Instagram officially launched its new Instagram Plus add-on subscription package late last week, which includes a range of features designed to enhance the IG experience.
The initial Instagram Plus package is priced at $3.99 per month in the U.S. and includes 11 add-ons that offer varying functionality.
As explained by Instagram: “Instagram Plus offers exclusive features to help you express yourself, connect deeper with friends, and customize your experience in new ways. The Instagram you know and love today isn't changing and will always be free; this new subscription is simply an optional upgrade for people who want more control, deeper insights, and premium features.”
So what exactly does $4 bucks get users?
Instagram Plus currently includes:
- Story Spotlight – Story Spotlight ensures that a user’s story is displayed first in the Stories tray for their followers. The feature can be used once a week to give Stories a boost.
- Super Hearts – New animated hearts which “burst across the screen to celebrate stories from friends,” per Instagram.
- Multiple Story Audiences – Create unlimited audience lists for Stories, beyond Close Friends.
- Story Extend – Subscribers will be able to extend the life of their Story by 24 hours to maximize reach.
- Story Preview – Subscribers will be able to view other people’s Stories without the creator knowing that they’ve looked at it.
- Story Rewatch Insights – Subscribers will be able to see how many times their Stories were rewatched.
- Search Viewer List – The capacity to search the Stories viewer list to see if a specific person checked out a Story.
- Custom App Icon – Alternate IG app icons, including a selection of options designed by Instagram and Instagram creators.
- Custom Bio Font – The option to use a different font in the profile bio section “to match your style,” per Instagram.
- More Profile Pins – Subscribers will be able to pin up to 6 posts to their profile grid.
- Post Directly to Profile – Subscribers will be able to post to their profile or highlights without it appearing in their followers' feeds.
So that’s the current Instagram Plus package. IG also said it will be looking to add more features to the offering over the coming months.
Like other subscription tools, those will probably include experimental features, with subscribers to get first access as Instagram’s team assesses whether any new offerings would be of value to all users.
So is it worth it? Should users be paying $3.99 per month, or $47.88 per year, to get a few extra features to enhance your IG experience?
Well, a lot of these are minor updates that won’t have a big impact.
New fonts for bios, Super Hearts and custom icons don’t really add much to the user experience. Meanwhile, most of the other tools will have niche value, but aren’t really necessary, nor overly beneficial in a broader sense.
Story Spotlight seems flawed, in that if lots of people buy Instagram Plus subscriptions and use this, there’s no way for Instagram to ensure that each user gets prime placement. The feature also won’t matter much if the Story content itself isn’t engaging.
Stories lists could be of benefit if users want to segment their audiences into different groups while extending Story life. This could be useful, if the Story is actually good. But in that case, it will reach more people anyway, because IG’s algorithm will note engagement and ensure relative placement in front of more followers.
The additional analytics are probably interesting, but not hugely actionable, and pinning more posts is a thing, presumably.
Overall, these aren’t major additions and they don’t offer major value. Then again, Instagram likely can’t add anything that significantly alters the experience for paying users, due to the risk of alienating its audience by creating a rich and poor user experience.
Meta makes 98% of its revenue from ads, and that is only possible because of its audience reach and user engagement. It’s not going to risk cannibalizing that with an add-on feature that’s only going to be taken up by a small percentage of users. Historically, the take-up of these kinds of add-on subscriptions has been very low.
Only around 4.5% of YouTube’s user base pays for YouTube Premium, fewer than 1% of X users pay for X Premium and around 2.6% of Snapchat users pay for Snapchat+.
There’s nothing to suggest that Meta’s add-ons are going to see much better take-up, though even at those numbers, considering Instagram has more than a billion users, that would still form a significant additional revenue stream for the business.
It’s just not going to be a large-scale rollout. Instead, it’s a niche offering that maybe around 2% of IG users will find interesting.
So if this doesn’t feel particularly enticing, that’s not surprising. However, for a few people, this will be something they pay for, and they’ll swear it’s incredibly valuable, and that everyone should take it up.
But it’s not a necessity, and it never will be, because Meta’s interest lies in scale, and it’s not going to risk upsetting the balance by adding hugely valuable paid features.
It’s a bonus offering and a ploy to drag in a few more dollars as it continues to spend big on AI development.
Indeed, Meta is now cutting costs, assessing its capacity, and looking for reductions wherever it can as it continues to sink more into the AI money pit.
And given the changing public sentiment, as well as a more practical assessment of AI tools, that money may never come back. It’s likely Meta will be looking for more cost benefit schemes like this as it seeks to rebalance what could end up being a sinking AI ship.
