Telegram has gained over 700 million monthly active users and is launching a new premium tier with extra features, as the messaging app continues in its efforts to monetize a significant portion of its considerable user base. The company did not say how much it is charging for premium tier, but the price of the monthly subscription seems to be in the range between $4.99 to $6.
The premium tier adds a range of additional and improved features to the messaging app, which topped 500 million monthly active users in January 2021. Telegram Premium enables users to send files as large as 4 GB (up from 2 GB) and supports faster downloads, for instance, Telegram said.
The paid users will be able to follow up to 1,000 channels, as against the 500 that the free users would get, and also be able to create up to 20 chat folders, each of which may hold up to 200 chats. Also, users who have a Telegram Premium will be able to add up to four accounts in the application and pin up to 10 chats.
The move is Dubai-headquartered firm's effort to keep its development "driven primarily by its users, not advertisers," it said. It is the first time an instant messaging app with hundreds of millions of users has introduced a premium tier. Some of Telegram's top rivals do not offer a premium tier, including Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple's Messages and Google's Messages.
Earlier this month, Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov said the move to roll out a premium tier was made in response to the growing demands of users for increased storage/bandwidth.
"In the end, we gave it some thought, and we realized that only in this way we'll allow our most demanding fans to get more while keeping existing features free," he added.
Earlier, a few analysts had also expected Telegram to somehow monetize the platform using the blockchain token project. After a series of delays and regulatory troubles, Telegram reported in 2020 that it had abandoned the project, and offered to return to investors $1.2 billion it had raised in investment.
In March 2021, Telegram raised over $1 billion from a number of investors including Mubadala and Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners by selling 5-year pre-IPO convertible bonds.
"Today is an important day in the history of Telegram — marking not only a new milestone but also the beginning of Telegram's sustainable monetization," the firm said in a blog post Sunday.
The premium version is sold at $6 for iPhone users in India. A Spain-based technology commentator, Alex Barredo, has reported that the monthly fee has been quoted as €5.49 ($5.77). A spokesperson for Telegram did not return a request for comment.
Premium users will also be able to convert voice messages into texts, get exclusive stickers and reactions, and use animated pictures as their profile photos. They will also be offered a no-ads experience. (In some markets, sponsored messages are shown in large, public one-to-many channels.)
Durov has promised all existing free features in the application free in the future, and will also continue building new features for the non-paying crowd.
On Sunday, the firm stated that it is rolling out a feature called join requests which will enable all its users to join a public group without an invite link. Yet another new feature from free users will make the verification groups and channels allowed to show their badge atop of the chat. Lastly, the new update supports animations rendered at 120 frames per second for new iPads and iPhones.
This update includes over 100 fixes and optimizations to the mobile and desktop apps — eliminating bugs, improving speed and expanding minor features," Telegram said.
In a note to clients in May this year, analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein reported that Telegram was getting "increasingly competitive" with its features. "While WhatsApp and Messenger still comprise the majority of messaging app downloads in our selected group, Telegram has taken significant share from both apps, especially Messenger," they wrote.