Instagram offers bonuses for Reels but confuses creators

The bonuses range from $800 to $35,000

Meta-owned Instagram is offering money to post videos on its TikTok rival Reels but the process by which it decides to offer the bonus has left the creators confused.

A report by Business Insider says in November, the photo and video-sharing app has put up $35,000 for grabs if the creators achieve their target views. Some of these range in the millions like Travis Hawley who had to hit a target of 9.82 million views for a bonus of $5,500.

Instagram hasn't disclosed how it calculates what the company offers to a creator. For instance, while Travis Hawley was offered $5,500 for 9.82 million views, another creator in the same genre, Jackson Weimer, was offered $8,500 for 9.28 million views.

Also Read: New Instagram features announced to give creators more options while using Reels

"We're testing new ways to payout creators so there may be fluctuations as we get started," a spokesperson for Meta, formerly Facebook, told the publication.

The number of followers doesn't seem to matter either. Maddy Corbin, who has 52,000 Instagram followers, was offered a $1,000 bonus for her reels. Corbin says she knew other creators with more followers who were offered only $600, while others with fewer followers were offered $800.

“I wish I knew more on how that was generated. All I can think of is maybe it’s based off of past reels’ performance,” Corbin told TechCrunch.

The bonus doesn't seem to be stringent on hitting on the targets. Even if you fall short, you will still get some portion of the bonus, in proportion to your views.

A source told TechCrunch they intentionally posted a reel a day when they were offered $800 for 1.7 million monthly views. They managed to get 1.4 million and received $689.90.