Meta’s Latest Subscription Plans for Instagram and Facebook Mirror Snapchat’s Playbook Yet Again
Meta has announced new upcoming subscription plans for Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp this week. Instagram isn’t going behind a paywall—instead, users will be able to pay $4 a month for extra features, such as seeing who rewatched your story post or pinning more posts to the top of your profile. Instagram Plus, Facebook Plus ($4 a month), and WhatsApp Plus ($3 a month) will roll out globally sometime this summer.
The Subscription Push and Meta’s Revenue Diversification
These “Plus” plans are an attempt by Meta, led by Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, to diversify how it makes money from users. Meta is also doing what Meta does best with this move: mimicking other social media platforms’ successes—specifically, Snapchat. Maria Cubeta, a Meta spokesperson, explained over email: “As we shared earlier this year, we're testing and scaling new subscriptions that provide deeper, more enhanced ways to use our apps and AI glasses. So far, we’ve been testing subscription features for people to enhance how they express themselves and connect on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, like profile customization, stories insights, and super reactions.” She added that this is just the start of the larger “Meta One” umbrella of subscription offerings, which will eventually include different, more expensive tiers catering toward businesses and creators as well as users who want extra access to Meta AI.
Feature Breakdown by Platform
At launch, Instagram Plus will have the most extra features, from additional pins on your profile and unique bio fonts to creating siloed audiences for your Story posts and “Super Heart” reaction buttons. Facebook Plus will mainly allow you to control and customize your experience with Story posts, like rewatch insights. WhatsApp Plus will include more pinned chats, visual customizations, and premium stickers. These subscription plans are simply history repeating itself.
Snapchat as the Longtime Inspiration
“Loving husband, father of four boys, VP Product @ Meta” reads Evan Spiegel’s tongue-in-cheek LinkedIn profile. Spiegel, the cofounder and chief executive officer of Snap, has never actually worked at Meta, though his social media platform has directly inspired at least some existing features on Instagram. After Instagram launched Stories in 2016, then-Chief Executive Officer Kevin Systrom didn’t mince words about how his platform was sometimes iterating on Snapchat features, telling TechCrunch that “they deserve all the credit” for the format of Stories. In 2017, Snap launched a “Maps” tool where users could opt in and see the pinpoint location of all of their friends based on when they last opened the app. Instagram launched a very similar “Maps” feature just last year, where users could track the location of friends who chose to share their GPS data. And while Instagram’s recently launched “Instants” app, with its ephemeral, unfiltered snaps, is more like the once-popular BeReal than anything, disappearing photo messages are totally Snapchat’s main lane.
Subscription Plans as History Repeating
Snapchat dropped a $4 a month plan, called Snapchat+, back in 2022. It offered users access to exclusive features in the app and expanded over the few years, adding more options as well as AI tools. In February, Snapchat announced that this style of subscription plan helped the company achieve a “$1 billion annualized revenue run rate” in direct payments with over 25 million current subscribers around the world. (Despite being a font of feature inspiration, everything isn’t rosy at Snapchat, as the company struggles to turn a profit.) So, even down to the Plus naming convention, Meta seems to be heavily inspired by Snapchat once again. I would expect nothing less from the company that renamed itself during the metaverse fad. Following trends is Meta’s modus operandi. Keep an eye out for what Snapchat does next for a sneak peek at what Meta might do in a few years.
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- Date: May 28, 2026