A substantial price hike is hitting X’stop-tier subscription service, which you may or may not have known even existed.
Xhasannouncedthat its Premium+ subscription plan is going up to $22 a month in the U.S., a 37.5 percent increase. The plan previously was $16 a month. The price hike came into effect on December 21. The cost for an annual subscription to Premium+ went up to $229 from $168. International users face asimilar price hikeas well.
Don’t tell Elon Musk that X is hemorrhaging users
X is seeing a drop in active users on the site in the U.S., while its competitors BlueSky and Threads continue to grow.
Why is X raising prices?
The platform cites its new ‘completely ads-free’ experience
Xcitesthree primary reasons for the price hike. One is that the service is now “completely ads-free, providing an uninterrupted browsing experience.” The second is that its top-tier subscription service has more features now, including higher priority customer support, its newRadarfeature for searching trends and Grok AI.
The final reason X cites for the price increase is to help support creators. The social media giant says it “shifted our revenue model to reward content quality and engagement rather than ad views alone.” X uses its subscription fees to help contribute to creator earnings. It’s important to note that X’s basic subscription tier remains unaffected by this recent price hike and is still $3 a month.
X has gone through a lot in the past two years. In 2022, it was acquired by Elon Musk and the following year, it was renamed X. After the 2024 U.S. election, there have beenreportsof many users leaving the platform due to its new terms of service and Musk’s recent political actions in the U.S. (via Forbes). Two of its competitors,BlueskyandThreads, have seen a massive growth in users in the past two months.
I downloaded Bluesky to see if it can really replace X
Bluesky Social has hit a new user base milestone, but is it enough to dethrone X as the go-to microblogging site?
