Imma's earnings are not public. Neither her creator, Aww Inc., nor any brand she has worked with has disclosed a fee, so every figure online is a modelled estimate; the widely repeated $600,000 a year matches a 2020 OnBuy projection of £498,303. What is documented: campaigns for IKEA, Porsche and Coach, about 378,000 Instagram followers, and two funding rounds for Aww.
Imma's earnings are not public: neither her creator, Aww Inc., nor any brand she has worked with has disclosed what she is paid, so every "Imma AI influencer earnings" figure online, including the widely repeated $600,000 a year, is a modelled estimate. What is documented is the business around her: campaigns for IKEA, Porsche and Coach, about 378,000 Instagram followers, and two disclosed funding rounds for the studio that runs her.
Compiled October 2026 from Aww Inc.'s website and news page, Bloomberg (September 3, 2020), Kindred Ventures (July 16, 2024), Coach's press release (February 15, 2024), Retail Dive (February 20, 2024), Muse by Clios (September 16, 2020), TED, and the estimate sources named in the table below. We estimated nothing ourselves.
Findings
- No income figure for Imma has been disclosed. Not by Aww, not by a brand, not in any source we could find.
- The $600,000 figure traces to a 2020 calculator estimate. OnBuy projected £498,303 a year using an online sponsored-post calculator. Later articles repeat "over $600,000" without a source.
- The estimates disagree with each other by orders of magnitude. The same method families put Lil Miquela at $11.7 million a year in 2020 and at $73,920 in 2025.
- Her audience is modest for the brands involved. Reported counts run from 237,000 in 2020 to a peak near 395,000 in 2024.
- The money that is public belongs to the company. Aww raised $1 million in 2020 and announced a $6 million seed round in 2024.
Imma is one character in a wider field. For the business models behind virtual characters, start with our AI persona business playbook; for the other well-known names, see the 15 AI influencer case studies.
Method
We looked for three kinds of source: statements by Aww Inc. and its investors, statements by brands that hired Imma, and reporting by named publications. For each earnings number in circulation we traced it back as far as we could and recorded what it measures. Follower counts are taken from the dated reports that cite them, plus one third-party tracker for the current figure. We did not model, extrapolate or average anything.
Imma AI influencer earnings: every figure in circulation, traced
| Figure | Source and date | What it actually is |
|---|---|---|
| £498,303.44 a year | OnBuy study, reported by Electronic Specifier, August 17, 2020 | A projection made with Influencer Marketing Hub's Sponsored Post Calculator. The study ranked Imma third and cited an audience of 237,000. |
| "Over $600,000 in annual revenue" | Affiverse Media, February 11, 2026 | Stated with the word "reportedly" and no named source or method. |
| £3,800 per sponsored post | SAP study, reported by CFI.co, March 13, 2024 | Potential earnings per post from an earnings calculator, based on 395,432 followers. Ranked seventh of ten. Not a fee anyone paid. |
| Company-disclosed income | Aww Inc., the brands, regulators | None found. No fee, revenue or profit figure for Imma has been published by anyone in a position to know it. |
The two figures that come with a method use the same kind of tool: a calculator that takes an account's follower numbers and returns what an influencer of that size might charge for a sponsored post. Multiply by an assumed number of posts and you have an "annual earnings" headline. Nothing in that chain involves a contract, an invoice or a statement from the company. The third figure comes with no method at all.
A quick cross-check shows how soft the figures are. Dividing OnBuy's yearly estimate by SAP's per-post estimate gives £498,303 ÷ £3,800 = 131 sponsored posts a year, or one every 2.8 days. These are two different studies four years apart, so the division is only a sense check, but it shows the scale of posting the annual figure would need.
Imma AI influencer annual earnings: where the $600,000 comes from
The figure people search for is $600,000 a year. We could not find it in any statement by Aww or in any report that names a method. The nearest traceable number is OnBuy's £498,303.44 from August 2020, which is a little over $600,000 at the pound-to-dollar rates of recent years. That is our best explanation for the round figure. No source we found states the link, so treat it as our inference.
The clearest sign that these models are unreliable is what they say about other characters. The Register reported in August 2020 that the OnBuy study put Lil Miquela at $11.7 million a year. In July 2025, Kapwing counted her sponsored posts over twelve months, applied a per-follower rate, and arrived at $73,920. Same character, similar approach, a result about 158 times smaller. A method with that much spread cannot tell you what Imma earns.
Our wider review of what public AI influencer income numbers show found the same pattern across the field: owner claims, platform anecdotes and follower-based models, with no audited figures.
