Instagram's Bonuses Tell You Exactly What the Algorithm Wants

Stop Trying to Beat the Algorithm

Over the last several years, Instagram has been pushing bonus games. We have talked about earnings before, about making platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube pay you for your content. But on Instagram there is a different game called bonuses, and over the last couple of years they have been paying creators for different things based on what they want.

Here is the thing people don't understand. When a platform gives you additional incentives, money, rewards of any kind, you have to know exactly what they are rewarding you for. Because if you know that, you can give them more of what they want.

You can't be trying to beat the algorithm. You cannot be trying to be better or bigger than the algorithm. These things are massive. They are driven by AI. They are massive multibillion dollar engines. The best thing you can do if you want to win the marketing game on these platforms, for whatever you are trying to accomplish, is join the algorithm. And that starts by understanding what it wants from you.

Where to Find the Bonuses Section

On Instagram, go into your creator or business profile. Top right corner, that little hamburger menu. Click it, and you will see a section called business tools and controls. Inside that, you will find bonuses.

The account I use to show this is my father's profile, which I created about four years ago. Right now we are at 92.6 million views in the last 30 days on that account. And it is just repurposing the several thousand videos my father made over his life. I have learned to use this bonus game to understand what Instagram wants from me, so I can give it more of that and work with the algorithm.

When I open that bonuses section, here is the interesting part. They have given me 32 bonuses over the last couple of years. 32 monthly payments. Different rewards for different things, and what they reward keeps changing.

What the Bonuses Taught Me

If I scroll all the way down the history of our bonuses, there is a spring bonus that was only rewarding video reels. That is all they were rewarding, nothing else. So back then I realized: if they are paying me thousands of dollars to post video reels, maybe I should be listening to that.

So I did. I went all in. I was posting one video a day, and I started posting four videos a day, and I just kept on growing from there. We were getting paid for those videos, approximate bonus earnings of $83 here, $71 there, $70 there. We were making a few thousand dollars just from our content.

By the way, my father's content is educational, inspiring, and helpful. It helps millions of people. So we are getting paid to put out content we would put out whether they paid us or not. For me the money is just a metric of how much people like the content. The real value is the attention it drives to the business my father created, his legacy that we keep pushing forward.

The Signal Changed: Now It's Images

That reels bonus was almost two years ago. Where is it now? The most recent bonus period, August 13th through August 28th, paid $389, and here is what Instagram is telling me: share photo and carousel posts to earn money based on the bonus post views they receive.

Read that again. If I am posting carousels, a series of up to 20 images, or single image posts with valuable, entertaining, educational, inspirational captions, Instagram is going to reward me with additional free money. Aside from the fact that you can use that attention to sell your products and services and generate leads, Instagram will literally pay you for it.

But most importantly, here is the point. Those images are what it is all about right now, because that is what the algorithm wants. And the same thing happens across all platforms. On Facebook something is working. On YouTube something is working. On TikTok, on LinkedIn. It changes year after year, sometimes month after month. You have to stay on top of what they are focusing on.

The Numbers Don't Lie: 92.6 Million Organic Views

Case in point. I go to the professional dashboard on this profile: 92.6 million views in the last 30 days, 3.9 million interactions, 101,000 new followers. And this is very important to note: zero dollars in advertising. This channel is 100 percent organic. Nothing is being added to it.

For those of you saying, yeah, but it takes money to make money, you can't put that out there unless you have deep pockets: no. This is the data, this is the analytics, and the numbers don't lie. The post with the most views is one of my dad's videos, 3.5 million views, 78,000 likes, and it reached 28 percent non-followers. But check this out: of the top 12 posts of the month, half of them are images, even though way less than half of what we post are images. The images are what the algorithm wants right now.

One example. The second best performing post of the entire month, and I posted it purely because of the data, is a single image with one of my father's quotes. 17,000 likes organically, 8,400 shares, 418 comments, and 35 percent of the people reached were new to our profile. That is where the magic happens. New people see the content, they follow, and now I get to introduce them to the rest of our content and the world of resources our company offers.

Go Look at Your Own Data

If you are watching or reading this in 2026 or beyond, the algorithm might be rewarding something different. Maybe it is not. You need to go look at that data yourself, exactly how I showed you, and give the algorithm more of what it wants.

Don't try to beat it. Join it. It is a great partner to have, and if you know how to work with it, you will absolutely crush it.