Meta Platforms (META 0.41%) is rolling out a paid tier for its hugely popular social media sites, and investors were clearly happy about the news. They piled into the Facebook owner's stock on Wednesday, sending it to a nearly 4% gain that trading session.
Meta money spinner
Appropriately, in a post on Meta's Instagram, the social media titan's head of product, Naomi Gleit, announced that its pilot Facebook Plus, Instagram Plus, and WhatsApp Plus are being expanded globally. Users opting for those paid tiers will pay $3.99 per month for both Facebook Plus and Instagram Plus; WhatsApp Plus will set them back $2.99.
Image source: Getty Images.
Users subscribing to the Plus offerings will have access to premium features, including enhanced profile customization and story insights. In her Instagram post, Gleit said that more features would be introduced in the future. She did not get specific.
The move comes several months after Meta divulged it was road-testing subscription tiers for its three sites. In a report on the rollout, popular industry website TechCrunch, citing information it received from the company, wrote that the new subscriptions don't supplant the existing Meta Verified service. Verified doesn't conflict with these, apparently, as it's an identity protection and verification tool.
NASDAQ: META
Key Data Points
Billions of potential customers
Gleit didn't provide any Meta estimates of the take-up the company expects from its users for the paid levels.
Given that Facebook alone had nearly 3.1 billion monthly active users (MAUs) at the end of the latest-reported quarter, 2.1 billion of whom accessed the site daily, we can imagine that even if a bare minority of these folks opt for the paid services, it'll add considerably to Meta's top line and boost profitability. I don't blame Meta investors for being excited about this development.
