After Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, rebranded it to X, and started tweaking things, we now have paid features on Twitter: Twitter Basic, Premium, and Premium+.
I've been using Premium+ for a couple of months, and in this article, I'm going to show why it might be worth it (or not) for you.
What Features Do You Get with Twitter Premium?
The most important feature is the reply boost. You get more impressions when posting on Twitter. This is crucial if you want to build a personal brand or improve your business's presence. I can assure you that every comment you write under someone's Twitter post becomes at least 5x more "powerful" in the eyes of the algorithm, with Premium+ users having the biggest boosts.
Replying on Twitter is the best strategy if you have fewer than 5,000 subscribers. Sometimes my replies get up to 100K impressions if I comment under a viral post. The competition isn't that impressive there; most people post AI-generated content, so if you've posted a quality, well-thought-out reply, you can be sure you'll get more eyes on you. Combine it with a Premium boost, and you're one of the most successful "reply guys."
The Twitter Checkmark
Most power-users of Twitter have simply started ignoring users without a checkmark. You can't DM them. There's an option in settings that prohibits non-premium users from DMing you, and many people (myself included) are using that. The checkmark gives credibility and signals that the person behind the profile is real. Before, it was a full-on status symbol: only big influencers and celebrities were "checkmarked," but now you can get it with Premium. The habit of thinking that someone is important because they have a checkmark is still strong. Use it to your advantage.
Grok AI
Starting with Premium tier, you get the Grok AI assistant. Personally, I didn't find a lot of value in it, but it's a bonus anyway. Compared to other models like Claude or ChatGPT, Grok is worse. But where it excels is in humor, AI image generation without strict rules (you can generate any celebrity or political figure there), and explaining the meaning behind tweets, which is useful if you're missing context. Grok has Elon Musk's Twitter-shitposting personality: it's not afraid of dark/dank humor and politics and can be a powerful ally in your shitposting endeavors. That is its strong suit.
Other than that, it's pretty average, despite the company having the largest GPU cluster in the world. Maybe with future updates, it will become better than other competing models, but I prefer to converse and program with my favorite - Claude.
Disable ads on Twitter
No ads is a powerful feature, for most of twitter users - may be the last straw when making a decision to buy a Premium. You're 100% curating what you see on the platform, and combined with some third-party extensions (like Control Panel for Twitter), you have control down to every pixel of the screen when scrolling X. I would prefer if Instagram or Google had something like that. Imagine a Chrome+ without ads (damn, a trillion-dollar idea really). With Premium, your ads are reduced by 50%; with Premium+, you don't see them at all.
Longer Posts + Editing
"We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." - Peter Thiel
If you're a content creator and want to write longer pieces of content, I strongly suggest switching to X Premium. Premium+ subscribers can create articles: comprehensive, big posts without using the "thread" strategy.
Additionally, starting with the Basic subscription, you get the "incredible technological opportunity" to edit your posts up to one hour after posting if you've made a mistake or want to add something. On its own, it's a pretty lightweight feature, but Twitter barters with you by adding small bonuses that, while individually non-substantial, compile into a strong selling pitch.
Twitter Premium Pricing
The price depends on your country and the device you're using (if you're subscribing from a personal computer, you get a cheaper rate), but approximately, you can expect these rates:
-Basic: $3/month
-Premium:$8/month
-Premium+: $22/month
If you're subscribing annually, you get a 15% discount.
You can see the difference between tiers below:
X Ad Revenue Sharing Program
This becomes important later in your Twitter career. When you have more than 5 million impressions for the past 3 months and 500 verified (premium) followers, you can get into the Creator Revenue Sharing program. Most people can expect this program to cover their Premium costs, plus a dozen dollars more, but some creators with lots of impressions and engagement can get up to tens of thousands of dollars from ad revenue. "Middle of the pack" gets a couple hundred dollars per month.
In some countries, the Revenue Sharing Program is not yet available, but most countries are already covered, with some exceptions. There's a lot of controversy surrounding this program, with some influencers getting much more than others, but the algorithm is pretty simple: the more Twitter Premium subscribers respond to your content, the better your paycheck from Elon will be.
Is Twitter (X) Premium Worth It?
What I would suggest is to start with Premium, and if you end up liking this product and want a larger reply boost and complete ad removal - switch to Premium+.
X (Formerly Twitter) feels like the only social media platform where you're not a product, but a customer. The move to Premium subscription tiers as a monetization strategy for Twitter might seem controversial and outright bad/evil to some people, but I personally enjoy paying a premium for a better experience.
You can read about the Twitter Revenue Sharing controversy here:
Or you can buy Twitter Premium for yourself here: