Snapchat has officially launched its new ‘Snapchat+’ subscription service! Users will now be able to pay a monthly fee to activate a range of account bonuses, including access to exclusive in-app features such as custom app icons, new profile badges, display tools, data insights, and more.
As Snap explains:
“Today we’re launching Snapchat+, a collection of exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features available in Snapchat for $3.99/month. This subscription will allow us to deliver new Snapchat features to some of the most passionate members of our community and allow us to provide prioritized support.”
A Snappy Bonus
Amid troubling financial projections, this new addition would also allow Snap to make more money, which is currently a key concern for the app, especially in Europe. With reduced ad spend resulting in a net slowdown for the app, anything that Snap can do to help keep itself afloat will prove crucial.
As reported recently, initial leaks of the new offering would likely include:
- Access to exclusive Snapchat icons.
- A new profile badge to show that you’re a Snapchat+ user.
- New data insights, including the capacity to see your friends’ location history (over the last 24 hours) and info on who’s rewatched your Story.
- The capacity to pin a user in the app as ‘your #1 best friend’.
Reiterating that while none of these seem highly compelling, they may yet appeal to a subset of the most die-hard Snapchat enthusiasts. While these may not be the ‘game-changing’ type of features that are designed to see mass adoption, Snap believes that even if only 1% of its active user base signs up, that’s still an extra $13.2 million monthly income for the app. However, even this estimate, based on the take-up of similar options in other platforms, could already be reaching for it.
This program is very similar to Twitter’s ‘Blue’ subscription offer, which allows Twitter users to pay $2.99 a month for access to similar tools. However, Twitter Blue take-up, for the most part, has been rather slow. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal even stated that Twitter has not hit ‘intermediate milestones that enable confidence’, suggesting that Twitter Blue hasn’t gained much traction at all. How would Snapchat+ fare?
The Wrap
Right now, it’s too hard to tell; almost everything is impossible to predict, while there is something to be said for the connection that Snapchatters feel with the app, which, to them, is a key connector to some of their closest contacts.
This enhanced alignment could lead to more paying users. Again, Snap requires only a small percentage of people to take up the offer to make it a highly profitable option. At least on this front, we have no arguments that Snap understands its audience better than other apps. Though it may take some time, this is a valuable addition to Snap.
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Sources