Snapchat Announces the Release of its New "Snapchat+" subscription Service

Snapchat has now released its new Snapchat+ subscription service, enabling users to pay a monthly charge in exchange for access to special in-app features like customized app icons, new profile badges, data insights, display features, and much more.

According to Snap:

“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.”

Additionally, Snap needs to increase its revenue, as recent economic changes, notably in Europe, have been very detrimental and have resulted in a decrease in ad spending on the app, which is a major issue for the company.

According to recent reports of the Snapchat+ offering, the new subscription service will include:

• Gaining access to exclusive Snapchat icons

• A new profile badge indicating that you use Snapchat+

• New data insights, such as the ability to view your friends' location history over the previous 24 hours and information on who has rewatched your Story

• The option to designate a person as "your #1 best friend" within the app

None of those are particularly captivating; they aren't "game-changing" improvements that will be widely used. However, they might only appeal to a small portion of the most ardent Snap users. Even if Snap just manages to sign up 1% of its current user base, it would still bring in an additional $13.2 million per month ($159m per year) for the app.

Even that, though, might be pushing it based on how popular corresponding features are in other apps.

The service is fairly identical to Twitter's "Twitter Blue" add-on package, which lets users access similar functionality for $2.99 per month.

But the uptake of Twitter Blue has been sluggish so far. According to Twitter's most recent performance update, the company's revenue from subscriptions and other non-advertising sources totaled $94 million in Q4 21. This figure represented a year-over-year decline of 31% for this component. This shows that Twitter Blue isn't really gaining much traction at all, and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has stated that the company's new revenue and growth initiatives, such as Twitter Blue, have not yet reached "intermediate milestones that enable confidence."

With that, Snapchat+ performance is difficult to forecast. Though there's just something about Snapchat users' attachment to the app, which they use as a primary means of communication with their closest pals.

This alignment might attract more paying users, and Snap only needs a small proportion of them to do so in order for it to be a highly profitable alternative.

And Snap has demonstrated time and time again that it is the only application that truly understands its user base.

It may take a while, but this could eventually prove to be a useful feature for Snap and its users.

Users in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates will be the first to have access to Snapchat+. Snapchat notes that it will strive to broaden access in the future.