Threads as an Influencer Marketing Channel: What's Actually There in 2026

The short answer

Threads is Meta's text-based app — launched in July 2023 and tied to the same account as Instagram — and by 2026 has a real ad product: Meta rolled ads out globally to all users starting the week of 26 January 2026. What it doesn't have is any built-in creator payout: the earlier creator bonus program ended around April 2025 and hasn't since been replaced by a revenue-share model. In practice, a brand collaboration on Threads in 2026 either runs as an ordinary, direct deal with a creator, or through Instagram's own creator tools — not through any Threads-specific payment system.

What is Threads, structurally?

Meta launched Threads in July 2023 as a text-based app tightly coupled to Instagram — a Threads account requires an Instagram account, and the login is the same one. Per Meta's own newsroom, Threads reached 500 million monthly active users in June 2026, making it one of the five largest social platforms globally in under three years. The format is short text posts (with room for images and video), plus replies, reposts and quotes — structurally closer to a discussion feed than to Instagram's image- and video-first feed.

Because Threads shares its account and login with Instagram, there's no separate "Threads identity" a creator can build independently of their Instagram following — relevant when judging whether Threads genuinely extends a brand's reach beyond what it already has on Instagram, or simply reproduces the same audience in another app.

Threads ads in 2026: what's actually live

After a testing period that began in the US and Japan around January 2025 and expanded to more advertisers by April 2025, Meta rolled Threads ads out globally to all users starting the week of 26 January 2026 — confirmed by multiple independent outlets, including TechCrunch (21 January 2026). Meta itself described the rollout as gradual and said the full expansion could take several months. Per TechCrunch, supported formats include image and video ads (including a newer 4:5 aspect-ratio format) and carousel ads; several other independent outlets have additionally reported Advantage+ catalog and app ads as part of the same rollout.

That means a brand can, from 2026, buy genuine, paid Threads ads — alongside the ad formats it already knows from Instagram and Facebook. That's a real expansion of what the platform can be used for, but it doesn't change the fact that ads and creator collaborations are two separate things on Threads: the ad product pays Meta for placement, not the creator for content.

Why there's no creator revenue share on Threads

Meta ran an invite-only "bonus program" for selected Threads creators for a period: per Engadget's reporting (22 July 2025), creators could earn $500–$5,000 a month if their posts hit specific targets for post count and views. The program launched around mid-2024, and creators who took part reported that payouts stopped around the end of April 2025. Per the same source, Meta hasn't publicly explained why the program stopped.

Since then, Threads has had no replacement: no built-in ad-revenue share for creators, no tipping feature, and no native paid subscriptions on Threads itself. It's worth being precise about what that means in practice: a creator posting on Threads in 2026 doesn't earn money directly from the platform for a post that performs well — all their income instead comes from what they build outside the app: brand deals, affiliate links, and traffic sent to something they own or sell themselves.

How brand collaborations on Threads actually work

Threads has had a "mark as paid partnership" label since October 2023, per Social Media Today's reporting at the time — the same type of labelling tool Instagram uses for branded content. That gives a brand and a creator an official way to mark a sponsored Threads post, separate from the platform's own ads.

Beyond that label, as far as can be documented in 2026, there's no confirmed Threads-specific tool for boosting an already-published Threads post through Instagram's Partnership Ads Hub. Meta has announced plans to merge Creator Marketplace and Partnership Ads Hub into a new, unified "Meta Creator Marketing Hub" later in 2026 (announced at Cannes Lions, June 2026) — but no documentation was found on whether or how that covers Threads posts specifically at launch. That's worth watching, not something to base a decision on today.

In practice, that means a brand that wants to work with a creator on Threads in 2026 typically does one of two things: pays the creator directly for an organic post (the same model as any other influencer collaboration, just with the "paid partnership" label switched on), or treats Threads as a free, additional place to re-publish content already produced and paid for on Instagram — without that requiring its own separate deal or payment system.

The ordinary Danish and EU disclosure rules apply on Threads the same way they apply on every other channel — the requirement turns on whether there's a commercial relationship behind the post, not on which app it's posted in. See influencer marketing disclosure rules in Denmark and the EU for the full rundown of what triggers the disclosure duty and how to label it correctly.

Comparison: Threads vs. Instagram as a channel for a brand

	Threads	Instagram
Requires its own account	No — uses Instagram login	Yes, its own account
Direct payout to creators from the platform	No — no active program in 2026	No — earnings come from brand deals, not Instagram itself
Ad product for brands	Yes, globally from 26 January 2026	Yes, a mature product for years
Boosting an existing post via Partnership Ads Hub	Not confirmed to be supported yet	Yes, supported
Content format	Short text posts, images, video	Feed images/video, Reels, Stories
Disclosure labelling	"Paid partnership" label since Oct 2023	"Paid partnership" label, mature tool

Decision framework: does Threads make sense for a brand?

