Written by Jason Montoya on November 26, 2025. Posted in Marketing.

I Got Monetized on FACEBOOK Unexpectedly: Here's How Much Money I Made in First 10 Days

I got monetized on Facebook. I've been working toward getting monetized on YouTube, and somehow, unknowingly, I actually got monetized on Facebook. In the video above, I want to discuss how that happened, what it means, and what kind of money we're talking about—is it anything worthwhile, or is it just pennies? I share my analytics so you can compare.

I'll also dive into the history of why I became so active on Facebook and how that played a role in me getting monetized unknowingly. I was being active, not with the expectation of getting monetized, but because I was on a mission. That mission is finally paying off a little bit, and it changes some dynamics for me because now sharing content offers a monetization path, even though it's quite small.

Personal Profile vs. Page Monetization

I have a Facebook page for myself as an author and content creator, and I also have my personal profile. A few years ago, I converted my personal profile to a professional personal profile. From a user's standpoint, it looks the same, but it gives me more analytics and controls over my content, allowing for more granular detail. People can actually follow my personal profile, similar to how they follow my page.

I'm connected with almost 2,000 people on my personal profile. On my page, it's only 98 followers as of this recording, just short of 100. I am quite active on the page, but have not gotten monetized on my page, only my personal profile.

I want to get monetized on my page as well because I've noticed some of my content can go viral there. I'll get posts that take off, get recommended, and receive a lot of shares, though it's hit or miss. Most posts on my page get barely any traction, but every so often, one just explodes. This doesn't seem to happen with my personal profile. It appears there may be some throttling or a need for a certain level of reach to take off on a personal profile, which I haven't been able to achieve. Monetizing the page would likely allow me to get much more traction and hit larger numbers in the long run than I'm able to on my personal profile.

For now, my personal profile is what got monetized, and it's where the money is coming in.

Analytics and Earnings

You can check out my profile; it's Jason Scott Montoya. You can find and follow me on either my page or my profile. The content I share is approximately 95% the same, though I share some things on my personal profile that I do not share on the page.

Looking at the last 28 days, I have 35,000 views. I started getting monetized about 10 days ago.

My earnings trajectory has been:

Day 1: 13 cents
Day 2: 15 cents
Day 3: 53 cents
Day 4: 78 cents
Day 5: 77 cents
Peak Day: 88 cents
Recent Days: Dropped to 24 cents, then 35 cents.

It's mere pennies. If I average 50 cents a day over 10 days, I'm looking at about $15 a month. If I can consistently hit the 88 cents peak, or even a dollar a day, that's $30 a month. It's not a lot of money, but it's a start.

My goal as a content creator is to earn $100,000 a year. I've made a little over $3,000 in 2025. This monetization just becomes another source of income. If I can earn several hundred dollars a month on Facebook, I'd consider that a really awesome source of income among my many sources.

I am a full-time freelancer, working with multiple clients, and I earn six figures working part-time. I designed my freelancing to work part-time so I could spend the rest of my time creating content. I've been working toward building that into a financially viable business model in 2025—focusing on YouTube monetization. Facebook monetization was an unexpected surprise.

My freelancing pays the bills. If you're interested in how I do that, I wrote a book called Path of the Freelancer.

Content Strategy and Tools

I'm currently averaging around 50 cents a day, sharing about 20 posts per day. Much of the content is curated—I find it online by watching a YouTube video, listening to a podcast, or reading an article.

I use a social media scheduler called SmarterQueue to streamline my content sharing. I put all my content into the tool, and it shares it across my social media. It posts to my Facebook page and then sends me an email for my Facebook profile posts, as Facebook does not allow automated scheduling to personal profiles. I have to do those manually. However, it does schedule to Threads, Pinterest, X, and LinkedIn, which saves me a ton of time.

SmarterQueue is excellent, especially for vertical videos (Reels). You upload the video once, and it sends it to Instagram, TikTok, and all the places you want it to appear, allowing you to create one video, schedule it in one place, and have it go everywhere.

Post Performance and Earnings Details

If you've converted your profile to professional mode, you'll have a dashboard where you can sort content by views and earnings. Looking at the last 14 days (since monetization began), my number one post, a quote about a movie called Beonia, got a little over 500 views. The post with the lowest views I'm sharing here got 297 views.

Photos are the most dominant form of media I've been sharing on my profile to get the most views. I do have three videos on the list, including a video of me hiking and an episode of Juniper and Jones from my YouTube channel, which I posted after getting monetized. That video earned 5 cents for 314 views.

