I Made an Easy $90 With Instagram’s New Reel Monetization Feature By Posting Cat Videos

Instagram is making a desperate attempt to retain top talent by throwing money at them

GIF created by author, featuring author’s cat Astrid

If you know me, you know I veer hard away from saying anything is easy money because it almost never, ever is.

But Instagram’s Reel monetization scheme might have to be my first contender. All I did was post cat videos to my followers. In return, Instagram paid me a cool $90.

This reflects a drastic shift in Instagram’s strategy. Previously, they were happy to allow creators to draw audiences, pepper those audiences with ads, and rake in the cash from the ad revenue, leaving the creators who were bringing the audience to the platform to earn money with under-the-table brand deals, or by monetizing their followers and audience with a secondary tool like Patreon.

But now, competing with YouTube’s ad revenue share with creators, TikTok’s Creator Fund, LinkedIn’s $25 million fund for creators, and tons of other places for folks to post content for money directly from the platforms that profit, Instagram is making a desperate and bold bid to retain top talent by throwing money at them. “Many influencers have complained that it’s become harder and harder to get their content seen by their following; they feel forced to resort to gimmicks like loop giveaways or content they don’t want to produce (mostly Reels) in order to grow,” reports Stephanie McNeal in Buzzfeed.

Here’s how Instagram is using the new Reels monetization to coax creators to stay.

Instagram Awards “Bonuses” to Reel Creators — but Not All of Them

I learned that Instagram recently rolled out this program to a subset of Reel creators. The qualifications are not specified, but I can say I’m a creator with 15k followers, I’ve posted a few reels, I have a “creator” account, and I hadn’t posted much recently when Instagram invited me.

A few weeks into October, I got hit by a notification from within Instagram letting me know that I could enable “bonuses” on any Reels I posted. Based on the view count, I could earn up to $600.