Just a couple months old, Snapchat’s lenses have proven to be a hit with users. Augmenting people’s pictures and videos in the oddest ways, a “Puking Rainbows” lens dilates a user’s eyes to the size of large saucers, and then spews glittery rainbow vomit from their mouth.
Presently, Snapchat only releases lenses for a short period time before replacing them with a fresh batch. Now, however, users can pay for the privilege of using a lens indefinitely.
Thanks to the popularity of lenses and other content-editing tools, Snapchat is reportedly clocking 6 billion video views a day, which represents a 300% increase since May. Those numbers aren’t far off from the 8 billion daily video views that Facebook presently sees across mobile and desktop.
The numbers are even more impressive when you consider that Snapchat claims around 100 million daily active users, which is less than a tenth of Facebook’s 1.01 billion daily active users.
Snapchat also recently debuted "Speed Modifiers," which users can use to post videos in slow-motion, fast-forward or reverse.
As part of its broader business strategy, Snapchat is also reportedly in the process of selling its lenses to select sponsors. As sources recently told the Financial Times, the social network could soon charge up to $750,000 for a brand to reach its entire audience of roughly 100 million users on a “peak day” like Halloween or the Super Bowl, and closer to $450,000 on average days.