If You'd Invested $1,000 in Meta in 2016, Here's How Much Money You'd Have Today
There's gold in liking and subscribing, and Meta is mining more of it than anyone.
The Wall Street Journal recently analyzed how Instagram Reels went from a copy of TikTok with no revenue to a $50 billion business. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's announcement of those figures during the October 2025 earnings call was noteworthy, as analysts expect YouTube to generate $46 billion in advertising revenue in 2026, while TikTok is expected to bring in $17 billion.
In the same earnings report, Meta reported 3.54 billion daily active users. Around the time of the earnings call, CNBC reported that Meta's share price had dropped by as much as 9% despite revenue of $51.24 for the quarter. However, if you had invested in Meta (formerly known as Facebook) many years ago, odds are that your investment would have gone up significantly.
Aim Higher: Middle-Class to Upper-Class: 8 Steps To Build Generational Wealth
Take Action: 5 Signs You’re Losing Money Every Month — and How To Find the Leaks
The reality is that there's a high probability that you use a Meta product in your daily life, from Instagram to WhatsApp. As a user of the tools, you may have considered investing in the tech giant. Let's examine how much your investment would be worth if you had allocated $1,000 to Meta 10 years ago.
How Much Would Your Investment in Meta Be Worth?
If you had invested $1,000 in Meta 10 years ago, here's how much your investment would be worth today.
Meta's stock price on March 31, 2016: $114.10
Meta's stock price on March 31, 2026: $572.13
This means that with $1,000, you could've purchased 8.76 shares of Facebook. Those shares would be worth $5,721.30 now, providing you with a return of about 500%. This assumes you held the stock the entire time, given the turbulent periods and the fact that it wasn't always a smooth ride. However, if you didn't touch your investment, you would be rewarded tremendously.
What Contributed to Meta's Stock Price?
"While Meta may appear as a high-tech company, in reality, it's an advertising business, with the bulk of its profits coming from Facebook and Instagram," said Vince Stanzione, an investor and founder of First Information. "The genius of the business is in taking user-generated content and selling advertising around it, including promoted posts and generating massive amounts of data that can be sold to advertisers that want to reach a specific audience."
While the stock has experienced some volatility, you can't deny the results over the last decade. According to research published by Forbes last year, Meta's stock price increase can be attributed to the growth of the daily active people across the family of apps, since a substantial amount of the revenue comes from ad sales. By the time the article was published, daily active users had grown 16% from 2022 to 2025, reaching 3.43 billion. The article also noted that Meta benefited from its AI investment, with improved ad targeting.
However, we can't write about investing in Meta over the last decade without mentioning the Metaverse. Forbes noted that Meta's stock price fell 77%, from its peak of $382 in September 2021 to $89 by November 2022. Stanzione emphasized that Meta has lost money on its Metaverse and hardware investments to date, but it has substantial revenue from its legacy business.
Economist Dean Baker recently criticized Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his newsletter by arguing that they threw away $77 billion on the Metaverse. He argued that the investment decision wasn't just a loss for the company but also for society, as software engineers, planners and support staff were diverted from other tasks to work on this project. While the jury is still out on whether the heavy investment in AI will pay off, the results will be evident in the next few earnings reports.
Should You Invest in Meta?
Stanzione gave the stock a neutral rating for 2026. He added, "It's hard to see anyone rivaling Instagram or Facebook any time soon. WhatsApp does have some rivals, but it remains dominant in most countries. Meta doesn't need to change much and can still throw off large amounts of cash."
Experts at The Motley Fool noted that this stock should be on every investor's watch list due to strong earnings growth, but they warned that Meta isn't a young startup with the potential to deliver astronomical gains in the near future.
This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.
More From MoneyLion: