• by Colin Kirkland , September 18, 2023

Over the coming weeks, Instagram will be rolling out expanded access to its “Gifts” feature to creators in 33 new countries, inviting more followers and fans to show their love of a creator's content via monetary donations on a dedicated button on their Reels clips.

To send a Reels creator gifts, fans will need to pay in Meta's own in-app currency known as Stars. On a creator's Reels clip, users can choose to “Send Gift.” Users can select any varying amount from anywhere up $5.99 each.

After viewers purchase stars and use them to send a creator a gift, Instagram will provide the creators with a revenue share from their Reels “that received gifts on a monthly basis equal to $.01 USD for every star received from fans,” the company stated in an Instagram post.

Therefore, a gift of 100 stars will result in one dollar. While this does not sound like a lot of money from a fan, accounts with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers may be able to use the feature as a reliable alternative source of income.

To be eligible to receive stars, creators must be over 18 and have a professional account with over 5,000 followers in the app. To earn money from a gift, creators must also agree to Instagram's Gifts Terms of Service.

Creators can cash out their money from stars when their balance reaches at least $25, which includes earnings from the app's other monetization programs. If creators don’t set up a connected account to receive gift payments within 6 months, Meta will keep the money they earned.

Instagram first launched virtual gifts in the U.S. for Reels creators in February of this year.