Instagram Will Pay You $500 For Going Live — How It Works

If you know your way around Twitch, TikTok, or even YouTube, chances are that you know how to tip creators who go live on those platforms.

However, what is not very common and relatively new is a similar feature within the Instagram app that lets you do the same thing, tip your favorite creators or be tipped.

This feature is called “Badges”. With this feature, a creator can receive tips of $0.99, $1.99, $4.99 that show up as one, two, or three badges respectively besides the name of the person who tipped.

This is a theory but I think Instagram noticed that to incentivize creators to use this feature more and increase the live duration on Instagram, they needed to supplement those tips with a bonus of their own which in total can be $500.

This bonus program is called Badges Milestone Bonuses.

It means exactly that. You will get a bonus on top of the tips for when your badges hit certain milestones that I am going to tell you about.

Getting Badges

Badges on their own will help you link to and promote your Instagram web profile. You can add them to your personal blog, brand website, or campaign promotions to direct new followers to your Instagram web profile and encourage others to discover and engage with your Instagram content.

There are two ways to access Instagram badges:

• Go to your Instagram profile and click on your username. You will then access the drop-down menu where you will see the “Badges” if it is available and click on it.
• You can directly visit the instagram.com/accounts/badges link if you are signed in to the account you wish to use.

Creating a badge for your account is simple. Go to the account you want to link to and you will find some badge options. Select the badge you want copy the code and paste it into your site. With this, you will have added it to your site.

But the focus of this article is talking about using badges in Live.

The Badges Milestone Bonus Program

To earn tips from Instagram and hit milestones that will get you the bonuses am talking about, you will need to enable badges and be in the badges milestone bonus program.

If you have badges enabled, you can get started in the bonus program. To do that, you should receive an email on how to earn bonuses when you go Live. You’ll also be notified in the Instagram App. Click Get Started and then accept the Terms & Conditions.

This feature, however, may or may not show up for everyone yet but there is no harm in checking and good on you if you find that you have it available.

The benefits of the badges milestone bonus program

There are 3 major benefits of this bonus program.

• Bonus for going Live with badges. Every time you go live and you have a badge, you will increase the amount of money you earn that comes from your fans.
• Bonus for reaching a badge milestone. There are 3 main milestones that you will reach and each milestone will increase the earnings you get directly from Instagram
• Find some best Practices here or even more information to help you.

Payouts and Bonuses

There are 3 bonus milestones that you can get.

• Milestone 1: $100 when you go Live with badges for at least 15 minutes in the first 7 days after you onboard to badges milestones.
• Milestone 2: $150 when you go Live with badges with at least one other account for at least 30 minutes. If you completed the first milestone, you will have 30 days from the moment of completion to achieve the second milestone. If you missed the first milestone, you will have 30 days from the day you onboarded to badges milestones to complete this second milestone.
• Milestone 3: $250 when you go Live with badges for at least 15 minutes a week for 4 consecutive weeks. You can earn this last bonus multiple times until the program ends. The 4-week tracker will start when the milestone becomes available to you and will restart if you have missed a week.

To qualify for bonuses and actually receive them, you must comply with Instagram’s guidelines and there is a lot more information on their blog that you can read here.

In Closing

There are many efforts by companies to find ways for creators to make money and this is just a new feature. Although the bonus program is limited, the tipping feature for creators will probably be around because it's sustainable. So if you don’t see it yet, keep checking and use it when you find it available to grow your business and brand.