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Changes at X continue: The platform plans to roll out new “premium” subscription tiers, Elon Musk said in a post last week.
According to Musk, “One is lower cost with all features, but no reduction in ads, and the other is more expensive, but has no ads.” He didn’t share pricing details nor a release date, only saying the tiers would debut “soon.”
The platform already offers X Premium, previously known as Twitter Blue, which costs $8 per month. According to the company, X Premium subscribers get a blue checkmark as well as access to other features, like the ability to edit a post. Those who subscribe to X Premium “see approximately 50% fewer ads in the For You and Following timelines,” per the company.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that X was testing three different premium tiers: Basic, Standard, and Plus. News of the tiers comes as X still struggles to win back advertisers, many of whom left due to content moderation concerns when Musk bought the company last year. A recent report found that X’s monthly revenue has fallen 55% on average in each of the past 12 months.
Navarrow Wright, COO and CTO at creator network and programmatic marketplace Mirror Digital, told us the new tiers could make X less attractive to advertisers than it already is.
“The barriers are increasingly raised for the consumers to consume content and engage,” he said. “The tiers are an example of X and Elon realizing themselves that it’s becoming less and less of a viable advertising platform.”
New subscription tiers are only the latest effort from X to try to monetize the platform. Last month, it began selling programmatic ads through Google. It also struck a deal with Paris Hilton that involves original content created through her marketing agency, 11:11 Media.
X has other plans to boost profit as well. According to a pitch deck obtained by Ad Age, X is trying to woo political advertisers ahead of the 2024 presidential election. X claimed in the pitch deck that from January to August, there were 213 million posts about primary candidates on the platform.
It claimed it had 540 million monthly active users between April and June this year. In the deck, X also plugged vertical videos, which would help it compete with the likes of TikTok. Other features it promoted in the deck included an immersive media viewer, “keyword targeting for ads,” and brand safety tools such as “pre-bid advanced controls,” according to Ad Age.