Elon Musk's social media site X will be increasing the cost of one of its main subscription plans from today for any new users joining the service.
X has seen a tumultuous few years since Musk bought it as Twitter back in 2022. One of the most talked-about introductions was the new subscription plans in an effort to make the site profitable. The infamous Blue Tick was, in the past, introduced to confirm users' identity and was a free feature so long as certain steps were followed. However, In 2022 X revealed that users would need to apply to one of the subscription plans to be eligible for the tick.
In a recent post on its help page, X revealed the cost of the Premium Plus Subscription will be increasing. The tier will now cost members $22 a month, $6 up from the prior $16. Meanwhile, the Premium X Plus annual cost will go from $168 to $229.
Current subscribers have until January 20, 2025, before needing to pay the new cost, but new customers will have to pay them from today.
What do you get for the price?
These are some pretty hefty increases, but X has defended them with three key points. The first is the Premium Plus will be completely ad-free. Secondly, users will have access to new features such as Radar, Grok AI and more. Finally, the new price will help to support X's Creator Program thanks to a shift in its revenue share model. This new fee will contribute to the "new, more equitable system where creator earnings are tied to the overall value they bring to X, not impressions of ads."
We've seen a fair bit about X in the news of course, but most of the focus has been on the abilities of its new AI model: Grok. One of the biggest additions was the new Grok Aurora image generator which aims to create life-like images. When we compared it to Gemini, Grok managed to score ahead thanks to its ability to create life-like images.
Price increases are never nice, and these are pretty high, however, it will take time to see if they affect the number of people willing to subscribe.
If you find Elon's latest change a little hard to get over, then you can see our 5 best Twitter alternatives to try instead.
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