Musk: Twitter will soon let users set up a paywall per article

In May it will be possible for ‘media publishers’ to set up a paywall per individual article. That writes Twitter CEO Elon Musk. This should become an alternative to Subscriptions. In addition, users pay a monthly fee to read all tweets from an account.

According to Elon Musk users pay a higher price per article than if they took out a monthly subscription. It is still unclear whether the price per article is fixed, or whether users can choose the prices for their own articles, just as users have a say in the price for a Subscription subscription. It is also not entirely clear for which users exactly this option is accessible. Musk specifically mentions “media publishers” in his tweet. Whether that means that other users are not allowed to put individual tweets behind a paywall is not mentioned. The Subscription plan not required that subscription providers are part of a media organization.

In 2021, Twitter already introduced the Super Follows subscription, which allows followers to subscribe to a specific account to read exclusive tweets, among other things. A few weeks ago, that subscription was replaced by Subscriptions, which is largely the same, but according to Twitter in the future also offers the possibility to offer paid newsletters, among other things.

Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per article basis with one click.

This enables users who would not sign up for a monthly subscription to pay a higher per article price for when they want to read an occasional article.…

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2023