Meta is doubling down on subscription services. On Wednesday, the social networking giant announced it would roll out consumer subscription plans for its flagship apps Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp globally and begin testing new subscriptions for businesses, creators, and Meta AI users.
Consumers who subscribe to Instagram Plus ($3.99 per month), Facebook Plus ($3.99 per month), or WhatsApp Plus ($2.99 per month) will be able to access additional features such as profile customization, super reactions, and story insights for a few dollars per month.
Naomi Gleit, head of product at Meta, said in the announcement that “even more fun features” will be added in the future.
Meanwhile, Meta will begin testing other services, including a professional plan for creators and businesses, and an AI-focused plan for all users. These new tests will be branded as “Meta One” and will now serve as the home for the company’s subscription service.
Meta confirmed that it plans to offer subscriptions early this year, with first tests starting in the spring. The idea behind this consumer-focused plan is to provide additional functionality to power users who want to get more out of their social apps. It will also allow Meta to diversify its revenue streams beyond advertising by extracting more value from its existing audience of billions, given the limited growth opportunities for these apps, which have already reached global saturation.
The new “Plus” plans are tailored to individual apps, with Facebook Plus and Instagram Plus focused on social expression, while WhatsApp Plus focuses on personalization and messaging.
However, the company says the new plan does not replace its existing service, Meta Verified, which focuses on verification, anti-spoofing, and additional support. (This may change over time, but at this time Meta has no plans to retire old plans.)
First, the new Instagram Plus plan gives subscribers access to additional features. For example, it goes beyond the “close friends” option, including the ability to see how many people have rewatched your story in total and the ability to create an unlimited viewer list for your story. Users can also spotlight a Story once a week for additional viewing, extend a Story beyond 24 hours, preview a Story without appearing as a viewer, and search a Story’s audience list to see who’s watching. Users can also post directly to their profile and highlights without appearing in their followers’ feeds.
Other features include super heart animated reactions for your stories, custom app icons, customizable fonts for your profile bio, and access to additional pins for your profile.
These features are designed to better serve creators and users looking to grow their following and understand their audience, but may also appeal to heavy users.
Facebook Plus offers a similar set of features to Instagram Plus. However, WhatsApp Plus offers other features such as app themes, custom ringtones, additional pinned chats, list customization, and premium stickers.
AI plans for creators and businesses, etc.
Meta says it will start testing more subscription plans in parallel with the launch, but that’s where things start to get confusing.
For Meta AI users, we test two plans: Meta One Plus ($7.99 per month) and Meta One Premium ($19.99 per month), which have the same features, but the Premium plan has more capacity available for higher compute queries. In other words, the premium plan provides deeper inference for complex tasks (i.e., enhanced “thinking mode” in Meta AI apps or on the web). Meta will also offer more video and image generation capabilities across its apps.
Meta AI remains free for more casual users, but these plans follow the same path as those proposed by other AI model providers that charge for additional compute or heavy usage. Mehta said the plan will be expanded in the coming weeks to provide even more benefits for people using the AI glasses.
The AI plan will begin testing next month in Singapore, Guatemala and Bolivia.
Two other plans for creators and businesses will begin testing later this week in markets including Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Thailand and Bangladesh.
The Meta One Essential plan ($14.99 per month) offers Verified badges, impersonation protection, and an enhanced link sheet that allows users to link to their online presence across social channels and the web, as well as Meta Verified.
The more expensive Meta One Advanced plan ($49.99 per month) includes the essential benefits plus the ability to be featured in your Facebook feed, appear higher in search results on Facebook and Instagram, get noticed with Reels’ bold “Follow” button, and automatically send “Follow” invitations to people who engage with your content.
It also helps creators and businesses drive people to their websites and shopping through links on Instagram posts and Instagram Reels, and through enhanced Facebook and Instagram profiles with expanded link sheets. Naturally, these plans include better analytics, such as deeper competitive analysis on Instagram and custom audience insights on Facebook.
Advanced plan subscribers have access to optimized scheduling tools, tools to share access with other account moderators (without sharing your password), and notifications that alert you when someone on Facebook or Instagram reuses your content, so you can request a label that credits your original Reels.
Gleit acknowledged that Meta is still experimenting with these AI and specialized plans for the time being, but said it aims to integrate them all under Meta One and continue to update and expand them over time.
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