Meta expands subscription push with new AI-focused plans

It also comes in the wake of Meta’s more recent addition of subscription tiers to its top social apps in March, which allow consumers to access extra features like profile customizations, super reactions, story insights, and more, for just a few dollars per month.

Those plans, which include Instagram Plus ($3.99/mo), Facebook Plus ($3.99/mo) and WhatsApp Plus ($2.99/mo), are already paying off for Meta, new data shows. Market intelligence provider Appfigures shows that Instagram’s daily worldwide revenue now averages $1.2 million as of the week of September 9, while Facebook’s daily revenue now reaches $528,000. These numbers represent increases of 475% and 143%, respectively, from the week prior, the firm said.

Meta is now broadening its ambitions with a new set of subscription plans, including those aimed at AI power users, and others for businesses and creators.

In the first set, there are the $7.99/month Core and $19.99/month Premium plans, both of which include the Facebook Plus, Instagram Plus, and WhatsApp Plus features. The primary selling point of these plans is expanded AI usage, with Premium offering more usage than Core, as its pricing indicates.

Reached for comment, Meta declined to share the exact usage limits for the two plans, as they could vary by “country, surface and system conditions.”

The plans let subscribers use tools like Muse Image and Muse Video to generate pictures and videos, edit Instagram Stories with the AI-powered Restyle feature, and use voice effects and creative tools more often.

Meanwhile, businesses and creators can choose from several different plans: Essential ($14.99/month and up), Advanced (starting at $49.99/month), Expert (starting at $149/month), and Max (starting at $499/month). Meta noted that the plan benefits, pricing and availability may vary by region, app and account.

Essential offers tools to manage the creator or business’s presence; expanded access to the Meta Business Agent to respond to customers; a verified badge and channel on the WhatsApp Business App; and impersonation detection.

Advanced offers more features, like the ability to schedule stories up to 30 days in advance; support for links in organic posts and reels; exportable analytics; deeper audience insights; support for team member access to the account; more linked devices; more business broadcast credits; and more Meta Business Agent responses.

Both Essential and Advanced plans introduce new features, too, including an enhanced profile that showcases the creator or business’ website, locations and reviews. They also get a bold “follow” button on reels, and follow invitations that are automatically sent to people who engage with their content.

Meta plans to later add more features and agent skills to help with things like end-to-end marketing, business operations, content creation, and optimization. It will also soon introduce Edits Plus to Meta One, a plan for its content-creation app Edits. This will provide more cloud storage for syncing projects across devices, and additional usage of the Edits AI assistant.

The Expert and Max plans offer the highest levels of feature access and Meta Business Agent capacity.

The addition of the new plans, though somewhat confusing given all the various tiers, could serve to boost Meta’s top line and help recoup some of its AI investments.

As Appfigures noted,  U.S. users accounted for 32% of Instagram’s and 39% of Facebook’s revenue after the plans gained traction on September 9, which was roughly 10% above each app’s historical U.S. baseline. The plans also point to estimates suggesting further growth ahead. BNP Paribas forecasts Meta’s subscription push will add $13.5 billion in revenue by 2028, and Truist estimates the company could add $20 billion in revenue by 2030.