Meta expands its commitment to subscriptions. After launching independent payment plans for Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp this year, the company has presented Meta One, a service that groups these proposals and adds new payment levels associated, especially, with greater use of its artificial intelligence tools and professional functionalities for creators and companies.
The company assures that Meta One plans are now available globally, although their rollout is gradual and prices and features may vary depending on the region, application and account. In Europe, according to the information provided by Meta, prices start at 2.49 euros per month for individual products, 6.99 euros for packages intended for individuals and 16.99 euros for creators and companies.
The move delves into a significant shift for a company whose consumer business has historically been built around ad-supported free access. Meta assures, however, that the main functions of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, as well as the daily use of Meta AI, will continue to be free. What begins to charge is access to certain additional functions and, especially, more intensive use of AI capabilities that require more processing.
From paying to personalize Instagram to paying to use more AI
Meta One starts with more than 50 functions distributed between Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Meta AI and will later be extended to Edits, the glasses with artificial intelligence and other products from the company. Meta also points out that its different plans already accumulate 15 million subscriptions and trials, counting the deployment carried out so far.
At the most basic level, the subscriptions that Meta has been introducing this year continue. WhatsApp Plus costs 2.49 euros per month, while Instagram Plus and Facebook Plus cost 2.99 euros each.
WhatsApp Plus incorporates options such as exclusive themes and icons, stickers with special effects or the possibility of pinning more conversations. The company also prepares storage for backup copies and so-called concentration schedules, which will allow conversations to be silenced or hidden during specific periods.
Instagram Plus offers, among other possibilities, custom feeds for direct messages and Stories, notifications when certain people view a story, or direct message previews. Facebook Plus, for its part, is incorporating Messenger customization, more information about Reels and new reactions.
Core and Premium bring together the benefits of the three individual subscriptions and expand access to AI tools
The main novelty is, however, in Core and Premium, two plans that combine the advantages of the three individual subscriptions and expand access to AI tools. Core costs 6.99 euros per month and allows you to use Restyle more frequently in Instagram Stories, voice effects and other creative tools, in addition to generating more images and videos with Meta AI using Muse models. Premium amounts to 20.99 euros per month and extends those limits even further.
Meta has not publicly specified a single usage limit for these plans. The company has noted that it may vary depending on the country, product and system conditions.
In its first tests, more than half of the subscribers of the combined packages used both the AI capabilities and the expression and personalization functions. Tools like Restyle and Instagram voice effects are, according to Meta, among the main reasons for hiring.
Up to 549 euros per month for companies and creators
Meta One also establishes a specific structure for professionals. Essential starts at 16.99 euros per month and includes tools to manage digital presence, greater access to Meta Business Agent on WhatsApp, verification badge, a verified channel on WhatsApp Business and protection against identity theft.
Advanced starts at 54.99 euros per month and adds features such as scheduling Stories up to 30 days in advance, introducing links in organic posts and Reels, exporting analytics, accessing more detailed information about the audience or allowing different members of a team to manage an account without sharing the password.
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In the upper echelons are Expert, from 169 euros per month, and Max, from 549 euros, aimed at organizations that need a higher level of access to the tools and more Meta Business Agent capacity.
The company is also working on new capabilities to automate tasks related to marketing, operations, content creation and optimization. Among the upcoming additions will be Edits Plus, which will offer additional cloud storage and greater use of an assistant capable of analyzing Instagram statistics and proposing ideas.
Meta One thus expands the model that the company had begun to build with specific subscriptions for each platform. In April it launched WhatsApp Plus and had also developed Instagram Plus and Facebook Plus, seeking to monetize additional features without closing free access to core services.
The approach is different from the advertising-free subscription that Meta introduced in Europe in response to the community regulatory framework. Meta One is not presented as a payment to remove ads, but rather as an additional layer of features and AI capacity over free applications.
AI drives another revenue model for technology companies
The strategy places Meta within a broader trend by technology companies toward subscription packages. The name Meta One itself is reminiscent of services such as Apple One and Google One, which also group additional features within their respective ecosystems. In the case of Google, artificial intelligence has also been acquiring greater weight within its payment offer.
Meta One is reminiscent of services like Apple One and Google One, which also bundle extra features
The expansion of AI adds a new dimension to this model: certain functions have a computational cost directly related to the intensity of use. Companies can maintain a free tier to encourage adoption and reserve more capacity for customers willing to pay.
In the case of Meta, this route adds to a business that continues to depend mainly on advertising, while the company makes heavy investments in infrastructure and development of artificial intelligence. The new plans could thus contribute to monetize technologies such as its Muse models and diversify the income derived from its large social platforms.
Meta also has a particular advantage to develop this model: it is not only based on an artificial intelligence product, but also on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, applications that are already part of the daily habits of billions of people. Meta One will try to take advantage of that scale by offering small customization improvements at the lower levels, more AI capabilities at the middle, and business tools at the top.
