After much anticipation, Telegram LLC launched Telegram Premium today. The launch came along with the announcement of the app touching the milestone of 700 million monthly active users.
Telegram Premium is a subscription-based service where users can get access to exclusive features apart from basic features.
According to Telegram LLC, the rollout of Telegram Premium will ensure that the app does not get flooded with ads. Providing premium services will enable the company to research and develop more on the existing instant messaging app. All this with the support of users.
Even though there hasn’t been any official information from the tech giant regarding the pricing of the premium services, it is expected to be between $5 and $6 per month.
What makes Telegram Premium services different?
According to reports, a new tier of services can enable users to send files as large as 4 GB. The maximum file size in the basic platform was 2 GB.
The new service can also support faster downloads. It also enables users to create 20 chat folders with 200 chats in each. Users can also follow up to 1000 channels, which were earlier 500Â channels in the basic tier.
Earlier, the user could have pinned up to 5 chats on top of the chat box. Now, premium users can pin up to 10 chats. This pinning-up feature was one of the most famous and efficient features of the Telegram app.
Other premium features
Paid users can now convert voice messages into texts. Some exclusive stickers, reactions and animated pictures for profile picture are available for paid users now. Telegram also informed that premium users would not encounter any forms or kinds of ads in any feature of the app.
New features for basic tier users
The instant messaging app on Sunday also rolled out a few new features for basic plan users.
A new feature named join requests cam enables users to join a public group without the need for an invitation link. The performed badge can now be presented at top of chats for groups and channels which are verified.
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Earlier, Telegram cofounder Pavel Durov informed app users that the main features of the app will remain free for users. The company will also continue developing new features for non-paid users.
Chief Executive Durov revealed that he has been thinking of ways to keep telegram free of ads, but at the same time provide new features. One solution which came to him was to offer a few exclusive services to exclusive users who will pray regularly for those services.
The most interesting part of the launch is that Telegram is the first instant messaging app with hundreds of millions of users to roll out premium services. Other apps such as Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger etc haven’t launched premium services for users.