How much does Imma make? What is and is not public
- Who made her: Aww Inc., Tokyo, from 2018
- Named campaigns: IKEA Japan, Porsche, Coach
- Aww funding: $1M seed in 2020, $6M seed announced 2024
- Follower counts at four dated points
- Aww runs about 15 characters (2024)
- Any fee for any campaign
- Aww's revenue or profit
- How much of Aww's income Imma accounts for
- What it costs to produce her content
- Whether her deals are one-off or retained
The honest answer to the question is the right-hand column. Brand fees for virtual talent are private contracts, as they are for human talent, and Aww is a private company that has not published financials breaking out one character.
Imma, the virtual influencer: who she is and how big she is
Imma is a pink-haired virtual human who posts as a young woman living in Tokyo. Bloomberg described her in 2020 as created in 2018, a computer-generated face composited onto a photo of a real human model. Aww calls itself Japan's first virtual human company, and Kindred Ventures' 2024 interview with founder Takayuki Moriya says development of Imma began in 2018 and the company was formally founded in 2019.
She is better described as a virtual influencer than an AI influencer in the generative sense, though that is changing. Coach said its 2024 campaign was "inspired by A.I. and created using CGI", and in July 2026 Aww announced Imma as the face of HITO, a conversational AI service. Our guide to virtual influencers versus AI influencers explains the difference and why it matters for cost.
Four dated reports, not a continuous series. The 2020 OnBuy figure is described as the users her posts reach. Source: Electronic Specifier (August 2020), Bloomberg (September 2020), CFI.co (March 2024), CreatorDB (September 27, 2026)
Two things stand out. Growth was real but not explosive: roughly 60 percent in about three and a half years. And the count has drifted slightly down since. CreatorDB showed a decline of about 3,200 followers over the 90 days to late September 2026. Whatever Imma earns, it is not explained by audience size alone.
Deal history: the documented campaigns
- 2018Imma is created
Development begins under Takayuki Moriya; Aww Inc. is formally founded the following year.
- 2019First studio client
Kindred Ventures names the Walt Disney Company as Aww's first client for its virtual human production.
- Aug 2020IKEA Harajuku
A three-day storefront installation with LED screens and a livestream, made with Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo.
- Sep 2020$1 million seed round
Bloomberg reports the raise from Coral Capital and names Porsche and IKEA campaigns.
- Feb 2024Coach campaign lead
Find Your Courage casts Imma with five celebrity ambassadors across a series of films.
- Jul 2024$6 million seed round
Kindred Ventures announces it led the round and describes plans to make Imma AI-driven.
- Jul 2026Conversational AI
Aww announces Imma as the face of HITO, its AI customer-service product.
| When | Brand or stage | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Walt Disney Company | Named as Aww's first client for its virtual human production line | Kindred Ventures, July 2024 |
| By 2020 | Porsche | Advertising campaign featuring Aww's virtual influencers | Bloomberg, September 2020 |
| August 2020 | IKEA Japan | Three-day window installation and livestream for the Harajuku store opening, by Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo | Muse by Clios, September 2020 |
| February 2024 | Coach | Lead of the Find Your Courage campaign with Lil Nas X, Camila Mendes, Youngji Lee, Kōki and Wu Jinyan | Coach press release |
| By 2024 | Nike, Puma, Calvin Klein | Reported as brands whose content she has appeared in | Retail Dive, February 2024 |
| 2024 | TED | Appeared on stage in producer Sara Giusto's talk on virtual humans | TED |
| July 2026 | Aww's own product | Announced as the face of HITO, a conversational AI service, for a Tokyo AI trade show in August | Aww news |
Aww's website also shows a wall of partner logos that includes Dior, Valentino, Burberry, SK-II, adidas, Amazon and others (checked October 2026). A logo wall confirms a relationship with the company, not the size or date of any deal, and not that Imma was the character involved, so we have left those out of the table.
The pattern in the documented work is worth noting. The IKEA project was a physical installation in a station that Muse by Clios says sees 110,000 commuters a day. The Coach project was a multi-film campaign in which Coach's chief marketing officer called Imma "the perfect ambassador to tell this story". These are productions, priced and run like productions, not sponsored posts priced per follower. That is the main reason calculator estimates miss: they model the wrong product.
The money that is public: Aww's funding and other revenue lines
Two funding events are on the record. Bloomberg reported a $1 million seed round from Coral Capital in September 2020. Kindred Ventures announced in July 2024 that it had led a $6 million seed round. Investment is not income, but it tells you how the business is financed: Imma is a venture-backed company's lead asset, not a self-funding side project.
The same sources show that Aww does not rely on one character. Kindred's interview describes about 15 characters and a production line that makes virtual humans for other companies, and Aww's own site lists three lines of business: its own character IP, virtual humans built for brands, and AI products such as HITO. Any fee Imma earns sits inside that mix, which is why even an accurate campaign fee would not tell you what the character is worth. The CGI influencer business model guide breaks down how studios of this kind make money.
What Imma's playbook teaches persona builders
You cannot copy a funded CG studio. You can copy the decisions, and they matter more than the rendering.
- 1One character, held for years
Imma has had the same face, hair and Tokyo setting since 2018. Consistency is what a brand is renting.
