Twitter has finally started to roll out Super Follow, a long-awaited feature that allows creators to charge for exclusive content not available to ordinary followers.
Creators can charge $2.99, $4.99, or $9.99 a month for access to the special content.
Bonus material can range from subscriber-only videos and newsletters to special deals and discounts.
First teased at an investor presentation in February, Super Follow is only available on Twitter’s iOS app in the US and Canada, and only to users 18 and older with at least 10,000 followers who have tweeted at least 25 times in the past 30 days.
Super Follow creators, currently just a small test group whose applications were accepted, are identified with a badge that appears under their name when they reply to tweets.
To subscribe, tap the Super Follow button on an account’s profile to see a description of their offerings and pricing, then tap again to sign up via in-app payment.
Supper Follow will be available on iOS in more countries in the coming weeks on Android and the web at some point after that.
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Twitter’s Super Follow feature allows creators to charge followers for exclusive content at several different monthly subscription rates
At the February announcement event, product lead Kayvon Beykpour said the fee scale and content would be ‘highly customizable based on the creator.’
‘They can directly monetize from the audience they’ve already built on Twitter,’ he added.
Users interested in getting the Super Follows feature can apply to join the waitlist on the Twitter app’s monetization tab, according to Twitter’s Super Follows policy page.
After third-party fees, creators can earn up to 97 percent of subscription revenue up to a lifetime earnings cap of $50,000, according to The Verge. After that, they can earn up to 80 percent of what they make from subscribers.
Super Follows are currently only available through the Twitter iOS app in the US. A select group of testers currently have the capability to use it, though users over 18 with more than 10,000 followers can get on the waitlist
Super Follows is one of several ways Twitter is looking to monetize its platform as a subscription model and reduce its dependence on ad revenue.
The company projected revenue goals for 2023 at more than $7.5 billion, more than double its 2020 revenue of $3.7 billion.
In May, it rolled out Tip Jar, a new in-app payment feature that allows users pay their favorite tweeters. Currently Twitter doesn’t take any portion of those tips, but that could change.
Tech blogger Jane Manchun Wong broke the news in March that Twitter has been testing a ‘undo send’ feature that could be a perk for paid members in a proposed subscription model
In March, the company confirmed it has been testing a paid ‘undo send’ feature that would give users five seconds to retract a tweet before its posted.
Last summer, Twitter surveyed users about features they felt were worth an extra fee: In addition to the ‘undo send’ button, options included the ability to write auto-responses, create custom stickers, recruit for jobs, assign user roles, and make longer and higher-resolution videos.
Another new product, Twitter Spaces, is a Clubhouse competitor that lets users participate in audio chats.
It is currently in private beta testing, which means it’s not yet available to the general Twitter audience.
Super Follow’s arrival comes just weeks after the similarly modeled platform OnlyFans announced on August 19 that it would soon be prohibiting sexually explicit material, which makes up the bulk of its content.
However, on August 25, the company reversed that decision and dropped its controversial ban.
In May, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley predicted ‘Twitter’s new combo of tips and uncropped photos has completely eliminated the need for my personal OnlyFans account’
Some critics have warned that Twitter, which doesn’t censor images or video and allows users to post pornography, is setting itself up to be the next OnlyFans.
‘Twitter’s new combo of tips and uncropped photos has completely eliminated the need for my personal OnlyFans account,’ tweeted YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley in May.
