Instagram has shut down a program that paid creators for ads placed on their profiles

• Instagram has shut down a program that paid creators for ads placed on their profiles.
• Meta began testing the program in 2022.
• Instagram has launched several creator monetization tests since 2020 — and some haven't survived.

Instagram has ended a program that allowed creators to earn money from ads placed between content on their profiles, the company confirmed to Business Insider.

The Meta-owned platform began testing the program with US creators in 2022 and expanded it to eligible profiles in Canada, South Korea, Japan, and Australia in 2024.

Meta will continue to place ads in between content on non-teen, public Instagram profiles. Businesses will still be able to prevent their ads from running on specific profiles on Instagram.

According to court documents filed in 2024, Instagram has generated billions in ad revenue for Meta. In 2022, when the platform began testing the ads-in-profile program, it generated $16.5 billion, according to the same court filing.

This isn't the first creator monetization program that Meta has tested and shuttered.

Other programs you may remember include:

• IGTV (Instagram's now-defunct YouTube competitor) shared ad revenue with creators from 2020 to 2022.
• Instagram briefly had a native affiliate program between 2021 and 2022 that allowed creators to earn revenue from shopping tags on their posts.
• The Instagram Reels Bonus, which paid creators a sum of money based on how their reels performed, was paused in 2023. It was reintroduced in 2024 as a series of limited-time bonuses.