Elon Musk’s plan to scale back X’s dependence on promoting income by growing paid subscriptions remains to be not taking off. Based on a brand new, third-party evaluation of the X Premium subscription service by app intelligence agency Appfigures, X has pulled in roughly $200 million in in-app buy income throughout iOS and Android because the authentic 2021 launch of the subscription previously generally known as Twitter Blue.
There are some caveats to this determine. For starters, the sum is predicated solely on these purchases made by way of the cell app, not the cell net or desktop net. Which means the true sum is probably going larger, particularly given X presents a reduction for net purchases.
Then there are the fee charges to contemplate.
After paying app retailer commissions, X could have made a minimal of $140 million, the agency estimates. Nevertheless, that determine may even possible be larger as a result of Apple and Google low cost commissions from 30% to fifteen% in yr two. (Appfigures doesn’t have a technique to reliably calculate what number of subscriptions are related to every fee fee, we’re informed).
For additional context, although Twitter Blue itself was launched in 2021, it was relaunched in December 2022 as Twitter below Musk pushed into non-advertising income. Inside the first three months post-relaunch, the service introduced in solely $11 million in cell app subscriptions, per information from app information supplier Sensor Tower. A yr in the past, the corporate now referred to as X launched two further subscriptions, Fundamental and Premium+.
Whereas there’s no technique to definitively decide what number of of X’s customers are paying for X Premium subscriptions, there are methods to again into some estimates right here, a minimum of by way of native cell subscribers.
At present, X continues to supply three subscription tiers: Fundamental, Premium, and Premium Plus with various entry to superior options, like Grok AI, a blue Verified checkmark, and fewer advertisements, amongst others. The highest in-app buy (primarily based on App Retailer information) is X Premium, which prices $11 per thirty days on cell.
In September 2024, X grossed $14.7 million by means of in-app purchases on cell gadgets, in accordance with Appfigures.
Since X is a personal firm with no obligation to share its person numbers publicly, one can solely guess how many individuals are shopping for which subscription tier.
But when that income was generated largely by its high in-app buy, X Premium, that may equate to roughly 1.3 million paying customers (i.e., $14.7M / $11).
If, as an alternative, all of the sign-ups had been for X’s lowest tier, the $4 per thirty days X Fundamental, then X may have gained as many as 3.7 million paid customers throughout the month.
If we had been to estimate that X’s paid customers broke down by 70% on Premium, 20% on Premium Plus, and 10% on Premium Fundamental, that may equate to about 940K Premium customers, 134K Premium Plus customers, and 368K Premium Fundamental customers. This break up appears cheap since X’s high three subscriptions (so as) are Premium, Premium Plus, then Fundamental. In whole, these numbers mixed would come to round 1.4 million paid customers added throughout September.
Quarter-by-quarter, the image does look a bit rosier for X Premium, as Appfigures’ estimates point out that in-app buy income progress jumped 30% from Q2 to Q3 after staying comparatively flat within the prior interval.
There are different in-app purchases out there past X Premium to contemplate, like these for subscriptions to high creators on the platform. Elon Musk himself has a big following, as an illustration. Fortune reported final yr that Musk was the most-followed person with 155 million followers, of which over 40,000 had been subscribers — or .025% of his followers had subscribed. At present, Musk has 200 million followers. Assuming roughly the identical share had been subscribed, that may work out to round 50,000 subscribers. At $4 per thirty days for the subscription, that may pull in round $200,000 per thirty days in gross income.
One other person with a big subscription base is @stevewilldoit, as he follows anybody who subscribes to him. He presently follows 10.4K folks on X. If three-fourths had been subscribed, that may equal round 7.8K subscribers paying $5 per thirty days, bringing in gross earnings of $39K/month earlier than X’s minimize is eliminated.
Although tough estimates, these further figures are additionally necessary as a result of they’re part of X’s plan to develop its person base by way of creator content material.
Final week, the corporate introduced it might start to pay creators primarily based on engagement they obtain from X’s Premium subscribers, as an alternative of a minimize of advert income — a change clearly meant to spice up X subscribers. On the one hand, provided that X had diminished the advert load for Premium+ subscribers to zero, this might open up extra potentialities for creators to become profitable. However paying for engagement additionally usually incentivizes clickbait or controversial content material, designed to get replies.
Regardless, Bloomberg reported earlier this yr that X generated $1.48 billion in whole income throughout the first 6 months of 2024, in accordance with monetary paperwork shared with regulators. In different phrases, subscriptions are nonetheless a really small piece of X’s pie.
The introduction of the brand new program {followed} strikes from X that alienated some advertisers, akin to suing a bunch over their advert boycott and CEO Elon Musk telling advertisers to “go f— yourself.” The corporate has since been making an attempt to make amends, just lately forging a deal to convey Unilever again into the fold.
