Telegram confirms it will be putting some features in a Premium subscription.
This was disclosed in a post on the platform.
Founder, Pavel Durov, revealed that the messaging service was introducing paid Telegram Premium subscription in June to give users “additional features, speed and resources.”
Durov said users who use free Telegram would continue to enjoy their normal experience and still be able to freely enjoy certain premium features such as viewing large documents, media and stickers for premium users, or add paid reactions if they are pinned to a message.
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Durov’s post stated that in almost nine years of Telegram’s existence, users had had access to more features and resources than any other messaging app.
He said, “The problem here is that if we were to remove all limits for everyone, our server and traffic costs would have become unmanageable, so the party would be, unfortunately, over for everyone.
“After giving it some thought, we realized that the only way to let our most demanding fans get more while keeping our existing features free is to make those raised limits a paid option. That’s why this month we will introduce Telegram Premium, a subscription plan that allows anyone to acquire additional features, speed and resources. It will also allow users to support Telegram and join the club that receives new features first.
“Not to worry though: all existing features remain free, and there are plenty of new free features coming. Moreover, even users who don’t subscribe to Telegram Premium will be able to enjoy some of its benefits: for example, they will be able to view extra-large documents, media and stickers sent by Premium users, or tap to add Premium reactions already pinned to a message to react in the same way.
“While our experiments with privacy-focused ads in public one-to-many channels have been more successful than we expected, I believe that Telegram should be funded primarily by its users, not advertisers. This way our users will always remain our main priority.”
