Facebook Performance Bonus Program Guide

December 2023 Note: Performance Bonus earnings are nearly impossible to improve upon in any way. Payouts have dramatically fallen since Spring of 2023 and there is no clear data as to why. You may see periods of high payouts that feel random then dramatically lower payouts even with higher metrics. My advice is to keep creating unique, original, engaging content and enjoy the free money from Mark and Company while it lasts. Do not attempt to spend your own money to optimize your earnings and chasing the maximum payout as the likelihood of failure and suffering losses is almost certain.

This is a guide about the Facebook Performance Bonus Program for creators trying to earn revenue by using Facebook.

Navigate this guide:

About the Facebook Performance Bonus

What is the Facebook Performance Bonus Program?
How can I tell if I am eligible for the Performance Bonus program?
How do I apply for the Performance Bonus program?
What is a “View” does that mean video views?

How to Make Money With Performance Bonus

How much does the Facebook Performance Bonus Program pay?
Why Aren’t My Reactions, Comments, and Shares Earning Revenue?
What do I need to do to earn the $30,000 monthly payout?
How do I get more engagements / views to earn more money?
Why You Shouldn’t Try to Optimize For Performance Bonus Earnings

Getting Paid Your Performance Bonus

How do I get paid the bonus money earned on Facebook?
Where do I find my Performance Bonus Earnings?
What does it mean by “O days” remaining?
Does Facebook guarantee they will pay the amount shown in my Creator Studio / Professional Dashboard?
Will Facebook pay me my Performance Bonus earnings via PayPal?
How long is my Performance Bonus earnings period?

About the Facebook Performance Bonus

What is the Facebook Performance Bonus Program?
The Facebook Performance Bonus is available to select creators on the platform to help incentivize them to keep creating great content and likely to try and pull content away from other platforms or at least have it posted to Facebook first.

Creators enrolled in the program earn revenue based on the views, reactions, shares or comments, on their public Facebook posts. Currently Facebook is only excluding a few types of content from the Performance Bonus, Reels and Stories, everything else is fair game.

The program has no minimum earnings per month, but does have an earnings cap of $30,000 per month.

How can I tell if I am eligible for the Performance Bonus program?
Facebook does not give out any official documentation on what is required for a Page to qualify for the Performance Bonus.

So far it appears that Meta / Facebook is only inviting Pages with over 100,000 followers. If your page has fewer than that number, then right now it would appear you may not qualify.

Note: According to our commenters below and users on Twitter, Pages with far fewer followers have been invited to the program. None of the pages we manage under 100,000 followers have been invited yet however and we cannot confirm this to be true. It could be that having more followers simply improves your odds of being selected.

How do I apply for the Performance Bonus program?
Right now there is no way to apply. Facebook is inviting Pages one by one to join the program. It is possible if they keep this going that Facebook will start an application system or give Page owners a more clear path to getting enrolled in the Performance Bonus program.

What is a “View” does that mean video views?
It’s a weird term to use because essentially Facebook means was the content “viewed”. They do not specify HOW the content has to be viewed so it is possible that a user scrolling past and slowing down on the content counts, though more likely Facebook means someone actively wanted to view the content and click/tapped it.

“A view is defined as the number of times a piece of public content has been seen by users.” – Facebook

There is no metric for “views” in your Insights, so this could be difficult to keep tabs on and is not helpful in figuring out how to optimize your page posting to earn Performance Bonuses.

How to Make Money With Performance Bonus

How much does the Facebook Performance Bonus Program pay?

Note: We have seen wild swings in how much a specific post or Page is earning, the below is our attempt at estimating is likely not very accurate.

Facebook does not state how much they pay for the views / reactions / comments / or shares you are being paid for. Luckily we had a few of our test pages enrolled in the program and used that data to reverse out how much they might be paying.

Our test pages have 210,000 follower and 117,000 followers respectively. They both post largely meme content but every now and then also post article links to relevant content and videos sent in by fans.

Here are the first months earnings for these test pages:
Page 1: $1,738
Page 2: $93

Here is the number of reactions / comments / shares for each page:
Page 1: 222,658
Page 2: 56,030

Here is how many people were ‘reached’ by the pages during this time:
Page 1: 7,299,293
Page 2: 345,744

We can try and estimate payouts based on reactions / comments / shares since that is part of the calculation we know Facebook uses. If we do this we get a total of 278,688 reactions / comments / shares on these pages and a total payout of $1,831.

