Twitter is planning to start charging $20 per month for verification
The new CEO of Twitter has introduced a new ultimatum for the company, which is to allow paid verification on the social media platform or leave.
The directive is to change Twitter Blue, the company’s optional, $ 4.99-a-month subscription that unlocks additional features, into a more expensive subscription that also verifies users, according to people familiar with the matter and internal correspondence seen by The Verge.
Twitter is planning to charge $19.99 per month for the new Twitter Blue subscription. The company also plans to change verified users’ monthly subscription limits, which are currently 90 days.
The Verge reported on Sunday that employees who are working on the project must meet a deadline of November 7th to launch the feature, or they will be fired.
For years, Twitter has been plagued with a less-than-optimal verification system. That’s all about to change, though, as Musk recently tweeted that the process is being revamped for their users’ convenience.
It’s been rumored that Twitter will soon allow advertisers and partners to pay for verification. The CEO of Platformer didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
Musk has already made a number of changes at Twitter in his short tenure with the company. First, he changed its homepage for logged-out users, then introduced mass layoffs aimed at mid-level managers and engineers who haven’t been contributing to the code base for months.
Musk is set to cut thousands of jobs this week, with the majority of layoffs affecting employees who have been working late into the night and over the weekend.
The Twitter Blue subscription service was released almost a year ago so users can view ad-free articles and make other tweaks to the app, such as a different colour home screen icon.
In the few quarters that Twitter has reported earnings as a public company, advertising remains the vast majority of their revenue. With the debut of new services such as the Twitter election coverage tool, Musk is keen on growing subscriptions to become half of the company’s overall revenue.
