that I have control over, it enables me to send direct links to detailed pages of information, free guides, blog posts, and anything else I think will be of value without you having to trawl through dozens of links in my bio or having to continuously bombard my Instagram stories.
How have I grown my income substantially
I have doubled my income year-on-year in comparison to 2024 and there is one main driving force behind this that I am aware of, and that is my mailing list which I thought I was using effectively before but I really wasn’t. Back in 2023 I was sending monthly emails with things I thought were helpful but surprise, surprise, they weren’t really landing.
The reason; offers expired so quickly I couldn’t keep up with them and I was cramming them full of too much information which wasn’t valuable. So from the start of 2024 I switched to weekly emails and grew my mailing list to 800 or so subscribers at current. This still isn’t a huge number but I want it to be low as it means those who are subscribed find it valuable and like to read what I have to say.
Believe it or not, more regular emails keep my audience engaged and are far more beneficial to those of you who are looking to take your finances seriously as there are continuous pieces of information you can apply to your own situations.
Not only this, but coupling it with banging on about my mailing list on Instagram means that I am regularly getting more people join the mailing list and can point people in the direction of it. Not only this, but I have also compiled all previous emails so people who sign up later on can see what they may have missed beforehand.
Additionally, I was too reliant on Instagram so if anything bad happens I will still have a mailing list where I can access my audience should the worst happen.
Diversification is key
I have been reluctant to diversify for some time but now have started posting on TikTok to also mitigate any potential damage from an Instagram outage or problem which is taking off slow and steady and I am already generating revenue from this in the exact same strategy as Instagram.
However, this can be time-consuming so it is very important to ensure that you don’t try to do too much at once. The algorithm may prefer for you to post every day, but your followers won’t want to see more content than they can consume, and you don’t want to run yourself dry of ideas and time too soon.
Hopefully helpful?
I appreciate this is quite a lengthy blog post and is largely me just spilling my thoughts onto a page but if you would like more insight into this then please do let me know and I can share more regular posts just like this one as I know how valuable something like this would have been when I was first thinking about online business ideas.
And, of course, thank you all for your continued support. I really am incredibly appreciative of it.