Your DMs are a job.Start charging for it.
Hundreds of messages a week: how you got started, what camera you use, whether you'd look at someone's page, would you consider a collab. Answering them all is impossible. Ignoring them feels bad. Put your replies behind a small paywall with a guaranteed answer, and let your audience decide which ones are worth it.
Free to start. You keep 80%. No answer inside your window, they get refunded.
Good questions,
buried in noise.
Somewhere in there is a follower who has genuinely thought about their question, a small brand with a real budget, and someone whose video you could fix in three sentences. You'll never find them between the "hey" and the "u up".
- "How did you get started?" for the 400th time, from someone who really wants to know.
- "Can you look at my page?" from people you'd help if it took thirty seconds. It never does.
- Collab requests mixed in with everything else, so the real ones get missed.
- The guilt of leaving good questions on read because you ran out of hours.
Three things
your audience can pay for.
Each is a ready template. Rename it, reprice it, change the questions.
The kind of DM
you'd want to answer.
People who pay think before they type. The question arrives with context, the answer takes you six minutes, and it lands in their inbox with your name on it.
Illustrative example, not a forecast or a typical result. Your requests, prices and reply rate will differ.
How do you decide which brand deals to take? I've got 30k followers, I keep saying yes to everything and I'm burning out.
Three filters, in order: would I use it unpaid, does the brief let me keep my voice, does the fee cover a full day of my time. Two out of three or it's a no. At 30k you should be turning down more than you accept, and the ones you accept should…
A fair door beats
a closed one.
The people messaging you are already asking for your time for free. A price and a guarantee filter for the ones who mean it, and turn "sorry, I can't reply to everyone" into "here's how to get a real answer from me". Keep answering the DMs you want to answer; the paywall is a link, not a rule.
Answer in writing or paste an unlisted video link. Video answers to paid questions make good content, with the asker's permission.
A short, kind "not for me" is a complete answer. Abusive messages: refund and dismiss in one click.
Followers see your display name and your form. Payout details stay in Stripe.
Pin one link.
Answer what pays.
Five minutes to set up. One link in bio. The good questions find you, and pay on the way in.
Set up your paywall Free to start. Refunds automatic. You keep 80%.