There are various ways for you to make money on Snapchat — such as premium subscriptions. However, there has previously been no way for creators to receive donations from their viewers, a feature many competing content-sharing platforms offer. Now, though, Snapchat has a feature called Gifting, which allows viewers to tip their favorite creators.

Similar to Super Chats on YouTube and Cheers on Twitch, viewers buy a digital currency on Snapchat called Tokens. After purchasing Tokens, viewers can then show support for creators by tipping them through story replies with the Tokens they bought. Here’s a price breakdown for the Tokens: $0.99 for 80, $2.99 for 250, $4.99 for 500 and $9.99 for 1,100. Snapchat will take a cut of the money spent on Gifts, but the company didn’t reveal specifically how much it will take.

Who can receive Tokens?

Not every creator on Snapchat can receive Tokens. Views can only gift Tokens if the creator is in the platforms’ “Snap Stars” program. To be in this program, creators need to have a verified account and meet a few requirements. One of the requirements is the creator must have a large, engaged audience that’s culturally relevant and safe for all ages. Also, Snapchat creators need to be 16 or older to receive Tokens and the money spent to buy them.

You can check out the program’s requirements here.

Reforming Spotlight payouts

In addition to the new Gifting feature, Snapchat says it’s changing its Spotlight money payouts. Since its launch in November 2020, Snapchat’s Spotlight program has paid more than $130 million to over 5,400 creators. While the company still plans to give creators “millions” per month, they’ll no longer pay daily. Previously, Snapchat would allocate $1 million a day through the program to pay out to creators. Now it’s going to pay creators monthly, with earnings based on the number of views a creator’s video gets compared to competing snaps.

According to Snapchat, we can expect more Spotlight announcements in the near future.

Image courtesy: Snapchat