Number Crunch

Snapchat’s $1 Million-a-Day Binge To Woo Creators From TikTok

Because who has the attention span for both?

$1 million per day: That’s how much Snapchat has been distributing to creators on its platform through a program called Spotlight that the app debuted in November, Snapchat told the New York Times.

The Times also reports that under this program, some individual creators on Snapchat have earned up to $3 million for content that goes viral on the platform. Snapchat’s lavish payouts are a direct attempt to lure Gen-Z creators and eyeballs away from TikTok, which announced its own $200 million fund to pay creators last summer.

Snapchat has a head start over TikTok in North America, boasting 90 million daily active users to TikTok’s 50 million daily active users (in the U.S.), according to the most recent available figures. Still, TikTok is catching up fast, having grown its monthly active user base in the U.S. 800% since January 2018. It also managed to run out the clock on the Trump administration’s efforts to force the sale of its U.S. operations or face a ban.

Snap won’t say how long it will continue to pay creators at this rate — the company hasn’t turned a profit since it went public in 2017, so it’s not as if it’s sitting on a giant pile of…