Twitter is opening applications to test Ticketed Spaces and Super Follows

Twitter is opening applications for a limited test of its Super Follows and Ticketed Spaces features. US-based users can apply separately for each program through Twitter’s mobile app; Super Follows are restricted to iOS, while Ticketed Spaces are available on iOS and Android.

Twitter will select a “small group” of users to test its new monetization features, both of which were announced earlier this year. The Super Follows feature lets users charge $2.99, $4.99, or $9.99 per month for access to exclusive content. Ticketed Spaces lets them charge between $1 and $999 for access to one of Twitter’s social audio rooms, and it offers extra features like setting a room size cap. Users can see if they’re eligible to apply by checking a new “Monetization” option in the mobile app sidebar.

Image: Twitter

Test group participants will initially keep 97 percent of the money they make with Ticketed Spaces or Super Follows, after the fee that iOS and Android charge for in-app purchases. Twitter will increase its cut from 3 percent to 20 percent if a user makes a total of $50,000 on both systems.

That early, far more generous revenue split has been added since a preview of Ticketed Spaces last month. Today, senior product manager Esther Crawford tweeted that “we want to ensure that emerging voices are able to earn money, which is why they’ll be eligible to earn a larger share starting out. … Earning $50K+ from Super Follows and Ticketed Spaces shows that you’re getting value from these features and that they’re helping you make real .”

Twitter’s 20 percent commission is lower than that of some subscription platforms. Amazon-owned video service Twitch takes a 50 percent cut from subscriptions, and YouTube charges 30 percent of membership fees. The fee is also commensurate with OnlyFans’ 20 percent. But it’s substantially higher than the 10 percent commission from newsletter platform Substack or the 5 percent base rate of membership platform Patreon, although both those services require additional payment processing fees. While Facebook introduced a subscription service in 2018, it says it won’t take any commission (besides Apple and Google’s in-app purchase costs) until 2023.