TL;DR
- Telegram Premium will come as a paid service in June 2022.
- The paid tier offers higher usage limits and additional features.
- Existing Telegram features remain free.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov has revealed the company’s intent to add a premium subscription service, building on the platform’s already impressive feature list.
Telegram is a leading messaging platform with an emphasis on privacy and security. It competes in the same space as WhatsApp and Signal, but is distinguished by the sheer number of features it includes and the generous usage limits. According to Durov, the company plans to expand its features and limits even more, albeit at a price.
Durov says the biggest challenge in adding extra features and increasing usage limits even more is finding a way to do it without infrastructure costs going through the roof. With a paid subscription service, the fees collected will help the company offset its costs while reducing the overall demand for the increased usage limits to only those customers who are willing to pay for the premium service.
Read more: The best encrypted private messenger apps for Android
In a bit of good news for users, Durov says the app’s existing features will remain free and the company plans to continue adding additional features to the free service. All users will also benefit from some of the work that goes to the paid edition.
“In addition, even users who do not subscribe to Telegram Premium can enjoy some of the benefits: for example, they can view oversized documents, media, and stickers sent by Premium users, or tap to add Premium responses already pinned to a post to respond in the same way” Durov explains.