Social media platforms have traditionally relied on ads as a key revenue source, so it’s surprising to see X skirt away from that model by hiding the no-ad convenience behind a paywall. For context, X Premium currently starts at $8 per month, so folks hoping to avoid ads in their entirety can expect to pay a higher fee than that.
X’s ad-free pivot is not entirely unexpected though. Ever since Musk over the reins after splurging $44 billion to buy the company, X saw a sharp decline in the number of advertising partners owing to his “free speech absolutist” approach. In the past year, X has been called out for the rise in toxic speech, blatant misinformation, and abusive content — all of which are obvious advertising kryptonite.
It, therefore, makes sense that Musk would want to create a revenue pipeline that doesn’t rely on ads and serves additional conveniences as the key selling points. But adding more subscription tiers isn’t the only monetization strategy on X’s immediate roadmap. The company is already testing a new program in the Philippines and New Zealand that imposes a fee of $1 per year on all new accounts.
Musk reasons that it’s the platform’s way of controlling the bot problem. For users that don’t pay, their account will be relegated to a read-only mode, which means they won’t be able to post, nor will they be able to interact with any other post on the platform except viewing it.
