Telegram will add a paid revenue model during 2021 but will remain free for the regular user

Telegram app (Photo: Ronen Mendzicki, Gadget)

A new update coming from Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, which owns the popular messaging service of the same name, shows that while the service is approaching 500 million active users worldwide, the company is expected to move to a new revenue model to fund the cost. His growing every year. Dorov notes that the company is considering adding paid features for advanced and business users and a dedicated advertising platform of the service itself.

The Telegram app, which competes with Facebook’s Whatsapp, has managed to maintain a free model and free use since it launched in 2013 until today. As Dorov points out in a post on his personal telegram channel, with the continued growth rate of the service, which will soon reach half a billion users, the company is expected to add a revenue model to fund the high cost of servers, he says, so far Dorov has funded himself. The service will remain completely free for the regular user.

Dorov points out that in light of the fact that he has no intention of selling the company (unlike WhatsApp) in order to make money, the only way to continue offering it to users is to add paid features, or add advertisements, in order to generate revenue for the company. While Dorov pledges that Telegram does not plan to disappear any time soon, it will add a revenue model as early as 2021, when it pledges to do so in a way that will not interfere with the day-to-day use of the service.

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According to the post, all the features currently available for free will remain free in the future as well, but the company will add a number of premium features for a fee for business users and advanced users (Power Users). An example of this might be more advanced management tools for groups and channels in the Telegram, which are currently forced to use independent development or third-party tools for a fee for day-to-day management.

While the company is not expected to incorporate advertisements in chat windows or group channels, it appears that they will still be integrated into the service in some way, similar to what is done on other media platforms such as Twitter, using an independent advertising platform that ensures it is not too intrusive and annoying for users. The new option will allow Telegram to generate revenue for both the channel owners themselves and premium content creators for services, such as paid stickers.

All that is left to do at this point is to wait and see when and how the company will integrate paid advertisements and features into the popular Telegram app.