After nearly a year of rumors and hints — not to mention a pricing leak earlier this week — Twitter has finally announced a paid tier for anyone who just can’t get enough of their feed. It’s coming to Canada and Australia first, with a couple of long-requested power features locked behind a monthly subscription.
The big addition here is the ability to undo tweets before sending. Although it’s not exactly editable tweets — the feature that everyone really wants — it does allow for easy revisions to your posts before going live. With Undo Tweets, you can preview your tweet without having to share it publicly. It’ll prevent your friends from dunking on avoidable mistakes, but you’ll have to decide if it’s worth a monthly charge.
Twitter Blue also includes Bookmark Folders for organizing your saved tweets into categories and a new Reader Mode that converts threads into an article-esque layout. In addition, the site is promising customizable icons for your phone’s home screen, color themes for the app itself, and a dedicated customer support line with expedited responses. Considering the state of abuse on Twitter on any given day, that’s an odd perk to build into a premium service instead of, you know, improving the standard reporting function for everyone.
Not included — at least for now — is any sign of Scroll, the publishing subscription service Twitter picked up last month. It’s likely too soon for any kind of integration, especially with such a limited launch. The announcement also doesn’t mention any sort of ad removal, so don’t expect to see fewer promoted tweets after signing up.
If you’re in Canada or Australia, you can try out Twitter Blue for $3.49 CAD or $4.49 AUD. These prices are right around the leaked $2.99 USD price tag, so expect to see similar costs once the service comes to more countries. It’s just one more method for monetization Twitter is testing this year, following Tip Jar and Super Follows.
