Snapchat is changing how creators earn money–and making it harder for them to start

We just wrote about how platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Spotify have been making it easier for creators to earn money. They’ve rolled out new monetization programs, revamped and streamlined old ones, and have lowered eligibility requirements across the board so creators can more quickly begin earning cash from their content.

But one platform is breaking pattern: Snapchat today announced it’s getting rid of the Spotlight Rewards Program in favor of a new, unified monetization system that will pay creators for ads run on Stories and on Spotlight videos longer than 60 seconds.

“With Spotlight viewership up 25% year-over-year, there is a unique and growing opportunity for creators to monetize this format in the same way they do with Stories,” Snapchat said in a company blog post. “Beginning February 1, 2025, eligible creators will be able to monetize Spotlight videos longer than 1 minute.”

Blocking monetization for videos shorter than one minute isn’t new; TikTok did the same thing when it introduced its Creativity Program in 2023. We get it: more video time equals more ad space, so platforms want to encourage creators to post longer. TikTok’s program is similarly based on ad revenue, and replaced TikTok’s original monetization system, the $1 billion Creator Fund, which paid creators shares from a daily pool of cash based on how much engagement their videos generated.

Snapchat introduced its Spotlight Rewards Program in 2020 to compete with TikTok’s Creator Fund. It promised to divvy up $1 million per day among creators of top videos on Spotlight, its TikTok-esque short-form video feed. Within a year, Spotlight Rewards had paid out $250 million to more than 12,000 creators. Snapchat later lowered the daily amount paid to creators and began expanding its ad offerings, first placing them on Stories in 2022 and then on Spotlight videos in 2023

Snapchat’s new program combines revenue from both those advertising streams into a single payout for creators.

But not all creators.

To qualify for the Spotlight Rewards Program, creators needed to have a minimum of 1,000 followers, 10,000 unique video views, and a public profile. For the new program, the bar is raised significantly. Creators must meet stringent activity requirements and engagement requirements.

To meet activity requirements, they have to…

• post at least 25 times per month to Saved Stories or Spotlight
• post to either Spotlight or Public Stories on at least 10 of the last 28 days

And for engagement requirements, they must…

• have at least 50,000 followers
• and have reached one of the following in the last 28 days: (A) 10 million Snap views, (B) 1 million Spotlight views, or (C) 12,000 hours of view time.

As you can see, this new program requires a lot more from creators. We’re guessing creators who were regularly monetizing through the Spotlight Rewards Program up until now will likely qualify for the new program, but any creators looking to start monetization once this system rolls out will have a tougher time.

There’s also one more barrier to entry for them: This new program is invite-only. Snapchat says creators who meet all the above requirements “may be eligible for invitation.” It didn’t give a timeline for invites, but did confirm to TechCrunch that the Spotlight Rewards Program will end on Jan. 31, 2025.

The new program begins Feb. 1.