Sorting by earnings, my top post got 36 cents, the second got 27 cents, and the third got 25 cents. The pictures are generating the most monetization; even though some videos had more views than some photos, none of the videos showed up when sorted by earnings. I have yet to find the video side of things taking off since monetization began.

I am posting about 20 times a day, which yields around 50 cents to a dollar. I'm spending more time looking at and posting the content than the income is currently worth. However, I was already posting this content to promote my own work, be politically active, and share things I was passionate about. The monetization was a surprise.

Monetization Activation

If you have a professional profile, you'll see a Monetization tab with options like Content Monetization, Stars, and Partnership Ads. I've been able to use Stars for a while, but no one has used them, nor have I actively promoted them.

For content monetization, I received a message about 10–11 days ago saying, "You've been selected or invited to be monetized on Facebook for your profile." I clicked and responded. On my Facebook page's monetization area, which is similar, there was an option to apply. A couple of days ago, I went in, clicked apply, and received a notification that I would be notified when monetized. I suspect I might have applied for monetization on my personal profile months or even a year ago, and my activity over the last year was enough to finally reach the threshold.

Audience and Reach

I have 1.8K followers (707 dedicated followers and approximately 1,000 friends). I friended everyone I met over the years due to networking, being extroverted, and being a community builder, leading to my large friend count. When I turned on followers, people started following.

In the last 90 days, I've accumulated almost 90,000 views. I had a significant pickup in September. My biggest day in the last 90 days was 2,381 views on September 23rd. I can achieve higher numbers with focused effort, but it takes more energy. I'm currently figuring out how to achieve higher engagement without spending more time on it.

New Content Dynamics and Experiments

This monetization adds an interesting dynamic because I previously lacked a way to monetize my blog content directly. Now, I can post my blog to Facebook, but I can also post quotes as graphics or snapshots of my blog post, which can be monetized. This is a way to monetize the content I'm writing on my blog. Another option is using the blog as a script for a YouTube video and monetizing it there once I reach the necessary thresholds.

While it is a lot of work to "really work Facebook" for a small amount of money, I'm trying to kill many birds with one stone—creating one piece of content and publishing it to both YouTube and Facebook for a dual income stream once I'm monetized on YouTube. Being monetized on Facebook is great because I'm getting something rather than nothing.

The Daily Dispatch Substack Experiment

I've set up a Substack called The Daily Dispatch to channel all the content I'm sharing on social media into a coherent outlet. I take all the content shared on my Facebook profile and turn it into a Substack digest. I use Gemini with a prompt to assemble the digest, providing bullet summaries, a title, a subtitle, and organizing the quotes and links into a coherent post. This takes about 10–15 minutes daily.

This digest contains all the content I'm sharing: political, personal development, leadership, business, YouTube videos, and podcasts—things I find interesting and noteworthy. This is an experiment I'm running through the end of November. I take an annual break from content creation and social media in December and early January for reflection and rejuvenation, and I'll pick this back up in January for about three months to see if it gains traction and is worthwhile.

Backstory: The Mission Behind the Consistency

I started blogging in 2014, podcasting in 2020, and published my first book, Path of the Freelancer, in 2017. I'm currently working on my third book, From the Garden to the Cross. In 2025, I got serious about YouTube; I'm 11 months into that journey and have grown from 68 to 388 subscribers. I'm working toward YouTube monetization (1,000 subscribers, 4,000 watch hours) and expect it will take another year.

In 2023, I decided to get serious about social media, primarily through political activism. As a Republican in exile, I resisted the direction my political party was going and felt a need to intervene and steer the ship. This mission was also tied to my third book about Christianity, as I felt many Christian Republicans were embracing the opposite of the way of life Jesus calls us to live. I decided to get consistent on social media, posting about 20 times a day across platforms, a commitment I had long resisted.

My activism was to influence the party and try to steer them away from Trump. After Trump was selected, I campaigned for the Harris ticket (Republican for Harris) in 2024. After the election, my efforts pivoted in 2025 toward planting seeds for the reform and transformation I believe the Republican party needs. I believe America needs two healthy political parties, and the Republican Party needs transformation away from what I see as the corruption and nihilism of the MAGA movement and Trump, which oppose the Republican values I was raised with (responsibility, rule of law, accountability).

I've had a lot of engagement from Republicans who disagree with me and those who are grateful for my opinion. It's been a rewarding and challenging experience to navigate this resistance, fighting, celebration, and support. My activity is driven by a missional sense—getting a message out there and reaching people. Facebook noticed this activity and invited me to monetize.

I'm now 10 days into Facebook monetization and will be testing and seeing what I can do to get the most out of it. My main mission remains YouTube monetization, as that represents the biggest opportunity and upside for my content creation going forward.