What you need to know
- Telegram seems to be preparing a premium plan for users.
- Paying subscribers get access to premium experiences such as exclusive emoji reactions and stickers.
- The upcoming change has been seen in the latest version of Telegram beta on iOS.
Telegram is one of the best messaging apps that often receives new enhancements and features almost every month, but most of these experiences are free. Soon, the service may decide to monetize the platform through exclusive features.
In the latest beta version of Telegram for iOS (v8.7.2), a new subscription plan has been discovered by the Telegram Beta community (via Android Police). The Telegram Premium plan allows users to unlock exclusive stickers and emoji reactions.
It is unknown how much the premium plan will cost, or whether it will include additional exclusive experiences. There is also nothing to say about when the paid version of the service will be available.
But once it’s rolled out to everyone, free users may not be able to see the premium stickers in chats. According to Android Police, non-subscribers will instead see a prompt to upgrade to the premium plan.
Some of these exclusive features are similar to those offered by Discord, such as custom and animated emojis as part of Discord Nitro, which costs $ 10 a month.
It is worth noting that Telegram already has a way of making money on its users. The service began experimenting with sponsored messaging on public channels with over 1,000 subscribers last year. The newly discovered revenue generation effort should be a better alternative to Facebook’s approach.
While the premium plan is currently only available on the iOS beta, an Android version is likely in the cards.