Meta has significantly expanded its creator monetisation infrastructure, and the changes represent the most substantial shift in Facebook's relationship with content creators since the platform prioritised video in the mid-2010s.

For small publishers and solo creators who have maintained a Facebook presence through the algorithmic changes of the past decade, the new tools are worth understanding carefully.

The core change is the expansion of in-stream advertising revenue sharing to a wider range of content types and creator sizes. Previously, in-stream ads were restricted to video content above a specific view threshold. The threshold has been lowered, and the qualifying content categories have expanded.

Simultaneously, Meta has introduced subscription tools that allow creators to offer paid tiers to their audience directly through the Facebook platform. The subscription model gives creators a revenue stream that is not dependent on algorithmic reach — a meaningful change given how unpredictable Facebook's organic reach has been over the past several years.

The pattern Meta is following mirrors the path Substack and beehiiv cleared in the newsletter space: reduce dependence on advertising as the only revenue model, give creators direct financial relationships with their audience, and then benefit from the content those creators produce.

For a solo creator, this changes the calculation. A Facebook audience that has been difficult to monetise without significant follower counts now has clearer monetisation pathways. A page with 5,000 engaged followers can now generate subscription revenue from a fraction of that audience, rather than requiring the scale of hundreds of thousands of followers to earn meaningful ad revenue.

The terms under which Meta offers these tools can change. The history of platform monetisation programmes is littered with examples of terms being altered in ways that reduced creator earnings. Building a Facebook-dependent business without an off-platform audience — an email list, a website — is structurally fragile regardless of how attractive the current tools are.

The new monetisation tools are worth using. They should be used as a component of a diversified creator business, not as its foundation.

Meta's creator monetisation expansion gives smaller creators real pathways to Facebook-based income for the first time. The tools are worth adopting. The dependency risk they create is worth managing with parallel investment in audience channels the platform cannot control.