Instagram introduces ‘Subscriptions’ to help creators earn recurring monthly income

At the start of the year, Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram had notified users through a video message that the platform looks forward to fccus primarily on the creator clout and build features that help them grow on Instagram. In a recent development, the photo sharing app has introduced the newest monetization feature: Instagra Subscriptions for creators.

As mentioned in the company’s official blog, creators inspire people around the world with their talents and push culture forward every day. Meta strongly believes in enabling creators to make a living through our platforms and have built a suite of tools to allow them to do that. By helping them get support from their audience, partner with brands, and earn money from advertising or bonuses directly from Instagram and Facebook.

Introducing Instagram Subscriptions

In 2020, Facebook launched Subscriptions, which has helped creators build sustainable businesses powered by the support of their communities. Based on strong creator feedback, it now brings this business model to creators on Instagram.

On the launch of Subscriptions, Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram says, “At the start of the year, we had stated that we we are going to build primarily for teens and creators. Subscriptions are one of the best ways to have a predictable income- a way that it’s not attached to how much reach you get on any given post- which is inevitably going to go up and down over time. So this first version is a test here in the US, relatively small number of creators and three major integrations”.

With Instagram Subscriptions, creators can develop deeper connections with their most engaged followers and grow their recurring monthly income by giving subscribers access to exclusive content and benefits, all within the same platform where they interact with them already.

It is beginning to test subscriptions with a handful of creators who will be able to set a monthly price of their choice, unlock a “subscribe” button on their profile and offer the following benefits to their subscribers:

Subscriber Lives: Creators can broadcast exclusive Lives to their subscribers, allowing them to engage more deeply.

Subscriber Stories: Creators can create stories just for their subscribers, allowing them to share exclusive content and to use interactive story stickers with their most engaged followers only.

Subscriber Badges: Creators will see a subscriber badge next to comments and messages so they can easily identify their subscribers.

While the feature will only be available to a limited number of U.S. creators during this initial test, Instagram has plans to expand access to more creators over the next few months. If you want to see Subscriptions in action, you can follow and subscribe to these creators: Alan Chikin Chow, Sedona Prince, Aliza like Ibiza, Kelsey Cook, Elliott Norris,

Jordan Chiles, Jack Jerry , bunnymichael, Don Allen Stevenson III, Lonnie IIV.

Earlier this year, the company had shared that Meta would not collect any fees from creators on Facebook Subscriptions purchases until 2023 at the earliest, and this will also apply to Instagram Subscriptions. Additionally, Instagram hopes to build the tools to allow them to also directly connect with their audience off-platform in the future.

“Now over time we hope to expand these features because its imprtant that the subscriptions are integrated throughout the entire Instagram experience. We also believe that creators should own their relationship with their subscribers. So, we are working on ways that creators can take the subscriber list and bring them off of Instagram to other apps and websites built by other companies, Mosseri concludes.