TL;DR: The Reels Play bonus ended in 2023, and as of September 2026 Instagram’s only pay for views comes from two invite-only bonus tests, one for reels and one for photo and carousel posts. The reels bonus needs 5 million views across the previous three calendar months, the US photo bonus needs 5 million a month for three months running, and payouts land around the 7th and 21st of each month. Nobody can apply, so Subscriptions, brand deals and cross-platform monetization stay the dependable paths.

If your Instagram bonuses gone notification hit you out of nowhere, you are not imagining things. The Reels Play Bonus program that once paid creators for Reels views was wound down in 2023, and what replaced it is a run of invite-only tests that start and end on Instagram’s schedule.

Instagram’s help center describes three ways a bonus stops earning: the deal period expires and needs renewing, Instagram ends the test, or a policy violation cuts off earning. The checklist below shows which one hit you.

For most creators Instagram pays nothing per view, because only invited accounts earn from views at all.

Why Did Instagram Bonuses Disappear

The Reels Play bonus disappeared in March 2023, when Meta stopped new and renewed deals for US Instagram creators and said other monetization products were proving more sustainable.

Meta told Tubefilter that Reels Play had always been a test program and that it believed “other monetization products are scaling more quickly and proving more sustainable over the long term.”

Instagram has never run a Reels fund like TikTok’s Creator Fund, a standing pool any qualifying creator could join. What people usually mean by the Instagram Reels fund is the invite-only Reels Play bonus, one of the bonus programs Meta launched after its July 14, 2021 pledge to invest over $1 billion in creator programs by the end of 2022, starting with a Reels summer bonus for US creators.

TikTok made a similar switch when it retired its original Creator Fund in favor of what is now Creator Rewards, while Instagram is still testing its replacement in 2026.

What was the Reels Play Bonus: An invite-only program, introduced in 2021, that paid Instagram creators a cash bonus based on how their Reels performed. Meta stopped new and renewed deals for US creators in March 2023 and honored existing deals for 30 more days.

The Timeline of How It Fell Apart

1. July 14, 2021: Meta pledges over $1 billion for creator programs through 2022 and announces a Reels summer bonus for US creators
2. March 10, 2023: Meta stops new and renewed Reels Play deals for US Instagram creators
3. Q4 2023 to early 2024: invite-only holiday and New Year’s bonuses run, both for video
4. Spring 2024: a 30-day spring bonus in the US, Japan and South Korea pays on reels, carousels and single photos, capped at $30,000 per creator
5. October 2024 to March 2025: creators report reel bonus payouts falling, and some say their New Year bonus paid only on photo and carousel posts
6. September 2026: Instagram’s help center lists a reels bonus and a photo and carousel bonus, both invite-only tests

The seasonal bonuses were never a real substitute. Tubefilter’s April 2024 report had two eligible creators earning 14 to 16 cents per 1,000 views on the spring bonus, which ran for 30 days and excluded sponsored posts, collaborations and posts with third-party watermarks like TikTok’s.

Creators in an r/InstagramMarketing thread tracked the next slide. The poster, who runs a 50K-follower page, said a Reel that earned $30 to $40 on 400,000 views in June 2024 would bring in about $5 by November, while photo posts and carousels still paid.

What Replaced the Reels Play Bonus

Newer invite-only bonus tests replaced it, and Instagram’s payouts page lists them beside gifts, subscriptions and badges as the four tools that pay creators today.

Only bonuses pay for views, and in 2026 they are still invite-only tests, so for most creators the other three are the in-app options.

From what I’ve seen, the shift moved most of the cost off Meta’s budget, since viewers pay for gifts, subscriptions and badges.

Tool	Follower Minimum	How It Pays	What You Receive
Bonuses	None listed; view minimums instead	Invite-only, paid on qualified views twice a month	Your own RPM, shown on the bonus screen
Gifts	500	Viewers buy stars and send gifts on your reels	$0.01 per star
Subscriptions	10,000	A monthly price you set	Instagram takes 0%; app stores take 30%
Badges	None listed	Supporters buy badges during your Lives	Instagram takes 0%; capped at $250 per supporter per Live

Gifts open at 500 followers, but the earning math is brutal. Each star pays one cent, so the $5 minimum payout in the US takes 500 stars, and outside the US the $25 minimum takes 2,500 (10,000 by wire, where it is $100).

