Meta has officially launched Instagram Plus, one of the many subscription services to be rolled out on its social platforms.
Last week, tech giant Meta announced plans to launch paid subscription plans for its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp mobile apps as it moves away from historic reliance on advertising revenue.
The first is Instagram Plus, which Meta says was designed to ‘give you more of what you love about Instagram’.
Meta has stressed that the free version of the app will not change and that the subscription is an optional upgrade for people who ‘want more control, deeper insights, and premium features.’
Instagram Plus: What are the new features?
Instagram’s Plus subscription service offers new features across three areas; socialising with friends, seeing previews and insights, and customisation.
They include:
- Give your story priority to friends
- Send animated hearts that ‘burst across the screen’ to friends to celebrate their stories
- Create unlimited audience lists
- Extend the length of time your story is displayed to 48 hours
- Preview stories of others
- See how many times stories were viewed
- Check if a specific person has viewed your story
- Choose your own app icon from a curated selection
- Customise the font of your profile
- Pin up to six posts to your profile
- Post directly to your profile or highlights without it appearing in friends’ feeds.
How much does the Instagram Plus subscription cost?
When Meta originally announced the paid plans it confirmed that subscriptions for Instagram Plus and Facebook Plus will be priced at $3.99 a month, while WhatsApp Plus will cost $2.99 per month.
This is equivalent to around £2.98 and £2.23 respectively, though this doesn’t necessarily reflect the real cost of the subscriptions in the UK.
Instagram has confirmed all of the above features are available to subscribers now.
The social media giant also confirmed that additional features for the subscription service will be announced in the coming months.
Will you subscribe to Instagram Plus?
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Yep
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No
How to get Instagram Plus
Meta has already begun rolling out Instagram Plus globally. A video shared by Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, says you can sign up to the subscription plan by going to into your profile’s settings.
What other subscription plans are coming?
WhatsApp and Facebook are also expected to get Plus subscriptions within the coming weeks.
While details at the moment are thin, Meta’s head of product Naomi Gleit said the subscriptions would combine ‘enhanced features that our community already loves’ with ‘new subscription plans that offer premium features for those who want to unlock more from our apps and AI glasses.’
‘These subscription plans offer richer ways to express and connect across our apps with more fun features to be added,’ she said in an Instagram video.
Features for the other apps were not confirmed but, like Instagram Plus, it is believed that Facebook Plus will allow users to access better analytics, widen their audience reach, and customise their profile.
WhatsApp Plus, on the other hand, will focus more on personalisation, including custom ringtones and app themes.
Eventually, Meta plans to consolidate its brand offerings under a new name, MetaOne.
‘We’re starting with plans that give people who use Meta AI more to work with. More capacity, bigger, more complex requests, and more room to create.
‘For businesses and creators, we’re offering premium tools that allow you to enhance presence, supercharge content, automate tasks, and protect your brand.’
Ms Gleit stressed that Meta was still working out ‘how to bring this all together in a way that makes sense’ and said users could expect to see the company testing the new subscription models.
‘While we’re still testing and learning, eventually we see MetaOne as the one place that brings our subscriptions together across all of our apps.
‘This is just the beginning, with a lot more value to come.’