In a pair TechCrunch reports and Business Insider reports, Instagram is offering huge amounts of money to creators who post videos on Reels competitor TikTok. In July, Instagram's bonus program for Reels was announced by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He stated that the company would pay $1 billion to creators until 2022.
These reports provide new insight into how much creators are offered for their Reels and how many views they need in order to be eligible for the maximum bonus payout. TechCrunch cites one Reddit post in which someone was offered $35,000 if they had 58.31million views per month. This is in line with the offer Sam and Cori Werrell made to create Reels content for their 283,000 Instagram fans, according to Business Insider.
According to reports, creators with smaller followings were offered lower amounts. Maddy Corbin, an Instagram creator with over 52,000 followers, was offered $1,000. However, she claims that she has heard of other creators being offered $600 and $800. TechCrunch says that these bonuses are increasing in frequency -- a creator with over 24,000 Instagram followers was offered $8,500 for 9.28 millions views. A Verge staff member who has 15,000 followers was also offered the same payment.
There are no clear rules regarding how follower numbers and payment amounts should be correlated. TechCrunch was told by Instagram that the program is still in its early stages and that it is still testing the format. The company stated that it is continuing to test payments and that they will fluctuate as we get started.
YouTube and Snapchat offer their own incentives for creators. YouTube announced that it would pay up $10,000 per month for videos with high-quality content in August. Snapchat introduced Spotlight Challenges last month, which offer various rewards to encourage making videos. Snapchat claims that its prize pools range from $1,000 to $25,000
These bonus programs can be interpreted in two ways. Meta-owned Instagram is generously offering to share the wealth of its creators. It's not secret that Instagram and Snapchat are eager to capitalize on TikTok’s popularity explosion. Many of the bonus programs are focused around short-form video services, which each bear a striking resemblance with TikTok.
TikTok, for its part seems unaffected by the wealth of money being offered by its rivals. It announced that it had reached 1 billion monthly active users in September.
