X (formerly Twitter) is raising the price of its premium subscription in several markets including India, the microblogging platform has announced. Its top-tier subscription, which is X Premium+, has been revised and the US is one of the markets hit the hardest by this change where the price of the subscription has gone up by almost 40 percent. The social media platform cites several reasons for this decision, including a “completely” ad-free experience and other new features.
X Premium+ Price Hike
In a blog post, X detailed the price revision of its Premium+ subscription. New subscribers will have to pay the revised prices starting the day of their subscription, while existing users whose billing cycle starts before January 21, 2025, will be charged at their current rate. If not, the price revision will be applicable in the first billing cycle after that date. The platform says that price hikes will vary, depending on the region, applicable taxes, and payment methods.
In the US, X Premium+ subscription was previously listed at $16 (roughly Rs. 1,360) for the monthly plan (when signing up from a web interface) and the annual subscription was priced at $168 (roughly Rs. 14,000). Following the price revision, it will now cost $22 (roughly Rs. 1,900) monthly and $ 229 (roughly Rs. 19,000) annually.
On the other hand, the top-tier plan was priced at Rs. 1,300 a month or Rs. 13,600 for a year in India. It has been revised to Rs. 1,750 for the monthly plan and Rs. 18,300 for the yearly subscription. Notably, all the subscription prices are considerably higher when signing up from the X app on Android and iOS devices.
The price hike also impacts other markets such as Canada, the EU, Nigeria, and Turkey.
Why the Change
Elon Musk’s microblogging platform cites several reasons behind the price revision. It emphasises that the X Premium+ subscription is now completely ad-free. Further, it is bringing higher priority support and access to cutting-edge Grok AI models. X also introduces Radar — a new search tool which enables users to monitor keywords, visualise the trends with daily activity graphs, and get stats on post counts from queries.
X Premium+ also fuels the creator programme which ties earnings to the overall value that they bring to X, not impressions of ads. The revised pricing of the subscription is claimed to reflect these new changes.