Snapchat Launches New Incentives for AR Developers

Snapchat’s launching a new way for AR creators to monetize their efforts, while it’s also looking to help students get into AR, via a new pricing model for its AR Spectacles.

First off, on creator funding. Snapchat’s rolling out a new initiative called “Challenge Tags” which will offer cash prizes to AR developers based on the originality, technical excellence, and theme focus of their work.

As you can see in this example, through this new Challenge process, Snapchat will be able to guide AR creators on the types of Lenses that it wants them to create, which could enable Snap to keep creators focused on key engagement trends and shifts, while also keeping more new experiences flowing into its app.

As explained by Snap:

“AR developers can register for each challenge, build a Lens using our AR authoring tool Lens Studio, and simply apply the Challenge Tag in the Lens publishing process to be considered. New challenges will be announced each month with a chance to win a share of the total prize amount.”

Snap’s offering a $10,000 prize pool for its initial Challenge Tag initiative, with first, second and third places winning $2,500, $1,500, and $1,000 respectively. Twenty honorable mentions will also be awarded $250.

It’s a good way to incorporate another AR monetization opportunity, in order to keep Lens creators active and engaged in the app. Snap also launched its Lens Creator Rewards program back in 2023, which has also offered cash prizes to incentivize AR creators in the app. It’s not clear at this stage if that program is set to be replaced by this new Challenge initiative.

Update: Snap has clarified that Challenge Tags is not replacing the Lens Creator Rewards Program, but will provide an additional opportunity for developers to monetize their work.

On another front, Snap’s also looking to encourage more students to get involved in AR creation, by announcing student pricing for access to its AR Spectacles.

“Since introducing Spectacles, we’ve had an overwhelming amount of interest from students, teachers, and staff from colleges and universities across the world. To ensure Spectacles is accessible to this community, we’re introducing educational pricing and a special student discount for a subscription fee of $49.50 or €55 a month.”

Snap’s fully AR-enabled Spectacles have been available to selected developers since September last year, with approved partners given early access to the device for a yearly fee. Developers are reportedly leasing the glasses for $1,188 per year, with this new program providing a heavily discounted version of the offering, so that students can also experience the company’s AR wearables.

That’ll lead to broader development of AR experiences, though I still don’t see how Snap plans to compete with Apple and Meta on this front, both of which have working versions of their own AR glasses now also in the hands of consumers and developers.

And both offer significantly more opportunity, in terms of field of view and functionality.

Yet, even so, Snap still leads the way in engaging AR experiences, and by leasing Spectacles to more developers and students, that could help it maintain that positioning.

And eventually, that could make Spectacles a more desirable consumer product. Or my prediction would be that Snap will eventually shift to building AR experiences for Apple and Meta, in which case, this will also benefit its longer-term AR building.  

Snap says that Spectacles educational pricing and student discounts are now available in all countries where Spectacles can be accessed, including the U.S., France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands.

“Any student or teacher enrolled or working at an accredited educational institution in these markets is eligible. Apply to the Spectacles Developer Program using your .edu or educational institution email address, and start building.”

You can learn more about the Spectacles Developer Program program here.