Twitter plans to charge business accounts $1,000 a month for gold badges, says report

Twitter is planning to charge businesses $1,000 per month for the verification of their brand, as per a report by New York Post. The company aims to generate revenue from its services that were previously free. The high cost for the verification badges, which were introduced by Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, was reported by social media consultant Matt Navarra who saw internal company documents. Affiliated business accounts would have to pay an extra $50 per month, however, the pricing structure is still not final.

Twitter is reportedly emailing businesses offering gold check mark verification for $1000 PER MONTH!

And affiliate account verification for $50 each per month pic.twitter.com/hohTPKLKdi

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) February 3, 2023

Twitter has also started a program where regular users can pay $8 a month to have a blue verification checkmark, which was previously only available to famous people, politicians, and journalists. Most people are aware of this new scheme, however, the decision to charge businesses $1,000 is more recent. Businesses which refuse to pay the amount will lose their golden tick. What's the downside? Well, it may leave brands vulnerable to impersonation.

The golden tick is an important marker that lets people on Twitter know that the account truly belongs to the brand. Government officials, however, are verified with a free grey checkmark. This move to make money comes after the site's advertising revenue dropped 35% in the last quarter of 2022 due to advertisers leaving after Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition. 

Twitter vs Facebook

In its entire history, Twitter has seldom been a profitable company. Twitter has never succeded in generating the amount of ad revenue from its platform that Facebook has been able to. Twitter also has a very limited user base. Musk has decided to shift the company away from the ad revenue model to the subscription model. As of now, it isn't clear if he will be able to make Twitter a profitable company. 

Recently, Musk replied to a tweet regarding an article about him, saying that the last three months were extremely tough as he "had to save Twitter from bankruptcy" while also seeing through important Tesla and SpaceX duties. He added that he did not wish "that pain on anyone". He replied to an article by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) titled 'When Does Elon Musk Sleep? Billionaire Speaks of Limits to Fixing Twitter and His Back Pain'.

“I had trouble sleeping last night, so unfortunately, I’m not at my best,” the billionaire entrepreneur had recently told a lawyer during a trial in San Francisco, reported WSJ.