By Dean Seal and Meghan Bobrowsky
Meta Platforms has started the rollout of subscription plans for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and is testing new subscriptions for users of its AI chatbot as the company seeks to recoup some of the costs from its expensive AI buildout.
A spokeswoman for the company said Wednesday that Facebook Plus and Instagram Plus will be priced at $3.99 per month, while WhatsApp Plus will cost $2.99 a month. The subscriptions to its AI chatbot, called Meta AI, will be priced at $7.99 a month for the basic tier and $19.99 a month for the premium tier.
The new subscription offerings come a week after Meta laid off 10% of its 78,000-person workforce in part to pay for its AI spending. The company plans up to $145 billion in capital spending this year, largely to build out AI data centers and buy chips to fill them.
Investors appeared unhappy with Meta's plans to spend even more money on AI this year when the company announced its first-quarter earnings last month, sending its stock down more than 5% in after-hours trading.
On Wednesday, after Meta announced the subscription plans, its stock closed up 3.7%.
Meta's head of product, Naomi Gleit, said the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp subscriptions would include enhanced features for users and premium tools for businesses and creators.
"These subscription plans offer richer ways to express and connect across our apps with more fun features to be added," Gleit said in a video on Instagram.
Subscription tests will ramp up in the coming weeks, she added, with plans to build out the capabilities for users of Meta AI. While Meta's AI chatbot will remain free to use, subscriptions to it will allow customers to unlock higher usage limits on its new Thinking Mode and video and image generation, the spokeswoman said.
Meta already offers a subscription called Meta Verified aimed at creators and businesses that provides a blue verification check mark and security and customer support features for prices ranging from $14.99 to $499.99 a month.
The company reported $885 million in other revenue, meaning nonadvertising revenue, for the first quarter, which it attributed to subscriptions and WhatsApp paid messaging. Meta made $55 billion in ad revenue in the same quarter.
Write to Dean Seal at dean.seal@wsj.com and Meghan Bobrowsky at meghan.bobrowsky@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 27, 2026 22:16 ET (02:16 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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