Power users seem more than willing to pay for AI-powered effects.
More than 30 million power users pay for one of Snap’s subscription plans, including Snapchat+ and its ad-free “Platinum” tier. The company announced the milestone as part of its third-quarter earnings, saying its non-advertising “other” revenue grew 84 percent compared to last year.
Snap introduced Snapchat +, which offers users bonus features such as the ability to see which friends rewatched your story, in 2022. Since then, the company has added Lens +, a subscription for AI-powered AR effects; Platinum, which eliminates advertising; and paid storage for the app’s memory feature.
The company didn’t share a breakdown of subscribers across all plans, but noted that Lens+ “has grown nearly 600% since January 2026.” This growth suggests at least some of Snapchat’s users are particularly excited about the app’s AI-powered features, such as its AI photo editing feature called AI Photoshoot. “AI-powered features helped Lens+ exceed our expectations, demonstrating how new creative experiences can drive demand for our paid products,” CEO Evan Spiegel said during the company’s earnings call.
While Snap isn’t as associated with AI as some of its social media peers, it’s notable that AI has helped it drive paid subscribers. X revealed earlier this year that it had about 6.3 million paid subscribers across X Premium and Grok.
Subscriptions were a blessing for Snap. Spiegel said that advertising revenue is growing “below our ambitions” and that the company has only added 2 million new daily users since the last quarter. Snap said it would focus on reporting monthly active users instead of daily users, starting in 2027. Snapchat currently has 977 million monthly users.
The company also warned that its legal challenges and “intensified regulatory scrutiny on youth issues” could affect its prospects. The company is dealing with multiple lawsuits over alleged security issues and prosecutors have pressured Snap to adopt additional security features after Meta’s high-profile settlement.