Twitter is rebranding Super Follows to Subscriptions

Twitter is rebranding its “Super Follows” feature, which lets you subscribe to individual users to get access to some exclusive content, to just “Subscriptions.” Twitter owner Elon Musk promoted the feature on Thursday, noting that you can find it in the “Monetization” section of settings.

Super Follows were first announced in February 2021, and as far as we can tell, the rebranded Subscriptions have many of the same features. With Subscriptions, you can charge users so they can get access to things like exclusive tweets, subscriber-only Spaces, and special subscriber badges. Down the line, Twitter says that it hopes to include “newsletters and other Twitter features as potential bonus content.”

That line about newsletters makes this Subscriptions push seem like a direct shot against newsletter platform Substack, which announced its own Twitter-like “Notes” feature last week. Shortly after, Twitter throttled Substack links and even limited engagement with Substack’s Twitter account, though those restrictions have been walked back. (It’s also incredibly funny to see Twitter talking about the possibility of newsletters when it shut down its own Revue newsletter tool just three months ago.) 

A few of us here at The Verge appear to be able to apply to use Subscriptions — if we tweeted more. We found initial details by clicking the three dots menu, then the “Professional Tools” dropdown, and then “Monetization.” From there, there was a box for “Subscriptions” that briefly describes what’s available via subscriptions, lets you see how much you might make per month, and lets you check your eligibility for the feature.

That Subscriptions menu also lets you check your eligibility to offer subscriptions. Part of the requirements include having at least 500 followers, posted 25 tweets in the past 30 days, or be at least 18 years old. The company lists a more extensive set of requirements on a support page, including that you need to have at least 10,000 active followers to qualify.

You can offer monthly subscriptions at $2.99, $4.99, or $9.99, according to Twitter. While you can only start selling subscriptions if you’re a creator in the US, users in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia can currently purchase subscriptions on iOS, Android, and Twitter’s website. You can’t view subscriber-only content from the web, however.

Twitter says creators can earn up to 97 percent of revenue if they make under $50,000 in lifetime earnings. That switches to up to 80 percent once a creator’s earnings exceed that amount. According to Musk, Twitter won’t keep any of the money creators earn through subscriptions for the next 12 months.

It’s not that surprising that Musk has decided to roll out what largely seems like a Super Follows re-skin since that’s probably a lot simpler than following through on the promises he’s made to creators in the past. In February, he originally stated that Twitter would start sharing ad revenue with creators for ads that show up in their reply threads, which still doesn’t appear to have happened. He’s also hinted at establishing a creator fund as well as providing them with “higher compensation” for written and video content.