If we divide $1,831 by the number of reactions / comments / shares we get an approximate pay out of: $0.0065 / engagement.

If instead we interpret Facebook’s statement to mean they payout based on reach + reactions / comments / shares then we want to take the total reach amount of 7,645,037 and add in the number for engagements (278,688) to get 7,923,725.

If we divide our payout by this numer we get an average payout of $0.00002 / reach or engagement.

Ignoring Facebook’s “views” metric they do not define very well, the first estimation we did actually lined up well in testing with the real world payout figure Facebook was showing us being slightly off each time we tried. It is possible Facebook is simply paying $0.01 per each of these types of engagements. If you are trying to estimate how much Facebook might pay you for a particular post take the total number of reactions / comments / shares and multiply it by both $0.0065 and $0.01 to get a potential range of the value of that post.

For example a post getting 100 reactions, 10 comments, and 10 shares (120 engagements) would likely bring in a range of $0.78 and $1.20

While this is not exact, it should do a decent job of letting you see which posts have been valuable in this regard and which have not.

It is extremely possible that the Performance Bonus varies based on things like the country you are in, nation where an engaging user is located, type of content you posted, value of engaging users, uniqueness of your content, and type of engagement activity. Unfortunately, there is not a great way to test most of these. It will either take quite a bit of time for creators to workout or we need to wait on Meta / Facebook to give out more clear information on how the Performance Bonus is earned.

My Page Got More Reactions, Comments, and Shares but Earned Less Performance Bonus Than the Last Period, Why?
We do not really understand Facebook’s calculations because they do not reveal any details about them. However, they do state that this exact issue could arise in their documentation.

“As changes are introduced to the program, payouts may vary from month to month, even for the same levels of content engagement.” – Facebook Performance Bonus Program Payouts

It is very possible that inside of Meta/Facebook they are always changing how much a specific type of engagement pays and lowering this value either across all Pages or for specific Pages not meeting targets their system sets. Knowing Facebook this is most likely all automated and following a set of rules that they update from time to time.

For example a laughter reaction might pay $0.01 one month but the next month only pay $0.05.

Again, this is all speculation since we do not know much about the program.

Why Aren’t My Reactions, Comments, and Shares Earning Revenue?
It would appear that this program has a per post cap amount which Facebook also does not discuss. We recently had 2 posts go viral on Facebook racking up hundreds of thousands of the qualifying types of engagements, but with bonus payout earnings only increasingly slightly.

One post gained 236,300 and the other 332,000 reactions / comments / shares. This should have netted the client $3,693.95. However, the bonus payout amount only increased by about $500 in total between the two. We believe this points to Facebook placing a cap on how much each qualifying post can earn.

Essentially this means you likely only earn bonus payouts on your first 35,000 to 40,000 qualifying engagements. If this is true it means to even potentially get the maximum payout your page would need to make approximately 120 – 150 posts during the period.

What do I need to do to earn the $30,000 monthly payout?
Great question. We do not know much about this payout except that Facebook has made it the highest possible earnings payout in a month. Most likely they have looked at Pages with massive audiences that are not posting as much as they used to and think this is a decent number to encourage some of those Pages to post more frequently, more aggressively, or higher quality content.

If our earlier estimation is accurate you would need to get approximately 3,000,000 to 4,615,384 reactions / comments / shares on your posts during a 30-day Performance Bonus period to earn the maximum payout.

In our experimenting we looked at 2 Pages invited by Facebook to this program. One is a highly engaging page and the other is one that had gone a little dormant with nothing more than sporadic posts. Adding the data of these two together we can estimate that a Page follower engages approximately 0.76 times per period with either a reaction, comment, or share – with a range of 0.48 to 1.06.

If we assume these represent the average, low end, and high end of qualifying engagements per follower per bonus period AND we assume that each one is worth between $0.0065 to $0.01 then we can now determine the approximate size of a following a Page would need to generate the maximum bonus payout.