IF the brand already has an active Instagram presence and a creator who is themselves active on Threads → let the creator re-publish the same content on Threads at no extra production cost, as a low-risk add-on to an existing deal.

IF the goal is reaching a genuinely new audience the brand doesn't already have via Instagram → be aware that Threads' user base heavily overlaps with Instagram's, because the account is the same — Threads isn't automatically a new audience just because it's a new app.

IF the brand wants a paid ad product on Threads specifically → that's now possible following the global rollout in January 2026, but the brand should confirm with its media agency or Meta representative exactly which formats and targeting options are available at campaign time, since Meta itself describes the rollout as gradual.

IF the decision depends on the creator getting part of the payment directly from Threads' own earning tools → that isn't possible in 2026; the entire payment has to come from the brand's own deal with the creator.

Worked example

The figures below are hypothetical and illustrate only how a brand might think about pricing an add-on for Threads on top of an existing deal — they are not a documented market price and not a real Make Influence customer case.

A brand already pays a creator DKK 8,000 to produce and post one video to Instagram Reels. The creator additionally offers to natively re-publish the same video on Threads at no extra production cost, for an add-on fee of DKK 1,000. If the Threads re-post hypothetically reaches 3,000 additional views not already counted in the Instagram deal, the add-on works out to 1,000 ÷ 3,000 × 1,000 = DKK 333 per 1,000 additional views — a way to judge whether a Threads add-on is a reasonable price for the extra reach it actually delivers, compared with what the brand pays for equivalent reach elsewhere.

Common mistakes

• Assuming Threads gives access to a genuinely new audience. Because the account is the same as Instagram, a creator's Threads followers typically overlap heavily with their Instagram followers.
• Expecting a creator to get part of the payment directly from Threads. There's no active revenue-share program in 2026 — the entire payment has to come from the brand's own deal.
• Skipping disclosure because Threads "is just another app." The same Danish and EU disclosure rules apply, regardless of platform.
• Confusing Threads' own ads with a creator collaboration. The ad product pays for placement of the brand's own content — that's not the same as paying a creator to post.
• Building an entire channel strategy around Threads alone. Because Threads shares infrastructure and an account with Instagram, it doesn't add genuinely independent platform-risk diversification — see reducing platform risk in influencer marketing for the broader point about actually spreading risk across independent platforms.

Make Influence's operational perspective

In our experience, Threads isn't yet a channel Danish brands themselves request as a standalone part of an influencer deal — most of the Danish brands we talk to prioritise Instagram and TikTok first. Our recommendation is to treat Threads as a low-risk add-on to an existing Instagram deal, not as a standalone channel planned and measured separately, unless the creator already has a genuinely active, engaged Threads following beyond their Instagram following. If that's the case, it's worth asking specifically how much of the Threads following is actually new — not just the same audience that followed over from Instagram.

FAQ

Does Threads pay creators directly for posts that do well?

No. The earlier bonus program ended around April 2025, and no revenue share, tipping feature or paid subscription has since been introduced on Threads itself.

Can a brand run real ads on Threads?

Yes — Meta rolled ads out globally to all users starting the week of 26 January 2026, with image, video and carousel ads among the formats.

Is Threads' audience the same as Instagram's?

Largely, yes — a Threads account requires an Instagram account, and there's no separate Threads identity a creator can build independently of their existing Instagram following.

Do disclosure rules apply on Threads?

Yes. The Danish and EU disclosure rules are medium-agnostic — the requirement depends on whether there's a commercial relationship behind the post, not which app it's posted in.

Can a brand boost a Threads post through Instagram's Partnership Ads Hub?

That isn't confirmed as of 2026. Meta has announced plans to merge Creator Marketplace and Partnership Ads Hub into a new "Meta Creator Marketing Hub" later in 2026, but no documentation was found on whether it covers Threads posts specifically.

What about other smaller channels like LinkedIn, Snapchat, Discord or Twitch?

They're all structurally different from Threads and from each other — LinkedIn has its own Creator Marketplace and Thought Leader Ads, Snapchat pays selected creators directly through its own Monetization Program, and Discord and Twitch aren't feed-based at all. See LinkedIn Creator Marketplace and Thought Leader Ads, Snapchat and Pinterest influencer marketing, Discord and community-based influencer marketing and Twitch influencer marketing for how each one's mechanics work.

What about newsletter sponsorships?

A newsletter is the structural opposite of Threads: an owned email list with a clickable destination, instead of an algorithm-driven feed app with no built-in payout. See newsletter sponsorships: Substack and beehiiv explained.