Meta Discontinues its Reels Play Bonus Program for Creators

The Silicon Valley giant Meta is discontinuing its Reels Play bonus program, which rewarded content creators for reaching certain viewership goals. The move will affect Facebook and Instagram content creators in the United States and other parts of the world. Consequently, content creators of short-form videos on Instagram and Facebook will soon lose a revenue stream on the platforms. According to a source, the business will not issue any new or renewed Reels Play incentive deals but will respect existing deals for the next 30 days.

Paige Cohen, a spokesman for Meta, told a source via email,

We are evolving the test of our Reels Play bonus on Instagram and Facebook as we focus on investing in a suite of monetization solutions to help creators earn steady streams of income. We will look into ways to run the program in a more targeted form, for example in potential new markets.

Since Meta started the Reels bonus program in 2021 to compete with TikTok, it has seen ups and downs. Initially, creators received substantial compensation, often tens of thousands of dollars. Throughout 2022, however, some creators complained that payouts had decreased and it had become more difficult to earn the same amount in bonuses.

Cohen emphasized that content creators can still generate revenue through subscriptions and business partnerships. The Reels bonuses were part of Meta’s $1 billion, two-year pool of funds that the firm pledged would be distributed to creators in 2022.

Similar incentives have gradually diminished at other companies. When Snapchat announced in 2020 that it would pay $1 million a day for hit content on its TikTok-like Spotlight feature, there was something of a gold rush. This sum was gradually reduced over the course of 2022, and other techniques of monetization, such as ad revenue sharing, were implemented. YouTube first offered cash rewards to encourage producers to produce content for its TikTok clone, Shorts but stated in the fall that it would transition to a revenue-sharing arrangement.

Similar to TikTok, other companies are retooling creator money and rewarding new forms of content. The short-form video app has launched a revamped fund that compensates only authors of recordings longer than one minute.

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