As the competition heats up in the social media space, Meta, X (formerly Twitter), and Snapchat are pushing hard to boost adoption of their paid subscription services. Each platform is now offering limited-time summer discounts to entice more users to sign up for their premium offerings.
Meta is offering a significant price cut for users signing up for its Meta Verified plan during the promotional period. New users can access the service at a heavily discounted rate for the first month, after which the pricing reverts to the standard rate.
A screenshot shared by tech enthusiast Jonah Manzano highlights how Meta is targeting users with a time-sensitive offer (shown in AUD). This move is clearly designed to drive short-term uptake by reducing the financial barrier for first-time subscribers.
Meanwhile, X is offering 30% off on its annual Premium and Premium Plus subscriptions. These plans include features such as:
Blue check verification
Longer posts
Access to Grok, X’s AI chatbot
While these features may appeal to content creators or power users, X is still struggling to convert a significant portion of its user base into paying subscribers.
Snapchat has rolled out a 50% discount for the first two months of its Snapchat+ subscription. The plan includes:
Early access to new features
Exclusive content enhancements
Customization tools for the app interface
With 15 million subscribers already on board, Snapchat+ has proven to be the most successful premium add-on among the three social media giants.
The big question remains: Will these summer offers actually move the needle?
Possibly—but it may not result in a massive uptick. Most users who were interested in these features have likely subscribed already, and the platforms haven’t introduced many game-changing features lately to sway undecided users.
Still, Grok AI on X might attract a niche audience, and early feature access on Snapchat may appeal to Gen Z. But overall, the offers feel more like a retention or mild growth strategy than a major revenue overhaul.
Since launching Meta Verified in Q2 2023, Meta has added $358 million to its “Other” income category. If we estimate the average monthly price to be around $13, this implies that approximately 9 million users have subscribed to the service.
While that’s a substantial figure, it pales in comparison to Meta’s quarterly ad revenue of $31.5 billion. It’s clear that subscriptions, while lucrative on their own, remain a secondary revenue stream for the tech giant.
Snapchat has managed to turn Snapchat+ into a viable product with 15 million active subscribers, generating an estimated $150 million in quarterly revenue. However, this figure is still small compared to Snap’s $1.36 billion revenue in Q1 2025.
Nevertheless, the platform has found a niche for Snapchat+ by offering early access to creative tools and experimental features that appeal to its core demographic.
X (formerly Twitter) continues to face challenges with its X Premium service. Despite Elon Musk’s ambitions to make subscription revenue the platform’s primary income source, adoption has remained sluggish.
Current estimates suggest that only 1.5 million users are subscribed to X Premium, which is less than 0.5% of the platform’s total user base. The original goal of reaching hundreds of millions of paying users now seems far-fetched.
Even the integration of Grok AI has not been enough to fuel massive growth, especially considering competing AI tools from Meta and OpenAI.
At the end of the day, it's clear that advertising remains the dominant revenue model for all three platforms. The limited uptake of premium services reinforces that users still expect free access to core social features, while only a niche group is willing to pay for extras.
Unless these platforms manage to create compelling, high-value features or expand significantly in developing markets, subscriptions will remain a complementary revenue stream rather than a core business model.