Instagram Launches Subscriptions for Creators

Over the past couple of years, Instagram has released many different options for creators to earn money.

Since the birth of the platform, Instagram has grown rapidly and the content that creators produce changes almost every day.  In today’s world, a lot of people are taking their creative talents to a whole new level and working towards their craft full time.  Many creators are becoming podcasters, vloggers, music artists, food critics and much more!

With Instagram being one of the number one content distribution platforms they have had to meet the creators at a common ground.

At the end of the day, Instagram needs the creators and the creators need Instagram.  Instagram wants users to be active on their app for a longer duration and creators want to get paid.  If Instagram pays creators, it inspires creators, creators create, and therefore users have more compelling content to consume. The longer users spend on the app, the more ads the user can consume, and Instagram earns more profit.

They started by giving select users the ability to earn money by the use of ‘badges’. Instagram badges let individuals show support to creators when the creator is hosting a live video.

Shortly after rolling out badges, they gave creators bonuses for hosting a live video. Creators had the ability to go live for 30minutes and earn over $100.

After Instagram ended the bonuses for hosting live videos, Instagram launched a bonus program for creating reels.

Currently, this bonus program is still active and you can earn money every single month up to $1,200 depending on how many views your reels receive.

As far as paying creators, many social media platforms over the last couple of years have been going the ‘subscription’ route.  Many influencers have been waiting for Instagram to join the party since the app has been around for a while and many creators have built a strong audience for themselves.

At the top of the year, an article by techcrunch.com was released and written by Sarah Perez, stating Instagram was going to implement subscriptions.

The time has finally come and select users in the United States are finally having access to the subscription service.

At the moment, creators have various options to choose how they would like to price their subscription.

Currently, when you subscribe to a creator profile the following is included if published by the creator:

• Subscriber Bage: a unique badge next to your username whenever you send a private direct message to the creator or when you comment on their posts.
• Subscriber Story: You can view the creators’ story to see content only visible to subscribers.
• Subscriber Live Videos: Interact in real-time with the creator when they go live to subscribers only.

Users throughout the internet still have a lot of questions regarding this subscription service and if creators will be able to have more freedom without censorship while creating content for users who are subscribed to them.

If you are a creator will you be offering a subscription service for your profile? If you are just a user, do you think you will subscribe to someone’s profile?