On Leap Day, Meta‘s monetization took a leap forward. The owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp announced several changes for its Performance Bonus program, including the removal of a cap that limited the amount of money creators could earn in a single month.
Over the past few years, Meta has transitioned from ad-based revenue streams to performance-based models that reward creators even if no ads are served on their content. That transformation has been particularly evident on Facebook, where the Performance Bonus program arrived last year. At the time, Facebook Senior Director of Product Management Helen Ma said that creators who become eligible for Performance Bonuses can harness Facebook’s massive scale as a monetization tool.
An announcement published on February 29 contained more good news for Facebook creators. Previously, Performance Bonus payouts had a fixed earnings ceiling, but that is no longer the case. By “mid-March,” most creators in the program will have access to unlimited rewards.
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“On Facebook you’re not restricted to entertaining your audience in one way,” reads the post. “You can creatively express yourself with photos, text, long-form video, Live or Reels. Likewise, our content monetization programs – Ads on Reels, In-Stream Ads and the Performance bonus – now span each of these formats, supporting you however you publicly engage with your audiences.”
Creators must receive an invite from Facebook to qualify for Performance Bonus payouts, but an incoming expansion of the program will onboard new users around the globe. Initially, creators in six countries were granted access to the Performance Bonus system, but that number has now gone up to 16. Facebook’s announcement noted that the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand are the first Asian countries where creators will benefit from the performance-based perks.
For Meta, these changes have been a long time coming. The Facebook parent has slowly moved away from earlier monetization models as it finds more efficient ways to pay its creative community. Performance-based rewards arrived on the short-form Reels platform in 2023, a few months before the official debut of the Performance Bonus program.
