the payout side really depends on region, in some markets the RPM on reels is decent and in others its basically pennies even with good views. ive seen accounts pull monetization way under 10k followers like someone mentioned, the follower count matters less than watch time and og content now.
main thing i'd watch out for is the spam ban wave, meta is cracking down hard on the ai reel farms reposting same clips across accounts. if you go that route expect to lose accounts. better to actually make original short stuff and let it ride. dont quit your day job over it tho, payouts been inconsistent month to month from what people are reporting