Here’s what you actually get for your money with a Meta One subscription

Meta recently announced its launch into subscriptions, as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram now have a Plus tier. In addition to this, the company has started testing a solution for Meta AI users, including businesses and creators, under the Meta One brand. According to Naomi Gleit, the company’s product manager, Meta One will give users the ability to ask more complex questions, have more space to work with the company’s AI, and interact with its artificial intelligence products using phones, computers, or Meta AR glasses.

Currently, the company is testing two plans in Singapore, Guatemala and Bolivia, Meta One Plus, available for $7.99/month, and Meta One Premium for $19.99/month. Although they have the same basic features, the Premium plan adds more complex models, like a Deep Thinking mode, in addition to an expanded range of AI video and image generation capabilities on Meta apps.

In addition to this, the company offers two other packages for creators and businesses in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Thailand and Bangladesh. With the Meta One Essential plan, which costs $14.99/month, users get the Verified badge, protection against identity thieves, and the ability to connect to more online platforms. With the Meta One Advanced plan, which costs $49.99/month, users benefit from algorithm priority and more chances for people to interact with their brand. Read on for more details on each subscription tier, but the bottom line is that most users operating within the Meta ecosystem will likely be fine without them for now.

Currently, Meta is still testing its four different plans in select markets. If you use Meta AI on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and more, you can still continue using it, but if you become a hardcore user, you may need to consider subscribing to Meta’s One platform to gain access to improved templates and a larger number of tokens.

The second test subscription focused on creators and businesses seems more interesting for those who want to improve their online presence and avoid identity thieves. For $49.99/month, they’ll get a big “Follow” button, their posts will appear above other people’s feeds, and they can make sure their brand is seen by more people. That said, it’s unclear at this time whether Meta will start reducing the reach of other businesses and creators in order to force them to opt for a subscription. While none of these tiers are ridiculously expensive, they could also become a barrier for those who are about to try to build an online career as a creator, but don’t have the money to commit to these added perks.

In these cases, the new Meta Plus subscriptions might start to make more sense, since they’re cheaper and can help users get the most out of Meta’s popular apps like Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

Instagram and Facebook Plus cost $3.99/month and WhatsApp Plus costs $2.99/month. With the Facebook and Instagram versions, users get deeper access to Story views, the ability to create different close friends-style lists, highlight content, extend a story for more than 24 hours, and much more. While this doesn’t offer a Verified badge, which Meta still offers as a standalone subscription, in addition to other benefits to protect your account, it could be a great first step for small content creators trying to build their online presence, especially because they can customize their profile bio, app icons, add additional profile pins, and more.

For WhatsApp, Meta follows what Telegram already does on its platform, like offering more themes, ringtones, the ability to pin more chats, premium stickers, and more. While none of these features are essential even for heavy users of the platform, it’s possible that some features, like pinning more discussions, may be worth it for smaller businesses.

That said, it seems Meta is trying to understand what people might actually want to have and how it can increase their income, as users continue to leave social media apps and try to avoid having their data collected by companies. AI has been a major asset for Meta, and it looks like they’re finally looking to make that effort profitable. However, for most of us, these subscriptions are definitely a pass.