Telegram Announces Plan To Introduce Paid ‘Premium’ Subscription With Extra Features

Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed on Friday that the app will offer a Telegram Premium subscription option later this month.

Durov did not go into detail about the plan's exact benefits but assured that it will give paying users additional features, speed, and resources, as well as first access to the app's newest products.

According to Durov, many customers have asked for the service's conversation, media, and file upload restrictions to be increased. However, doing so for everyone would result in tremendous traffic and server expenses that would be unsustainable.

Telegram appears to have concluded that the only way to give its "most demanding fans" more while keeping its existing features free is to charge for the increased restrictions.

Despite having a subscription tier, Telegram's founder assured users in his introduction that new free features will continue to be released.

Furthermore, even free users will be able to take advantage of some of the Premium option's new features, such as the ability to read documents, media, and stickers supplied by paying members at larger-than-usual sizes.

Durov wrapped up his speech by saying: "While our experiments with privacy-focused ads in public one-to-many channels have been more successful than we expected, I believe that Telegram should be funded primarily by its users, not advertisers.

"This way our users will always remain our main priority."