Twitter chief Elon Musk today said that the cost of the Twitter Blue subscription is going to be priced at $8 per month, which would be an increase of $3 over the current $4.99 per month price.
Twitter Blue will include priority in replies, mentions, and search, which Musk says is "essential to defeat spam/scam," the ability to post longer video and audio clips, and half as many ads.
Musk also implied that Twitter Blue would offer subscribers a blue checkmark for verification purposes, a feature that is currently limited to those at risk of identity theft such as celebrities, journalists, and other notable influencers.
Twitter Blue pricing will be adjusted by country "proportionate to purchasing power parity," and Musk said there will be some kind of "paywall bypass" for publishers that are "willing to work with [Twitter]."
Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
It is not clear what that last bit means, but Twitter very abruptly ended Twitter Blue ad-free access to news sites that participated in the program. MacRumors partnered with Twitter to provide Twitter Blue subscribers with ad-free articles, and on October 31, Twitter sent out notifications that ad-free articles would be disabled as of the close of the business day.
In the email, the Twitter Blue team said that resources will be instead focused on "adding additional value" for Twitter Blue members, and that an update to Twitter Blue would be debuted "in the coming weeks."
Musk is working rapidly to monetize Twitter, as the social network has historically not been particularly profitable. Musk became Twitter's CEO last Friday, and he let go of multiple Twitter executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and policy lead Vijaya Gadde.
In addition to introducing changes to Twitter Blue, Musk has also said that he plans to bring back video service Vine. Rumors suggest that Musk has shifted more than 50 Tesla engineers over to Twitter to work on the new features.
