• by Colin Kirkland , October 6, 2023

Elon Musk’s Twitter-replacement X is testing three premium subscription tiers –– Basic, Standard, and Plus –– based on how many ads users will see on the platform. X CEO Linda Yaccarino discussed the company's strategy in a briefing to X debt holders on Thursday, citing revenue growth as the key inspiration for the new offerings.

According to a tweet by @aaronp613, the X app's code references Premium Basic, with full ads, Premium Standard, which would take the place of the current $7.99-per-month Premium plan with half the ads, and Premium Plus, which for a higher price offers users a full ad-free experience.

It is unclear when these advertising tiers will become available to the public, or how much they will cost. However, the test marks another step in Musk's push for subscription-based revenue streams, despite the company's major loss in advertising dollars since Musk's takeover last fall.

This week, it was reported that the app is showing a 60% year-over-year decline in its share of U.S. ad revenue as of August.

Bloomberg, which originally reported on the breakdown of X’s premium plan, noted that Yaccarino told the debt holders that advertisers were returning to X but with smaller budgets. In addition, the CEO stated that the company would be positive in cash-flow if it didn't owe $13 billion in debt.

Musk introduced the half-ads offering to premium subscribers in April shortly after the billionaire began demanding that all advertisers on the platform obtain verification, forcing already-verified businesses to pay an extra $1,000 per month for gold checkmarks.

Around that time, data from Sensor Tower suggested that less than 1% of the social network's monthly users were subscribed to the premium offering.

One reason the company may be testing a lower-priced subscription tier in hopes that more users desire verification, though it is't yet clear whether these new subscription tiers would grant buyers verification.