- 2Openly virtual
Coach introduced her as a "virtual human" in its own press release. Nobody had to be fooled for the campaign to work.
- 3A point of view brands can borrow
Her deals lean on one idea: what counts as real. A persona with a theme is easier to cast than a pretty feed.
- 4Campaigns built as events
A storefront she "lived" in for three days earned press that a sponsored post never would.
- 5More than one revenue line
The studio sells production and AI products alongside the character, so no single deal carries the business.
None of that requires 378,000 followers, and none of it is answered by an earnings headline. For a solo creator the workable version is a consistent generated character, a clear niche, honest labelling and direct outreach to brands small enough to say yes. Our guide to landing AI influencer brand deals covers the pitch, and the free brand deal rate calculator gives you a starting quote based on your own numbers instead of someone else's headline.
Building that character and the content system around it, including the disclosure rules that keep brand work publishable, is what the AI Influencers program teaches.
- Who is the source: the company, a brand, a journalist, or a calculator?
- Is the number a fee that was paid, or what the account "could" charge?
- Does the article explain how the number was produced?
- Is it revenue to a company or income to a person?
- How old is the underlying study, and has the number been converted or rounded since?
- Would the claimed posting volume match what the account actually publishes?
Limitations
- Absence of evidence is not evidence. We found no disclosed figure. That does not mean Imma earns little, or a lot. It means the number is private.
- The $600,000 link is an inference. The match with OnBuy's 2020 estimate is our reading, not something a source confirms.
- Some sources were read in part. The Bloomberg article sits behind a paywall beyond its opening paragraphs; we cite only what is visible there.
- The OnBuy and SAP studies are cited through trade publications that reported them, not from the original study pages.
- Follower figures come from different reporters and one tracker. They are dated points, not a verified series.
- The deal list is a minimum. It includes only campaigns a named source describes; Imma has certainly done more.
Imma earnings: FAQ
How much does Imma make?
Nobody outside her company knows. Aww Inc., the Tokyo studio that created Imma, has not published her income, and none of the brands she has worked with has disclosed a fee. The figures online are modelled estimates built from follower counts, such as a 2020 OnBuy estimate of £498,303 a year and a 2024 SAP estimate of £3,800 per sponsored post. Neither is a record of money actually paid.
Is the $600,000 annual earnings figure for Imma real?
It is not a disclosed or audited number. The closest traceable source is a 2020 study by the retailer OnBuy, which used an online sponsored-post calculator to estimate £498,303 a year, a little over $600,000 in dollars. Later articles repeat a figure of over $600,000 without naming a source. Treat it as an old modelled estimate, not as Imma's income.
Who created Imma, and who is paid for her work?
Imma was created in 2018 by Takayuki Moriya, who founded the Tokyo company Aww Inc. Aww describes itself as Japan's first virtual human company. Campaign fees are paid to the company, not to a person called Imma, and they fund a studio that Kindred Ventures said in 2024 ran about 15 characters. Aww has also raised outside funding, including a $6 million seed round led by Kindred.
How many followers does Imma have?
About 378,000 on Instagram. The tracker CreatorDB showed 377,530 followers for imma.gram on September 27, 2026. Earlier reported counts were more than 250,000 in September 2020, according to Bloomberg, and 395,432 in a study published in March 2024. Her audience is modest next to the brands she has worked with, which is one of the more useful facts about her.
Which brands has Imma worked with?
Documented examples include IKEA Japan, which built a three-day Harajuku store installation around her in August 2020, Porsche, named by Bloomberg in 2020, and Coach, whose 2024 Find Your Courage campaign cast her alongside Lil Nas X and Camila Mendes. Retail Dive reported that she has also appeared in content for Nike, Puma and Calvin Klein. None of these sources states a fee.
Is Imma an AI influencer or a CGI character?
She began as CGI. Bloomberg described her in 2020 as a computer-generated face composited onto a photo of a real human model, and Coach said its 2024 campaign was inspired by A.I. and created using CGI. In 2026 Aww presented Imma as the face of HITO, a conversational AI service. So she is a virtual human who is becoming AI-driven, not a character generated by an image model.
Can a solo creator copy what Imma does?
Not the production, which is a funded studio with CG artists and producers. What transfers is the method: one consistent character held for years, an openly virtual identity, a clear aesthetic that brands can borrow, and campaigns designed as events instead of one-off posts. A solo creator using generative tools can apply all four, on a smaller scale and with smaller brands.
Imma took a studio and eight years. Your persona needs a system, not a headline number.
AI Influencers, included in All Access, teaches the parts of this case you can use: a consistent character, a content system, honest disclosure and how to pitch brands, with the other three programs, live coaching and the private community.
Work from your own numbers
Use the free calculator to price a brand deal from your real audience, and join the free Telegram channel for sourced updates on the virtual influencer market.