Telegram founder Pavel Durov has announced that a premium subscription plan will be launching for the platform soon, officially confirming earlier rumours and leaks surrounding it. Appropriately named as Telegram Premium, the new subscription will offer users with exclusive features and benefits, among other things.
Durov explained that its users have been asking Telegram to raise its current limits on chats, media and file uploads, but doing so will cause several issues. These include an influx of traffic on its servers, resulting in increased costs beyond what the company could afford. Both he and Telegram concluded that the only solution was to provide the platform’s “most demanding fans” to offer these extra additions as subscription-based benefits in order to keep things more manageable.
#Telegram Premium users will receive a badge ⭐ which will be shown to other users in the chat list 👀 pic.twitter.com/vTMDRRjeYK
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) May 1, 2022
The founder also assured that all existing features will still be available to the public, and that there will be no shortage of new free features to be introduced. In addition, despite that larger-sized documents, media and even stickers will be exclusive to paid members, free users wouldn’t have an issue in viewing or receiving them.
Though Durov did not go into detail regarding the benefits that come with the upcoming Telegram Premium subscription, he did hint that paid users will be entitled to exclusive features, faster speeds and more resources, such as the aforementioned ability to send larger files. On the unofficial side of things, reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi reports that exclusives may potentially include premium stickers, additional reactions, a verified badge, and more. Meanwhile, tech publication Beebom adds that Premium subscribers will have the capability to upload files up to 4GB in size, enjoy an ad-free experience, and join double the number of channels on Telegram when compared to free users.
For now, it is not known how much Telegram will charge users for its subscription, though rumour has it that pricing is expected to be around US$ 5 (~RM 22) a month. As to when, Durov did not provide a specific date but says that Telegram Premium will launch sometime this month.
(Source: Pavel Durov [official Telegram channel])
