Instagram rolled out a test run of a paid subscription feature with a small group of US creators on Wednesday, January 19.

The model will allow users to pay for exclusive content on Instagram Live and Stories, reported the Hollywood Reporter. 

The subscription model has eight monthly price options to choose between $0.99 to $99.99 for exclusive content. The social media giant would not be taking a revenue cut for the same at least until 2023, post which Meta – Instagram’s parent company – is expected to start collecting fees from creators.

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“With Instagram Subscriptions, creators can develop deeper connections with their most engaged followers and grow their recurring monthly income by giving subscribers access to exclusive content and benefits, all within the same platform where they interact with them already”, the company wrote in a blog post. 

The group of creators included in the test run include @alanchikinchow, @sedona._, @alizakelly, @kelseylynncook, @elliottnorris, @jordanchiles, @jackjerry, @bunnymichael, @donalleniii and @lonnieiiv. Instagram aims to reach more creators over the next few months. 

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The subscriptions will let these content creators host live streams and share stories to only their paid subscribers, who will have purple badges next to their names to indicate their subscriber status to the creator. 

American businessman and the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, shared in a video on Wednesday, “Creators do what they do to make a living, and it’s important that that is predictable. Subscriptions are one of the best ways to have a predictable income — a way that is not attached to how much reach you get on any given post, which is inevitably going to go up and down over time.”

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The subscription model has found support from Patreon, a membership platform through which creators earn monthly income via subscriptions.

Mosseri informed of his intentions to expand the feature in the coming few months and to test if it would be possible for creators to export their subscriber lists to other platforms as well. 

“I’m excited to keep building tools for creators to make a living doing creative work and to put these tools in more creators’ hands soon,” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, wrote in a Facebook post. 

Facebook had launched ‘Subscriptions’ in 2020. 

Meta has not made clear the revenue percentage it will take after 2023, but Zuckerberg had earlier said it will be less than 30%, reported Hollywood Reporter.