Twitter today announced its Twitter Blue subscription option is relaunching Monday for $8/month on the web and $11/month through its iOS app. The higher price on iOS helps to offset the 15% to 30% cut that Apple receives from subscriptions paid through the App Store — a fee that Twitter owner Elon Musk has criticized as being too high.
Twitter Blue subscribers will receive a blue checkmark next to their name, but only after they verify their phone number and their account has been reviewed. Other perks include the ability to edit tweets and upload higher-resolution 1080p videos, and Reader Mode for easily reading tweet threads. Subscribers who change their username, display name, or profile photo will temporarily lose the blue checkmark until their account is reviewed again.
Twitter paused new Blue subscriptions last month after accounts with blue checkmarks were used to impersonate businesses, celebrities, and other high-profile individuals. The only requirement to get a blue checkmark was to spend $8.
Twitter also announced that it will begin replacing the "Official" label for brands and other notable accounts with a gold checkmark for businesses, while a gray checkmark for government and multilateral accounts will begin rolling out later in the week.
An image shared by Twitter shows that Blue subscribers will also eventually see 50% fewer ads than non-subscribers, gain the ability to post longer videos, have prioritized tweets in the replies section, mentions, and search, and get early access to other new features over time. All of these perks are listed as "coming soon."
Twitter has not indicated when accounts that were previously verified without subscribing to Blue will lose their blue checkmark.
