Meta is paying developers to build on it: its top model at up to 80% off and $2M in prizes

That was day 2 of Meta Connect 2026, the day for developers. Here's what Meta announced

Models:
- Muse Spark 1.3 is Meta's top model. The Meta model API is now open worldwide, and it also runs on Oracle Cloud. Google Cloud is in private preview
- The new contributor tier costs up to 80% less than the standard price. Meta says that's 10-20x cheaper than rivals. Meta only promised not to train on your data for the standard tier
- Muse Glimmer is a free open model – 30B, Apache 2.0. It runs on one GPU or a Mac mini. Meta will release the weights of Spark 1.2 later
- Muse Code, Meta's coding agent for the terminal, is out of beta. It runs several agents at once and comes with flat monthly plans

Developers already use it. Numbers from @OpenRouter:
- Muse traffic grew ~85x in eight weeks, to 2T+ tokens a week
- 90%+ of that comes from AI companies and professional developers
- The average request is ~80K tokens long – more than for any other model on OpenRouter
- On OpenCode Go, Spark is a top-2 model: 120M sessions, 79T tokens

What's new for builders:
- One line of code lets an AI agent use your web app on Meta Ray-Ban Display, by voice
- With Meta AI connectors, people use your service right in the chat. The developer preview is open
- On stage, an AI agent sped up a VR game from 59 to 72 fps in 15 minutes
- Meta VR glasses come without controllers in 2027, and the store will show apps you control with your hands first. The SDK is out today
- Horizon games show up in Facebook and Instagram feeds and start in seconds, no download

Prize money:
- AI hackathon in October – $1M plus free API credits
- VR app contest – $1M, eight weeks to build

Before you build on Meta, check:
- Which tier you pay for and what Meta does with your data
- Whether your app works without a mouse or controller – with hands, voice or an AI agent
- Where people will find it: the feed, the glasses or Muse