Instagram is working on Stories that only paying users can see

Instagram appears to be working on Exclusive Stories, which will allow popular users to share stories with only users who pay them. The feature is similar to Twitter’s Super Follow, which allows users to pay other users to see protected tweets.

The feature first came out via messages from reverse engineer Alessandro Peluzzi. He found the feature in the code of the Instagram app and posted screenshots of what the unannounced feature will look like. Instagram tells Techcrunch that it cannot provide more details at the moment and only wants to talk about it later. The social medium thus implicitly confirms the existence of Exclusive Stories.

The intention is that users can subscribe to popular users and accounts. Without that subscription you can see that there are Exclusive Stories, but the content is invisible. With a subscription, the content can be seen, but screenshots are not possible.

The move should be part of a strategy by Facebook subsidiary Instagram, which will allow popular users and accounts to monetize the platform in multiple ways. That includes better support for merchandising offerings and ways to share ad revenue on Instagram TV and Reels.

Instagram isn’t the only one working on that. Twitter has Super Follow, which allows popular twitterers to earn money by charging subscription fees from other users. Until now, creators on social media mainly made money from sponsorship and advertising collaborations.