The money comes from brands that want to get their products noticed by the 992,000 people who follow Bernstein on the Instagram.
Like many other fashion bloggers, Bernstein posts seemingly casual snapshots of her daily outfits, along with information about how to buy the clothes and accessories that she's wearing.
What her followers might not guess is that many of those posts are the result of negotiations with fashion and lifestyle brands who might ask her to not include any competitors' products in the same shot, or even in any other Instagram posts that week. They're willing to pay a high price tag for that. According to Harper's Bazaar, brands spend more than $1 billion each year on sponsored Instagram posts.
Harper's Bazaar explains: On average, if you have hundreds of thousands of followers you can make anywhere from $500 to $5,000 a post, but if you have upwards of 6 million followers, your fee can be $20,000 to $100,000 per shot.
Though Bernstein wouldn't say how much she earns through blogging and sponsored Instagram posts, she did admit that "it's more than I could have ever imagined [making] as a 22-year-old."
She added, "I fully support myself, and it's in the mid-six figures. I save; I invest; I'm trying to be smart about it all and learn as I go."