Snapchat is paying $1 million a day to creators of popular short videos; already minted “several” millionaires

Late last year, messaging app Snapchat announced it would pay $1 million a day to users who post and share viral videos. The move was part of Snapchat’s effort to compete with TikTok on viral videos and draw more creators to make videos for Spotlight.

Originally, the promotion was intended to run until the end of last year. But Snapchat decided to make it permanent following the success of the program. Snapchat said it has already minted “several” millionaires from the payout. So far, Snapchat has given out more than $110 million overall across the markets where Spotlight is live.

Evan Alberto, a 22-year old creator, is among the latest benefactors of the Snapchat Spotlight program and he’s on track to become one of the latest millionaires. So far, Alberto has made almost a million dollars from Snapchat Spotlight. Alberto says he’s on track to become a millionaire in just a few weeks thanks to his consistent Snapchat usage.

“Originally I just did it for more exposure, I wasn’t quite sure how much money was in there,” said Alberto, who’s been working as a content creator for two years. He snapped a quick video with his girlfriend at dinner one night, posted it, and didn’t think much of it. Two weeks later, he got a notification that the video had made him $94,000.

“When the first check came in from Snap, I thought it was a typo,” he said. Since then, he’s been working to post 20 to 40 videos daily under the handle @evanthecardguy where he has 111,000 subscribers. He says that as of March 18 he’s made around $900,000 from his videos, where he does magic tricks, challenges and “basically anything that fits sort of a game show hype.”

Alberto said he’s using his earnings to look for his first house. He even got a tattoo of the Snapchat ghost logo on his ankle, and, of course, posted the experience as a Spotlight.

“This is such an awesome opportunity I’m trying to make the most of it,” he said.

Since its inception last year, Spotlight has grown to more than 100 million monthly active users, the company revealed its latest earnings call. In addition, the company said it now has over 175,000 video submissions per day. Meanwhile, the app overall grew to 265 million global daily active users in its fourth quarter of 2020, from 249 million in Q3.