• by Colin Kirkland , August 2, 2023

Snapchat, the social networking leader in augmented reality (AR) experiences, has launched a new Lens Creator Reward program that will “celebrate the most creative Lenses” developed by creators via performance-based cash payouts.

“Every month, a Lens Creator could be awarded up to $7,200 if their Lens is the top-performing Lens in the United States, India, and Mexico,” the company wrote in a recent blog post.

To submit a Lens to the program, the creator and the Lens must adhere to Snap’s eligibility requirements, which include being based in one of the 40 eligible countries, satisfying all payment account requirements and submitting a Lens that meets qualification standards.

“Only a small percentage of creators submitting a Lens to the program will receive payments,” the company makes clear in its program terms.

Top-performing AR Lenses will be judged by “a proprietary formula based on views as well as other various engagement metrics,” the company states.

Even if a creator meets the eligibility criteria, Snap says that the amount they are paid may be impacted by its “moderation and content suggestion algorithms and procedures, which may prioritize content by taking into account a number of factors.”

These include the total number of unique views, favorites attributable to the Lens, the number of daily users who view the Lens, the time they view the Lens, the creator’s geographic location, account status, or how a Lens relates to trending topics.

With a wide variety of factors influencing payouts, it is undetermined how much creators’ payments will fluctuate. As the program evolves, Snap may devise more reliable parameters for creators to follow when competing with their AR Lenses.

Snap says that its AR community consists of over 300,000 creators, developers, and teams who have built more than three million Lenses, some of which were created for brands and partners.

Snapchatters have viewed Lenses on the app over five trillion times.

To remain a leader in the AR space, Snap is trying to expand its AR tools into other apps as well via its ARES initiative, which recently launched interactive physical AR “Mirrors” at two major music festivals with Verizon, as well as experiences with the New York Hall of Science.

In June, the company also launched a series of new Lens tools that creators can build from, as well as a Learning Hub comprising a set of courses with over a dozen free lessons, as well as tutorials, livestreams, and documentation for AR creators at all difficulty levels.