An in-app subscription appears to the most likely bet
Source: BeReal
Up and coming social media platform BeReal has garnered a decent user base as an app that prioritizes in-the-moment authenticity yet can only be used once a day. While it has ambitions fo continue growing that base, the app also wants to make money off of it. The word’s out there that it’ll do so relatively soon.
The Financial Times (via Mashable) is reporting from sources close to BeReal that while the core functionality of the app — having all of its users take a picture in a two-minute timeframe once a day — remains free to use, extra features could be provided for a subscription fee. Ads, while a possibility down the line, aren’t in favor right now.
Insiders say the company wants to smooth out the base experience as much as possible and will be focused on bug-bashing for the next year prior to any potential launch of a paid tier. With 15 million daily active users cramming photos onto BeReal’s servers almost simultaneously, there’s a lot that needs to reliably go right. The internal goal is to serve “tens of millions of people by the end of the year.”
Competitors including TikTok and Instagram have been integrating features in attempts to ape BeReal’s corner on spontaneity.
If you’re looking for any place you might find BeReal monetizing on, it could be with its Realmoji reactions users can place onto other pictures — messaging app Telegram’s monetization has been focused on feeding emoji-based features including reaction capabilities to its Premium subscribers — or by limiting how much of their historical log users can view. That’s just our speculation at this point, though.
Ultimately, just keep in mind that you might have something in BeReal to pay for in a year’s time.
