Telegram To Bring Premium Features To Power Users This Month

Just last month, premium features—including reaction emojis and stickers—appeared in Telegram’s latest beta, leading industry insiders to believe the messaging app could soon launch a paid tier for power users.

Now, the app’s founder has confirmed that a subscription plan, dubbed Telegram Premium, will be launched by the end of the month. 

While not much is known about what the premium service will entail, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said that the plan will include extra features, faster speeds, and more resources, with subscribers entitled to first access to the app’s latest functions. 

Following controversial changes in WhatsApp’s privacy policy, Telegram has been growing as one of the more popular messaging alternatives, especially since it also allows users to send uncompressed files and media uploads. 

However, unrelenting requests for the app to increase its file size limits isn’t possible due to the insurmountable traffic and server costs, with a premium plan for “most demanding fans” being a middle-ground solution the company chose to go with. 

Beebom reported that with the introduction of the subscription service, premium members will be allowed to upload files up to 4GB in size, access voice-to-text conversion, upload animated profile pictures, and more. It also purported that the paid tier will cost US$5 per month. 

According to Engadget, despite the launch of the premium tier, non-paying users need not worry, as the service is still working on new free features.

Plus, even if you don’t subscribe to the paid features, you’ll still be able to view them, such as larger-than-usual documents, media, and stickers sent by paying subscribers. 

Excited for the forthcoming features? Time to ready your wallets to add yet another subscription to the list.

[via Beebom and Engadget, cover image via Boumenjapet | Dreamstime.com]