In my experience, Subscriptions are the only in-app feature worth building around. A creator with 500 subscribers at $4.99 a month grosses $2,495, and with Instagram’s share at 0%, about $1,746 remains after the 30% app-store fee.

How Much Does Instagram Pay Per 1,000 Views Now

Instagram publishes no per-view rate, and views earn money only inside the invite-only bonus.

Invited creators see an average RPM (earnings per 1,000 qualified views) on the bonus screen, which Instagram adjusts for audience age, country and engagement.

Creators put numbers on it in September 2026. In an r/InstagramMarketing thread about the photo and carousel bonus, one creator reported $0.06 to $0.08 per 1,000 qualified views with about 75% of views qualifying, and a 450,000-follower account reported $1,200 to $1,500 every 15 days on about 20 million monthly views, which works out near $0.12 to $0.15 per 1,000.

Without an invitation, 100,000 monthly Reels views earn nothing from Instagram directly. Reels reach problems compound this, since the reels bonus needs 5 million views across the previous three calendar months before an account can even be invited. Instagram’s bonus rules page sets these minimums as of September 2026 and names only Japan, South Korea and the US as eligible countries, though it also lists photo minimums for the UK, Australia, Canada and other countries.

Bonus	Views Needed Before an Invitation	Other Rules
Reels	5 million across the previous 3 calendar months	Only original content counts, and aggregator accounts are not eligible
Photo and carousel	Every month for 3 months in a row: 5 million in the US, 1 million in South Korea, 500,000 in Japan	Posts with music count, and a video inside a carousel earns the post bonus
Both	Instagram invites only some eligible creators	Each post earns for up to 28 days, the latest 150 posts count in each 2-week period, and branded, boosted and collaborative posts earn nothing

Here is how that bar compares with TikTok and YouTube.

Platform	Program	Per-View Rate	Entry Bar
Instagram	Bonuses (invite-only test)	Not published; your RPM shows on the bonus screen	An invitation, plus view minimums such as 5 million a month for US photo posts
TikTok	Creator Rewards Program	Not published; paid per 1,000 qualified views	10,000 followers, 100,000 views in 30 days, videos at least one minute long
YouTube	Shorts revenue sharing	Creators keep 45% of their allocated Shorts revenue	1,000 subscribers plus 10 million Shorts views in 90 days

TikTok’s bar comes from its Creator Rewards help page, YouTube’s from its Partner Program eligibility page, and the 45% share from YouTube’s Shorts monetization policy. Neither promises a flat per-view rate.

Before: “I’ll grow to 10K on Instagram and monetize through Reels views. That should cover my costs.”

After: “Instagram pays nothing per view unless it invites me, and the reels bonus wants 5 million views across the previous three months just to be eligible. I’ll use Instagram for audience building and earn through Subscriptions, brand deals, or TikTok’s Creator Rewards instead.”

How to Check Your Instagram Bonus Status

Tap Professional dashboard on your profile, tap the Settings icon in the top right, then tap Bonuses.

An active bonus shows its deal dates and approximate earnings there, and if you find no bonus or invitation, Instagram has not picked you for a current test.

I’d recommend walking through this quick diagnostic before assuming anything. The interface changes frequently and not every creator sees the same options.

1. Open your profile and tap Professional dashboard at the top
2. Tap the Settings icon in the top right corner, then tap Bonuses
3. If a bonus is active, check its start and end dates and your approximate earnings, which Instagram says can shift during the first 24 hours
4. When a deal period ends, follow the renewal prompt in the Professional dashboard, or turn off auto-renewal or decline to renew if you want out of the bonus
5. If Instagram ended the test, it says it notifies you, and you stay eligible for future bonus tests
6. Open Payouts under Tools in the Professional dashboard to confirm your payout account is complete, since bonus earnings need one set up before the bonus period ends

Bonus payouts are released around the 7th and 21st of each month for the previous month’s two-week earning periods, with a $5 minimum in the US, according to Instagram’s payouts page. For a late payment, Instagram’s advice is to wait 7 business days after the payout date and then check your bank and payout details, and any change to those details triggers a 5-day hold.

That wait was needed in September 2026. The September 7 bonus payout sat on “processing” for a week, a Meta Verified agent told one creator it was “a widespread temporary delay,” and on September 14 the bonus tab showed a new date of September 17 just as PayPal deposits began landing.

