Instagram is offering up to $35,000 to some video creators to use Reels, its new rival to TikTok. With the payout program launched in July, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company will pay out a total of $1 billion to video creators till the end of 2022.
The payout scheme is actually tied to the number of views a posted video generates. Specifically, Instagram offered a creator $35,000 if their Reels generate 58.31 million views within any particular month. A couple with 283,000 followers on Instagram was also offered that amount if they could generate massive Reels views in one month.
However, investigations reveal that there is no standard rule for determining the amount of money offered to various content creators. An Instagram video creator with 52,000 followers, Maddy Corbin, was alleged offered $1,000 but reported knowing others who were offered $800 or $600. Another creator on Instagram was offered $8,500 to generate 9.28 million video views on Reels. The same goes for someone else with 15,000 followers.
“I saw some people that had more followers than me, and they could only make $600,” Corbin stated. “I wish I knew more about how that was generated. All I can think of is maybe it’s based on past Reels’ performance.”
Instagram said the bonus program is to motivate content creators to work more and to reward them for their endeavors.
“We’ve designed bonuses so that we can help as many creators as we can in a way that is achievable and drives meaningful earnings,” Instagram revealed. “Our goal is for bonuses to become more personalized over time. We’re continuing to test payments as we roll out to more creators, and expect them to fluctuate while we’re still getting started.”
Snapchat and YouTube are also motivating users with money. YouTube stated in August that as much as $1,000 will be paid for very popular videos per month, and Snapchat in October said between $1,000 and $25,000 for people to make popular videos.