I got a question this week that I think a lot of you are asking in your heads: “Why can’t Amazon just raise the slot cap on Creator Connections? Budget is budget. If they’re going to spend it anyway, why does the cap matter?” It’s a fair question. Dana asked it directly after I mentioned that some friends of mine who were at Amazon’s invite-only Creator Connect event were told Amazon sees raising the cap and raising the budget as going hand in hand. Here’s my theory on why those two things are tied together, and why “just raise the cap” is not the simple fix people think it is.

In This Article

It’s Not About the Budget, It’s About How It’s Spent

A couple of weeks ago, before I heard what Amazon told my friends at Creator Connect, I made a video saying I didn’t think raising the cap actually helps. Mathematically, I think it makes the problem worse. When I later heard that Amazon was linking the cap to the budget, it lined up with my logic, even if I can’t confirm that’s their reasoning.

Here’s the core idea: the slot cap isn’t there to limit how much money a brand spends. It’s there to control how that money gets spent and who it goes to. Once you understand that, the budget-and-cap connection makes a lot more sense.

Most People Claiming Campaigns Aren’t Promoting Anything

Let’s be honest about what’s happening inside Creator Connections right now. A lot of people joining campaigns have zero intention of promoting the products. I don’t have hard data on this, but I would be shocked if more than 50 people out of an 800-slot campaign actually make content for that brand.

Just last week we saw a test campaign roll out from Amazon with no product of any value in it whatsoever. Nothing to promote. And roughly 300 people blind-claimed it in under 24 hours. People are grabbing whatever they can. Even if I’m half wrong and it’s 100 out of 800 who actually promote, that’s still 700 slots filled by people who are there for a different reason.

Creator Connections Pays Two Ways, and Both Pay the Same

This is the piece most people miss. Creator Connections pays out the exact same bonus commission in two completely different scenarios:

  1. I promote the product, someone buys it because of my content, and I drove the sale. The brand pays me the bonus.
  2. I never promoted the product, but I have the campaign claimed. Someone clicks one of my links, buys something else, and that brand’s product happens to be in their cart. Because Creator Connections is a cart-based (halo) system, I get the bonus anyway.

In scenario two, there’s a good chance that person was going to buy that product regardless. I did nothing for the brand. That’s not a knock on anyone, it’s just how the system is built. But it’s also exactly why people claim every campaign they can: not to promote, but to maximize exposure to halo sales.

Brands understand the cart-based element when they sign up. They expect some portion of their payouts to come from halo sales. What they signed up for, though, is promotion. Everything in Amazon’s documentation and Creator University frames Creator Connections as a bonus program whose entire purpose is getting products promoted. The system just doesn’t require that to happen in order for people to get paid.

The Cap Is Damage Control for the Brand

So picture it from the brand’s side. The majority of people in their campaign aren’t making content, but every one of them is eligible to collect halo payouts. The brand ends up paying the same money to someone who did nothing as to someone who drove a real sale. In many cases they’re paying out more to the non-promoters simply because there are more of them.

That’s where the cap comes in. Think of it as damage control. You have a cap on how many people can join and a cap on how much budget can be spent. Limiting the number of participants limits the damage on both sides: how much goes out for actual promotion, and more importantly, how much goes out for halo sales on products that never got promoted at all.

Some people push back and say the brand doesn’t care, a sale is a sale. Maybe. But it doesn’t make sense to me that a brand would be fine paying the exact same amount to someone who made content and drove a sale as to someone who made no content and had nothing to do with the purchase. It would be like someone already mowing your yard for a fee, and you walking out to hand them extra money for nothing additional. Brands sign up because they want their products pushed.

What Happens If You Remove the Cap Entirely

Dana’s question included the idea of eliminating the cap altogether. Run that scenario out. Now you have 200,000 or 300,000 people eligible for halo payouts on a single campaign. Of that group, 99.9% are not making content for the product. But anyone who buys the product because of something else any of those people did now triggers a bonus payout.

The brand’s budget gets completely eaten up by halo sales with no promotion behind them. They’re paying their entire budget for nothing, which is not why they signed up for Creator Connections. The cap still exposes them to some of that, but it keeps the pool small enough that the budget isn’t drained by people who were never going to make a video.

And frankly, in today’s ecosystem, that cap is doing its job. It’s still money going out for essentially no promotion, but at least the bleeding is limited.

Why Raising It to 2,000 Doesn’t Fix Anything

Let’s say Amazon just bumps the number. We actually got a preview of that around Prime Day. Amazon took several campaigns for big brands, raised them from 800 slots to 2,000, and within less than 24 hours they were full again at the new limit. Granted, those were extremely popular brands. But it shows there are far too many eyeballs on Creator Connections right now and not enough campaigns to go around.

Raise the cap without a structural change and two things happen. First, the rate of escalation is so fast we end up right back where we are. Second, people will read a higher cap as a green light to accept every campaign they’ve been waiting on, and the problem accelerates. That’s why I think Amazon sees cap and budget as intertwined: a higher cap only works if the brand is willing to fund the extra halo exposure that comes with it.

We All Have Some Culpability Here

Amazon absolutely has responsibility here. It’s their program, and the way it was structured never had a solid foundation for scaling in a healthy way. Everyone is expecting Amazon to come in and change the program to accommodate how we want to use it. Amazon could just as easily come in and change things to force us to use Creator Connections the way it was supposed to be used.

But it’s partially on us too. When you claim slots in a limited space, you’re mathematically part of the squeeze. That doesn’t mean anyone was being nefarious. It just means that when I see people say “the cap is stupid, it does nothing,” I think they’re ignoring how the program actually works and putting all the blame on Amazon.

Honestly, at this point I don’t care what Amazon decides. It’s in their hands. I could be wrong about all of this, and that’s fine. Nobody’s right or wrong here yet, it’s all theoretical until Amazon acts.

What to Do While Amazon Figures It Out

Whatever happens with the cap, the lesson is the same one I keep repeating: don’t build your income on Creator Connections bonuses. They’re a bonus, not a foundation. Keep your focus on the 5 Pillars, keep your storefront healthy with Storefront Cross Check, and keep making content for products that convert on their own merits. That way, if campaigns dry up for bronze and silver creators next week, or for everyone the week after, your business doesn’t go with them.

If you want the tools to run your Amazon influencer business without depending on bonus programs, check out Oink for Influencers. It’s built to find the products worth your time, whether or not Creator Connections ever gets fixed.

I'm an Amazon Influencer since 2023 and blogger since 2021. My goal is to help you succeed in the Amazon Influencer Program.

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