Elon Musk today said that X (formerly Twitter) is going to soon launch two new premium tiers, confirming previous reports and code sightings.
The owner of the platform said that one tier will cost lower than the current $8 per month plan, but won’t reduce ads. The other tier will be a more expensive one, which will remove all ads. The current premium plan promises to show “half ads” to subscribers. Musk didn’t mention the prices of these new tiers.
Two new tiers of X Premium subscriptions launching soon.
One is lower cost with all features, but no reduction in ads, and the other is more expensive, but has no ads.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2023
Earlier this month, @aaronp613 found references in X’s code about three separate premium tiers. Separately, Bloomberg also reported that the company is testing multiple paid plans to bring in more revenue.
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Notably, Meta is said to be thinking about an ad-free tier in response to an EU Court judgment, which says users should have an option for an ad-free tier if they refuse consent for the company to process their data. TikTok also confirmed recently that it is testing an ad-free tier. It’s not clear if X’s move is in response to the EU Court ruling.
Musk & co. are trying new ways to increase X’s revenue. Earlier this week, the company started testing a $1 per year plan for new users in New Zealand and the Philippines for basic functionality like posting, liking and reposting. The social network said that this move was to reduce the number of bots on the platform, and wasn’t meant to be “a profit driver.”
Earlier this month, Reuters reported that since Musk’s takeover ad revenue has constantly dropped. So it’s not surprising for Musk to make moves to bolster subscription revenue.
As the company is trying to attract advertisers with former NBCU exec Linda Yaccarino as CEO, it is trying to publish metrics that look appealing. Earlier this month, Yaccarino said that X has around 245 million daily active users and 500 million daily posts.
