Telegram wants to offer users faster speeds, more storage, and ad-free access, among other things. At Rs469 ($6) a month, its premium subscription, launched recently for iPhone users, doesn’t come cheap. Spotify Premium and Apple Music cost Rs119 and Rs99 a month respectively. The pricing for Android phones has not been revealed yet.
Is Telegram Premium worth paying for?
Who would get Telegram Premium?
Primarily, anyone who needs to send and receive large files.
The premium tier enables users to access up to 4GB uploads as against the current 2GB, Telegram announced in a blog post. That’s enough space for four hours of 1080p videos or 18 days of high-quality audio.
It’s not only about uploads getting a boost. The user limit for almost everything in the app is higher with Premium. This includes the ability to follow up to 1,000 channels, create up to 20 chat folders with up to 200 chats each, and even a fourth account.
Besides, voice messages can be transcribed for the times users would rather read a message than listen to it.
Why Telegram is charging users
The London-based instant messaging service says this is “the beginning of Telegram’s sustainable monetisation.”
Premium customers won’t see even the few “privacy conscious” sponsored messages displayed in large public one-to-many channels with over 1,000 subscribers.
A more secure alternative to WhatsApp, it claims to have 700 million users — all organic. “This growth is solely from personal recommendations — Telegram has never paid to advertise its apps,” it said.
Of course, limiting the perks to just paying users is redundant. That’s why non-paying customers aren’t completely shut out of this ecosystem. For example, they can — at no extra cost — download big-size documents and view stickers sent by premium users.