Weeks after relaunching Twitter Blue for $8 a month, Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced another “higher priced” subscription is in the works that will be entirely ad-free. He didn’t share any details about how much the ad-free plan would cost, when it would launch, or whether the developers who will actually build the new plan knew anything about it prior to his tweet.
In addition to the new Twitter Blue with “zero ads,” Musk also admitted that ads on Twitter are “too frequent” and “too big.” He said that the team is taking steps to address both issues in the coming weeks. This will be a welcome change for users, as the platform has been inundated with ads in recent weeks as the company attempts to reverse its recent financial struggles.
Twitter Blue received a significant reworking after Musk acquired the company. The paid monthly subscription service now costs $8 on the web or $11 if you subscribe on iOS or Android. You can also pay $84 a year for the service to save a few bucks.
The refreshed Twitter Blue includes a blue checkmark, bookmark folders, custom app icons, app themes, a customizable navigation bar, and the ability to undo tweets. We can likely assume that the ad-free Twitter Blue plan will include all of the same features, but given that Twitter no longer has a communications team, we won’t know until it actually rolls out.
Notably, when Twitter announced the $8 plan, the company promised it would show subscribers “50% fewer ads than non-verified people,” but that feature has yet to be implemented. As a result, current subscribers are seeing just as many ads as anyone else.
Previously, it was easy enough to avoid the ads on Twitter by using a third-party client such as Twitterific or Tweetbot. That’s no longer possible after Twitter effectively banned third-party apps by cutting off their access to the platform’s API.