A Facebook Page needs to have approximately 2,830,188 to 9,615,384 followers to earn the largest possible bonus payout from the Performance Bonus Program with the average Page needing 6,072,873 followers.

How do I get more engagements / views to earn more money?
Great question with only 2 answers:

Make good engaging content
Find ways to promote your content to new audiences

It is important to note that “chasing” the maximum payout is likely a worse proposition than gambling with your money at a casino. The Performance Bonus system is so opaque and the payouts appear to vary so wildly that making such attempts would be foolish. Even if you hear of someone having success doing this, based on our hands-on research and work with creators in this program over the past 12-months, it is not viable. Focusing instead on your content and your audience is the only way to achieve that big payout. Treat the Performance Bonus as just that, a little extra on top of what you are already earning. Do not use it as a way to generate consistent revenues.

Let’s break those down a little.
1. Make good engaging content – This means different things on different websites. A good engaging post on Reddit’s /r/WhitePeopleTwitter is most often something screaming about a US political issue, a good engaging post on TikTok is often a dance video (or of course a thirst trap), and a good engaging post on Instagram is usually a really well-done photo or video. On Facebook there is a variety of content that performs well and what works for you and your audience might differ from other platforms or other Pages on Facebook.

Right now there are only a few limits to this program (i.e. no Reels content). Which means you could get Performance Bonus payments for sharing links to local or industry news, memes, videos, or other creative content.

Facebook does have a long list of rules for you to follow, well not really rules, more like a general set of guidelines for how their algorithm treats content cultivated over the site’s long history.

No gore or medical photos
No engagement baiting (i.e. asking for engagements or trying to trick users into it)
No spam posting (post as little content as possible per day)
No misinformation content
No copyright infringement
No video tricks (i.e. making a static image into a video to get better feed reach)
Make videos at least 3 minutes or longer
Use as little textg on static images / videos as possible

We have found memes and links to sensational (and true) content do really well on Facebook pages to generate engagements. The more original your memes or videos are, the more likely they are to gain a large reach and a lot of engagements that would earn you Performance Bonus revenue.

2. Find ways to promote your content to new audiences – As Facebook’s feed algorithm has made it harder to reach users on the platform, those using it for business purposes have simply stopped posting and pursued other social media platforms instead such as TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. This might be part of the reason that Facebook has introduced the Performance Bonus as an incentive to get Page owners to post engaging content on the platform more frequently.

The single best way to promote content on Facebook for the Performance Bonus Program is to use the “Boost” function and spend a small amount of $$ targeting your audience of Page followers or an audience you want to attract. We have built a whole process around this called The Facebook Machine, in this process you make an organic post and then wait 24-hours. After roughly 24-hours has passed that post is boosted to the “People who like your Page and people similar to them” audience. This ensures that your content gets in front of a small group of people who have already told Facebook they like your content. If/When those users engage with your content it can help the algorithm determine to organically show them more of your content in the future, thus increasing your engagement volume and earnings.

Do Not use Ads to promote your Page for the Performance Bonus. Those engagements are definitely unpaid and since your post is not organic, but an ad, it won’t help improve your reach or engagement volume.

Another way to to drive more engagements is to find a Facebook Group where you can share your posts. Make sure to read their rules and excerise moderation in posting to avoid spamming. As a Group admin of Groups with xxx,xxx users I highly encourage you to reach out to the admin team and ask permission to share your content with the Group. Some will say yes, others will say no. If you get rejected by all potential Groups, start your own and use the comments of your posts on your Page to promote it.

Finally, consider your followers might be homogenous across platforms like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. If there’s even a slight chance this is the case you could be losing revenue if your get engagements on other platforms instead of Facebook. To combat this consider posting to your Facebook page first, then posting to other pages.

Why You Shouldn’t Try to Optimize For Performance Bonus Earnings
This section is a bit of speculation and some logical reasoning or those creators out there who assume they can optimize for the Performance Bonus earnings. While I may have already discussed some of this elsewhere in this guide, they are provided as a group below for those of you jumping right to this section.

1. Meta / Facebook have told us and have proven that the way the system calculates earnings will fluctuate wildly. Meaning a video with 1 million views on Facebook could earn $1,000 one month and an image post with fewer views, reactions, comments, or shares could earn $10,00 the next month (those numbers are just as an example, they are not realistic estimates).

