Twitter’s owner Elon Musk has decided to target organizations to save Twitter from drawing financially and he is considering asking organizations to pay $1,000 per month to retain their gold checkmarks, plus an additional $50 monthly for each affiliated sub-account.
In order to maintain the gold check-mark verification badges the company introduced in December, replacing the blue check-marks with gold checkmarks for businesses, according to social media consultant Matt Navarra, who tweeted the details Friday (see below). Tech news site The Information confirmed the details, adding that the pricing “is being finalized and could still change.”
Twitter is reportedly emailing businesses offering gold check mark verification for $1000 PER MONTH!
And affiliate account verification for $50 each per month pic.twitter.com/hohTPKLKdi
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) February 3, 2023
This new and more expensive subscription is the latest of the many steps taken by Elon Musk in an attempt to boost revenue and chip away at Twitter’s $12.5 billion debt. In addition to mass layoffs, Musk started charging users $8 per month for a blue checkmark, and will soon start forcing developers to pay for access to Twitter’s API after unceremoniously kicking their apps off the platform last month.
The $1000 pricing for gold checkmarks status falls under the new Twitter Blue for Business service, which is “a new way for businesses and their affiliates to verify and distinguish themselves on Twitter,” the company announced in December.
Under their primary account, Twitter Blue for Business customers are able to link affiliated individuals, businesses, brands — and even “movie characters” — which will get a small badge of their parent company’s profile picture next to their own blue or gold check mark. Twitter also introduced new square profile pictures for companies and brands, and it has applied gray checkmarks to governmental accounts.
Musk has said that within the next few months, Twitter will discontinue all legacy verified checkmarks so that eventually only paying individual and corporate customers will have verified status. “The way in which [verified check-marks] were given out was corrupt and nonsensical,” he tweeted on Dec. 12.
In closing the $44 billion takeover of Twitter, Musk amassed some $12.5 billion in debt and wants to ramp up subscription revenue to meet those obligations (amid an 80% reduction in Twitter’s headcount). Numerous advertisers halted their spending on Twitter in the wake of Musk’s chaotic takeover in late October.
Last month, hoping to win back marketers who have fled the platform, Twitter announced partnerships with two brand-safety analytics vendors, promising new tools to ensure ad-adjacent tweets aren’t offensive.
Meanwhile, Musk on Friday announced that Twitter would start sharing ad revenue with creators for “ads that appear in their reply threads” starting on Feb. 3. He added that Twitter would split revenue only with creators who subscribe to Twitter Blue but otherwise didn’t provide additional details on how the program is supposed to work, including how much users can expect to be paid.
Twitter Blue, which is for individuals, costs $8 per month purchased on the web and $11 per month through Apple’s iOS. The company relaunched the program in December with new safeguards designed to prevent the deluge of impersonators that flooded Twitter — causing widespread confusion — when Musk first mandated the Twitter Blue revamp a month earlier.
Internal messages viewed by the outlet also reveal that Twitter’s looking to tack on an extra $50 per month charge to add badges to each account affiliated with the business. This aligns with a screenshot posted by social media consultant Matt Navarra, which shows what appears to be an email between Twitter product manager Evan Jones and an unnamed business.
“As an early access subscriber, you’ll get a gold checkmark for your organization and affiliation badges for its associates,” the email reads.
“If you’d like to subscribe, Verified for Organizations is $1,000 per month and $50 per additional affiliated handle per month with one month of free affiliations.”
