Instagram confirms shutting down a program that allowed creators to earn revenue from advertisements placed between content on their profiles. The confirmation was sent via a company statement sent to Business Insider.

The Meta-owned platform launched the program as a test with U.S. creators in 2022 before expanding it in 2024 to eligible profiles in Canada, South Korea, Japan, and Australia. Despite the program’s end, Meta will continue placing ads between content on non-teen public Instagram profiles, and businesses can restrict their ads from appearing on specific profiles.

Nothing New In Creator Ad Program’s End

This development adds to Meta’s history of testing and discontinuing creator monetization initiatives, Business Insider notes. Previous terminated programs include IGTV’s ad revenue sharing (2020-2022) and Instagram’s native affiliate program (2021-2022). The latter enabled creators to earn from shopping tags on their posts.

The Instagram Reels Bonus program, which compensated creators based on reel performance, underwent a pause in 2023 before returning in 2024 as a series of limited-time bonuses.

Court documents filed in 2024 reveal Instagram’s significant contribution to Meta’s advertising revenue. The platform generated $16.5 billion in ad revenue in 2022, the same year the ads-in-profile program began testing.

According to a recent Emarketer forecast, Instagram’s share of Meta’s U.S. advertising revenue will exceed 50% for the first time in 2025, marking a sevenfold increase from its 7.7% contribution a decade ago. The platform is projected to generate $32.03 billion in U.S. ad revenue in 2025, representing a 24.4% increase from 2024 and accounting for 50.3% of Meta’s total U.S. ad revenue. This growth follows a substantial expansion of Instagram’s user base, which has increased 142% since 2015, reaching 148.73 million U.S. users.