Meta is expanding its subscription offerings, announcing the global rollout of consumer subscription plans for Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, while beginning to test new paid tiers for businesses, creators and Meta AI users — including AI plans that charge for additional compute.
For a few dollars per month, consumers subscribing to Instagram Plus ($3.99), Facebook Plus ($3.99) or WhatsApp Plus ($2.99) gain access to extra features such as profile customization, super reactions and story insights. Meta’s head of product, Naomi Gleit, said “more fun features” will be added in future. The plans are tailored to each app, with Facebook Plus and Instagram Plus focused more on social expression while WhatsApp Plus emphasizes personalization and messaging.
Meta confirmed it was planning a subscription offering earlier this year, with initial tests rolling out in the spring. The consumer plans are aimed at power users who want more from their social apps, and also allow Meta to diversify its revenue beyond advertising by extracting more value from its existing audience of billions, given limited growth opportunities for apps that have already achieved global saturation. The company said the new “Plus” plans do not replace its existing Meta Verified offering, which focuses on verification, impersonation protection and extra support.
The more notable development for the AI sector is Meta’s plan to test paid tiers for its Meta AI assistant. The company will trial two plans — Meta One Plus ($7.99) and Meta One Premium ($19.99) — which share the same features, but with the Premium tier unlocking more capacity on higher-compute queries. That means Premium subscribers would gain deeper reasoning for complex tasks, akin to a “thinking mode” in the Meta AI app or on the web, along with more video and image-generation capabilities across Meta’s apps.
Meta AI will remain free for casual users, but the new plans follow the same path as other AI model providers that charge for additional compute and heavier usage. The plans will later expand with more benefits for those who use AI glasses. The AI tiers begin testing next month, initially in Singapore, Guatemala and Bolivia.
Two further plans aimed at creators and businesses will begin testing later this week in markets including Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Thailand and Bangladesh — placing North Africa among the early testing grounds. The Meta One Essential plan ($14.99) offers a Verified badge, impersonation protection and an enhanced linksheet, while the Meta One Advanced plan ($49.99) adds features designed to boost reach, including being featured in the Facebook feed, appearing higher in search results, deeper competitive analytics, optimized scheduling tools and content-reuse notifications.
All the new plans will be brought together under a single brand, “Meta One,” which Meta said will serve as the home for its subscription offerings going forward. Gleit acknowledged the AI and professional plans remain experimental for now but said the company aims to consolidate and expand them over time.
