Meta is asking users of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook to pay for the service. The company is launching premium versions of all its accounts, offering extra features and bonuses in exchange for a monthly fee.
Premium Features and Pricing
The subscription costs $3.99 for Facebook and Instagram, and $2.99 for WhatsApp. Users must pay separately for each service. Features include enhanced personalization options and insights into content performance. For example, Instagram users can see how many times a story has been rewatched, keep stories visible for 24 hours, highlight a story once per week, preview stories without appearing in the viewer list, and search through story viewers. Other personalization options include custom fonts on profiles and custom app icons.
On WhatsApp, the premium subscription provides additional stickers and the ability to choose custom ringtones.
Rollout and Future Plans
The global rollout follows recent testing of premium offerings by parent company Meta. This marks the first of what the company suggests will be a suite of premium tools, including plans for professional users like businesses and creators, and additional payments for extended AI tools. These AI tools will allow longer interactions with Meta’s AI systems and are expected to be more expensive than the current premium tiers.
Meta already offers a separate subscription called Meta Verified, which provides a blue checkmark for identity confirmation and extra protection against impersonation or hacking. That service will continue to operate independently.