2. [speculation] I assume there is very little if any human involvement in the Performance Bonus system. Meta has amazing AI systems that can understand objects, meaning, and intent of photos, videos, and audio. It is extremely possible that this system aggressively flags anything that might possibly be a violation. For example a video or even screenshot of Super Smash Bros. might be flagged as violent content by such a system and therefore any earnings nullified on it.

3. [speculation] Like their competitors Meta could have a pool of available bonus funds each period that they pay out of. Let’s estimate that pool is $1,000,000 and your earning cap is $30,000. That means your content would need to achieve 3% of all qualifying global views / engagements for enrolled creators in the system for that period. This is an enormous undertaking that would mean you are generating more views than Mr. Beast, Ross Creations, and other top creators combined. It’s an extremely unviable proposition.

4. Lack of data on how much you earned and exactly why each period means you have nothing to base even the roughest of estimates on. While I have attempted to generate such estimates above as you can see they are very large ranges. My team and I have attempted to use every possible trick to increase bonus payout earnings but have zero evidence that our efforts have been the reason for increased earnings.

5. The Performance Bonus program could end at an moment. Unlike YouTube’s earnings or Patreon or Comedy Drop or other monetization platforms for creators, the Facebook Performance Bonus system could stop or kick you out at any moment. Which means if you did discover a way to increase earnings by the time you invested in it the program could end or remove you.

6. The cost could be greater than the rewards. My estimate is that you need about 6.07 million followers on Facebook in order to nearly guarantee the top payout. Right now on Facebook our rough cost estimates for a new follower are about $2.75 on average and for a new Group member that comes down to around $1.82. Which is about $11,047,400 to $16,692,500. At a maximum earning of $30k / month and the very unlikely probability you hold those earnings for 12-months it would take 369 to 557 months to earn back all of the money spent generating that audience size.

Getting Paid Your Performance Bonus

How do I get paid the bonus money earned on Facebook?
When you first sign up for the Facebook Performance Bonus program they will instruct you to add a method to get paid, typically by attaching a bank account to your Creator Studio or Professional Dashboard.

The payouts have a minimum of $100 in earnings and your payment won’t be sent for 21 days after the end of a Performance Bonus period. That means if you have a post go viral on the first day of a Performance Bonus period you will have to wait 30-days until the period ends and then another 21-days for processing until your payment is sent, a total of 51-days to get paid.

(Note: The preceeding statement is derived from FB’s documentation, however, they paid part of a Performance Bonus earnings from the first period immediately after it ended and exactly 21 days into the month. It would appear that they might be paying out on the 21st of each month instead of 21-days following your earnings period coming to an end. If this trend continues we will update the paragraph above to show this.)

Read more about Performance Bonus Payouts here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/384246976902838

Where do I find my Performance Bonus Earnings?
These are located inside of your Creator Studio under “Monetization” or in your Professional Dashboard. Here Facebook will list an updated earnings figure but will not give you any additional information about your earnings (i.e. exactly why you are being paid). The screen will tell you the date that your earnings period ends on.

What does it mean by “O days” remaining?
Throughout your Performance Bonus period you will see a number of days remaining inside of your creator studio eventually this will read “(0 days left)”. From testing it appears this means you are on your final day of earnings. At midnight on the date shown your current earnings period will end, and if Facebook chooses, a new earnings period will begin.

Does Facebook guarantee they will pay the amount shown in my Creator Studio / Professional Dashboard?
No. The amount shown is an approximate amount. Facebook / Meta will take 21 days to review your content and could adjust your earnings down from this figure.

According to their website things that might impact your final amount include any content ownership claims (i.e. did you use someone else’s copyrighted works) and a blanket ‘reviews’ statement. Most likely this just means Facebook will do a quick sweep looking for anything that might violate their terms or for a Page that might be stealing content or using other tricks to inflate their earnings.

“Final payments may differ from this amount pending reviews, content ownership claims and other adjustments.” – Facebook

Will Facebook pay me my Performance Bonus earnings via PayPal?
Yes. We received our payment via PayPal after having issues getting the bank account payment setup correctly. See the screenshot below for proof.