Elon Musk's Twitter Subscriptions overshadow struggling Twitter Blue

The recent removal of verified blue checkmarks for celebrities, pro athletes, and media figures on Twitter has had little impact on paid subscriptions. While many users did receive free Twitter Blue subscriptions, the move by Twitter owner Elon Musk aimed to incentivize users towards subscribing to the $8 (or $11 on mobile) service, which is now the only means of obtaining a verified badge on one's profile.

As of the end of April, approximately 619,858 Twitter users had subscribed to Twitter Blue, generating around $5 million per month or $60 million per year.

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The source of these Twitter Blue subscriber estimates is developer and researcher Travis Brown, who has been tracking Twitter Blue subscriptions since early this year. Brown's methodology for tracking these subscriptions is estimated to pull in approximately 90% of all Twitter Blue users, based on previous internal leaks from the company.

As of April 30, Brown estimates that the total number of Twitter Blue subscribers falls between 640,000 and 680,000.

To provide a comparison, Snapchat launched a premium paid subscription service in June of last year and reached 1 million paying subscribers within two months. Musk's version of Twitter Blue, on the other hand, launched in November, and as of mid-April, Snapchat reported that its Snapchat+ premium service now has over 3 million paying subscribers.

The latest estimates of Twitter Blue subscribers, which include around 9,000 Twitter users with over 1 million followers who were given a complimentary subscription to Twitter Blue, also encompass users who canceled their subscription in the past but still appear as paid subscribers due to a reported glitch.

When factoring in these free subscriptions, the net growth of Twitter Blue subscribers remains consistent with previous weeks. Despite the removal of Twitter's legacy verified users, the push towards Twitter Blue did not result in a significant increase in subscriptions for Musk.

Before the removal of the legacy verified checkmarks, there were around 420,000 legacy verified Twitter accounts under the old verification system that was discontinued by Musk. Only about 19,183 of these users had subscribed to Twitter Blue by April 19, the day before the scheduled removal of the checkmarks, while approximately 600,000 to 635,000 users were subscribed to Twitter Blue at that time.

Between April 19 and midday on April 20, an additional 300 legacy verified users subscribed to Twitter Blue, bringing the total to approximately 19,469 verified legacy users subscribed to the service when the checkmarks were removed. Of note, three celebrity accounts, including LeBron James, Stephen King, and William Shatner, received a gifted Blue subscription from Musk himself.

After the removal of the legacy verified checkmarks, the question remained as to how many of these users would be compelled to purchase a checkmark now that they no longer had one.

Between April 20 and the morning of April 21, 314 legacy verified users subscribed to Twitter Blue, but almost the same number unsubscribed or lost their checkmark pending verification. As a result, the net total of new legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers was only 28 the morning after the checkmark removals.

On April 22, something strange happened. Elon Musk decided to troll a few users who were tweeting about the #BlockTheBlue campaign by giving them checkmarks. This included the well-known Twitter user @dril as well as the writer of this article. However, Musk didn't stop there. He also gave out "complimentary" Twitter Blue subscriptions to nearly every user on the platform who had more than 1 million followers, whether they wanted one or not.

As a result, the number of legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers surged from around 20,257 on the morning of April 22 to 34,969 just a week later. In fact, the number of free Twitter Blue checkmarks given out was equal to roughly half of all new subscribers in the same week as the removal of verified legacy checkmarks. When cancellations and removals of Twitter Blue checkmarks are taken into account, there were more free Twitter Blue subscriptions handed out that week than the net total gain of subscribers (12,010).

It's important to note a few things about the estimates regarding Twitter Blue subscribers. While the latest data provided by Travis Brown, a developer and researcher who has been tracking Twitter Blue subscriptions since early this year, is considered accurate, it's worth keeping in mind that his methodology only captures around 85 to 90 percent of Twitter Blue subscribers. However, Brown has indicated that his latest numbers are likely to be more than 90 percent accurate due to a new additional dataset he acquired.

Additionally, there is a known issue where former Twitter Blue subscribers, including those who canceled their subscriptions months ago, still appear in Twitter's API as paying subscribers. Some of these users still have the Twitter Blue verification checkmark on their profiles even though their subscription has lapsed. Since the API doesn't differentiate these users from paying subscribers, they are included in the Twitter Blue subscription data.

Taking into account the glitch where former Twitter Blue subscribers still appear as paying subscribers and the free subscriptions given out, the actual number of paying subscribers for Twitter Blue is likely smaller than the total number of subscribers reported in our data.

To recap the numbers: before the removal of legacy verified checkmarks on April 20, there were 19,469 legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers. After the removals, only 28 new legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers were gained. Prior to Musk's gifting of "complimentary" subscriptions, the number of previously legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers was around 20,257.

The total number of Twitter Blue subscribers who were previously legacy verified is now estimated to be around 34,969, with approximately 9,000 to 12,000 of those being gifted for free by Musk.

As Twitter Blue continues to struggle, Musk has been promoting a new subscription-related feature on Twitter called Subscriptions. He stated that approximately 25,000 users pay him $4 per month directly through this feature to access exclusive tweets and other paywalled Twitter content. However, it remains uncertain how this feature is benefiting other creators who are not Musk.