One warning while you check: Instagram says genuine bonus invitations never ask for your username or password, so treat any email or DM that does as a phishing attempt.

Nothing in Instagram’s bonus rules ties an expired bonus to how your posts are distributed, so treat a drop in Instagram reach as a separate problem with its own causes.

What to Do If Instagram Bonuses Gone for Your Account

Focus on the three income paths that do not wait on an invitation: brand deals, affiliate marketing, and cross-platform monetization.

Treat gifts and badges as extras rather than primary income, and keep Subscriptions in view once you pass 10,000 followers.

From what I’ve seen, the creators who adapted fastest after the bonus ended stopped waiting for Instagram to pay them. They kept posting there to grow an audience and earned from that audience through sponsors, affiliate links and other platforms.

If you run several accounts across Instagram, TikTok and Threads, SMTasker runs routine posting and engagement across all three through Android phones you connect yourself. Keep it off any account you hope to get into a bonus or cannot afford to lose, because Instagram’s Creator Incentive Terms bar generating views or other actions on your content with “robots” or other automated tools.

Here is what each path looks like in practice, and our guide on making money without platform payouts goes deeper on each one.

Brand Deals and Sponsored Content

Brand partnerships are priced per post, and in my experience a single sponsored post at the micro level can beat a month of small bonus payouts. Keep in mind that branded content never counts toward an Instagram bonus, since Instagram excludes it from earnings.

The Creator Marketplace inside Instagram connects you with brands looking for partners. UGC (user-generated content) deals, where brands pay you to create content they post on their own accounts, do not depend on your follower count at all.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate commissions require zero minimum followers. You earn a percentage of every sale driven by your link, at a rate each program sets, and our guide to affiliate links in Instagram Reels covers where Instagram lets you place them.

Cross-Platform Monetization

What I’d recommend for most creators is treating Instagram as one leg of a three-platform strategy. Post your Reels on TikTok, where Creator Rewards pays on videos at least one minute long once you have 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in 30 days, and on YouTube Shorts, where the monetization path needs 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views in 90 days. Reels under a minute will not earn on TikTok, so cut a longer version for it.

How Instagram Monetization Compares to TikTok and YouTube

Instagram is the only one of the three without an open per-view program, but its Subscriptions and brand deal ecosystem remain competitive.

Inside the app, only Subscriptions pay dependably, and they switch on at 10,000 followers.

Instagram reached 3 billion monthly active users in September 2025, according to TechCrunch. That audience is what brands are paying to reach when they sponsor a creator.

Each platform wins a different job, so the table below sorts them by purpose.

Purpose	Best Platform	Why
Direct per-view payouts	TikTok or YouTube Shorts	Open to creators who meet the bar; Instagram’s bonus needs an invitation
Recurring subscriber income	Instagram (Subscriptions)	Instagram takes 0% of the monthly price you set
Brand deal reach	Instagram	3 billion monthly users as of September 2025

If your Facebook monetization is also stalled, the cross-platform approach becomes even more important. Putting all your eggs in one Meta basket is the riskiest strategy available.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Instagram remove the Reels Play Bonus?

Meta described Reels Play as a test program when it stopped new and renewed deals for US creators in March 2023, saying other products were proving more sustainable.

Can I still sign up for Instagram bonuses?

No. Bonuses are invite-only tests for creators in Japan, South Korea and the US, and meeting the view minimums only makes you eligible, since Instagram says not every eligible creator is selected.

How much does Instagram pay per 1,000 Reels views?

Nothing outside the invite-only reels bonus, which needs 5 million views across the previous three calendar months. Bonus creators reported roughly $0.06 to $0.15 per 1,000 views in September 2026, the low end from a photo and carousel bonus thread.

What is the minimum follower count to earn money on Instagram?

Gifts need 500 followers and Subscriptions 10,000. Bonuses use view minimums instead, and badges, brand deals and affiliate marketing list no follower minimum.

Are Instagram seasonal bonuses coming back?

They never fully left. After the holiday, New Year and spring bonuses of 2023 and 2024, Instagram now lists a reels bonus and a photo and carousel bonus, both invite-only.

Is Instagram monetization worse than TikTok?

For per-view pay, yes, because TikTok’s Creator Rewards is open to creators who meet its bar while Instagram’s bonus needs an invitation. Instagram Subscriptions, with a 0% Instagram cut, are its stronger recurring option.