Bluesky Teases Paid Subscription Model with New Mockup of Bluesky+

Bluesky Working on Subscriptions: What We Know So Far

Bluesky, the social networking startup that’s been making waves as a competitor to X, is working on subscriptions. This isn’t a surprise, given that the company announced plans for a new revenue stream based on the subscription model when it raised its $15 million Series A funding in October. Now, mockups teasing the upcoming Bluesky+ subscription, along with a list of possible features, have been published to Bluesky’s GitHub.

The Features

Though Bluesky warns on GitHub that this is just a user interface mockup and that the paid features could very well change ahead of launch, there’s reason to believe that at least some of these are under consideration for Bluesky+. The company has said in a blog post that it would offer premium features like "higher quality video uploads or profile customizations like colors and avatar frames." Both of those features are now included in the user interface mockup of the subscription.

In addition, the placeholder text in the mockup indicates that Bluesky could be considering other paid features, such as:

Custom app icons
A Bluesky+ profile badge
Inline post translations
Post analytics
Bookmark folders

These features could potentially rival those offered by X and Meta’s platforms. Of particular interest is that Bluesky+ could offer verification (profile badges) as part of its subscription. However, the company recently spoke about its plans for verification, which it says will work differently than paid verification on X and Meta’s platforms.

Pricing

The mockup also shows pricing of $8 per month or $72 per year for Bluesky+, but this is not final.

User Reaction

The user interface mockup was spotted by Bluesky user @saeri.xyz, whose post about the finding ended up seeing hundreds of likes, quotes, and reposts on the emerging social network. Bluesky software engineer Dan Abramov responded in the thread to caution Bluesky users that the list of features shown in the UI mockup "doesn’t necessarily match what will be released." He clarified that some of these are likely to make it, but please don’t take this as an actual list of planned features.

Abramov also clarified that the "coming soon" label means nothing, as it’s just a test of the UI treatment for upcoming features. Despite this warning, Bluesky users were eager to discuss the possibilities of a Bluesky subscription, with some criticizing the proposed paid features and others suggesting different features they’d like to see in a subscription.

Other Revenue Streams

Subscriptions aren’t the only model that Bluesky is considering. CEO Jay Graber recently pointed to other efforts, such as selling domain names, a marketplace of algorithms, and even potentially selling ads, as other things the company could consider to help it make money.

Conclusion

Bluesky’s move into subscriptions is an interesting development in the social media landscape. While X has been criticized for its paid features, Bluesky seems to be taking a more cautious approach by including features that are already available on the platform at no cost. However, the company’s plans for verification and other premium features could potentially make it a competitor to X.

It will be interesting to see how this develops in the coming months. In the meantime, we’ll continue to keep an eye on Bluesky’s progress and provide updates as more information becomes available.

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