Data Shows That X Premium Take-Up is Growing

While it still looks like X’s attempt to get people to pay to use the app will never actually grow into a significant source of revenue for the company, there are some signs that its X Premium push is slowly driving more subscriptions.

Well, at least one of his initiatives was successful.

On the eve of Christmas, which coincides with Black Friday, X has launched an offer of 40% off X Premiumwhich included unavoidable full-screen in-app promotions.

Which was annoying, but according to the app analytics provider AppFiguresthis led to a significant increase in X Premium subscriptions.

According to AppFigures:

“We’ve checked X’s income every month since Twitter Blue came out, but this check is far the biggest jump. Appfigures estimates X’s November net income at $16.5 million. That’s what Elon gets to keep after giving away his stake to Apple and Google. That’s the biggest month of revenue for the platform and 27% higher than October, which was the biggest month before.“

So big discounts, as well as the addition of options for gift X Premium to othersX increased its number of subscribers in November, while AppFigures further notes that it has remained higher than usual since then.

Part of that jump also occurred in October, which can also be attributed to Elon’s higher profile ahead of the US election. And these gains are probably also related to Trump’s election victory, and with $16.5 million in one month, at an average cost of about $11 per subscription, this could indicate a significant shift in the numbers for X’s user base. element that pays.

For context, back in October, AppFigures reported that X was bringing it around $14.7 million per month through in-app purchases on mobile devices. Conducted the analysis TechCrunch suggests that this probably equates to around 1.4 million paying users for X Premium, which is less than 1% of the total X user base.

An additional $1.8 million in Premium listings could mean another 200,000 users signing up. Which would mean that while X’s paid user cohort is still relatively low, in terms of the overall percentage of users it is growing, and the platform could now have around 2 million paying users, which would be a significant milestone for the app.

AX is definitely doing everything it can to boost those numbers, with Grok promos popping up wherever it can stick them, along with updated icons for your AI chatbot.

Grok was originally only available to paying users, but it is now available to all X users in limited formthough X still hopes to attract more Premium subscribers by enticing them with access to Grok’s full feature set.

Add to this the fact that X owner Elon Musk is now encouraging users to switch their replies to posts to “verified users only”, which he himself is has now doneand it is clear that X is still hoping to increase its revenue stream through its X Premium offering.

Although it’s still a pretty niche, pretty limited offering, especially for most X users.

From the start, Elon Musk’s plan to get more people to pay to use the app was flawed because of the value that X and Musk himself placed on elements of the app.

The big lure of X Premium when Musk originally took over the app (when it was still known as “Twitter Blue”) was check boxesand Musk claims that selling the platform’s much-vaunted badges would eliminate that “master and peasant system” brought by the former management of Twitter.

What is not, and Musk was immediately shown the error in this approach, when users started buying ticks and impersonating professional and celebrity accounts.

This forced Musk and Co. to withdraw the option, before relaunch it a month laterwith blue ticks still the biggest element of focus for the offer.

But the ticks were only valuable because they were elusive, and the fact that anyone can now buy them undermines the very value you’re trying to point out. Add to this the fact that many elements, such as reply boosts, only apply to people who post on the app, which is only part of X usersand it was pretty clear that Elon and his team had misinterpreted the potential value of X Premium and that his plans to replace the need for advertiser dollars with direct subscriptions would never work as he had hoped.

In Elon’s original business plan for Twitter/X, after taking over the app, he stated that he would quickly recoup user subscriptions about 50% of the application’s total incomeand that by the end of this year (2025) some 69 million people would pay for X Premium.

I guess it’s still possible, but with 2 million subscribers now, they’ve got quite a bit of work to do, while X’s ad revenue is estimated to top $2 billion for the full year, a far cry from the less than $200 million that’s likely earn from paying a monthly subscription.

So while demand for X Premium is growing, it’s still moving slowly and I don’t see Grok being a major draw to attract more people, at least not as much as X itself thinks it is.

However, X has some valuable offers within its subscription package.

His improved analytical tools are definitely of value to social media managers, while access to its revised version of TweetDeck (now called “X Pro”) is also a valuable addition.

It’s just that X itself isn’t as valuable to brands and influencers as it once was, which means offers like this are generally given less consideration.

Maybe there’s some new Grok update that will make it a more valuable proposition, or maybe X still has some tricks up its sleeve to drive Premium downloads. However, this remains less important for most users of the application.

And unless X becomes more valuable overall, I don’t see X Premium becoming a bigger deal.