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Twitter Blue relaunch: how much the subscription costs on the web, iOS and Android

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Twitter Blue relaunch: how much the subscription costs on the web, iOS and Android

It’ll be cheaper to sign up on the web – if it launches today

Wes Davis
Dec 12, 2022
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Twitter Blue relaunch: how much the subscription costs on the web, iOS and Android

www.theshortcut.com
Three checkmark logos - a blue, a yellow, a gray, against a background full of Twitter logos
Image credit: Wes Davis / The Shortcut

➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Blue is back

  • ✅ Twitter blue check marks return today; 8/mo on the web, 11/mo on iOS

  • 🔜 Soon: Gold checks for businesses, gray for gov’t and “multilateral” accounts

  • ☎️ Subscribers will need to provide a phone number

  • 🔍 Display name changes of subscribers will trigger re-verification

  • ❌ Signups aren’t available as of this writing

  • 🤖 Android users will have to pay the $8/mo via the web

Twitter Blue returns today – over the weekend, Twitter said it will be here “on Monday.” The subscription verification service, we’re told, will initially enable 1080p video uploads, the ability to edit a tweet, reader mode and, of course, a blue checkmark. This comes over a month after its troubled November launch saw users – including some high-profile celebrities – taking advantage of the rushed feature to impersonate other people of note, including the Elon Musk.

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The launch was quickly scuttled, and has since been delayed several times, while the company works out an implementation that doesn’t enable imposters. A 90-day wait before new accounts can subscribe, a requirement for subscribers to provide a phone number, and removal of the verified badge, pending re-verification, if the account’s display name is changed are the fixes the company has come up with so far.

Other changes will include Twitter beginning replacement of the “official” label with a gold checkmark for businesses and, later this week, a gray one for “government and multilateral accounts.” Twitter user NIH Llamas quickly pointed out that the use of color to convey meaning – particularly blue and yellow combinations – is problematic for those with color blindness or color deficient vision.

As observed in Forbes, we have no clues about how the company plans to approach actual verification – will it be automated, or will Twitter manually verify accounts as it did before? Given an account’s display name change will purportedly trigger re-verification, my guess would be Twitter is returning to verification by a human, but we’ll have to wait and see. 

Different strokes (subscription fees) for different folks (iOS users)

When the feature launches, there will be a cost differential depending on how you sign up. Those who sign up via the website will pay $8 per month, while iOS users will pay $11 per month to shore up Twitter’s revenue after paying Apple’s 30% cut. At the moment, Android users will have to pay for Twitter Blue through the web to get the features.

Sign-ups to the subscription service don’t appear to be available, as of this writing.

Clicking the “Twitter Blue” link on the website only gave me an overlay with a list of features that are “coming soon,” including preferential visibility on the platform, half the ads of non-subscribers (before November 1, subscribers enjoyed an ad-free experience), and the ability to post longer videos. At the bottom, a message states “You can only subscribe on the Twitter iOS app (for now),” but if there’s a way to do so, I couldn’t find it.

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Twitter Blue relaunch: how much the subscription costs on the web, iOS and Android

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