Snap is working on a paid subscription called Snapchat Plus

Would you subscribe to Snap? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Snap is doing internal tests of a paid subscription called Snapchat Plus, which will apparently give users early access to features, as well as other abilities. In a statement to The Verge, Snap spokesperson Liz Markman said:

We’re doing early internal testing of Snapchat Plus, a new subscription service for Snapchatters. We’re excited about the potential to share exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features with our subscribers, and learn more about how we can best serve our community.

According to screenshots and information posted to Twitter by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, Snap is also testing other features for Snapchat Plus, including the ability to pin one of your friends as your “#1 BFF” (which sounds like a recipe for drama — MySpace made it the top eight for a reason), change the Snapchat icon, and see who rewatches your stories. Paluzzi also shows that the price for Snapchat Plus is currently listed as 4.59 Euros a month and 45.99 Euros a year (around $4.84 and 48.50, respectively). Of course, at this stage those may just be placeholder prices.

Snap is far from the only social network or messaging platform that’s working on a paid tier — Telegram has confirmed that it’s working on a premium subscription as well, due out later this month, and Twitter launched its Blue service late last year.

In the wake of Apple’s introducing a privacy feature for advertisements with iOS 14.5, allowing users to turn off ad tracking on an app-by-app basis, many free apps have had to reconsider how they make money. Snapchat in particular cited changes to iOS as a reason for missed revenue targets and has said it will slow down hiring this year.