X Premium, the subscription offering formerly known as Twitter Blue, is growing at a snail's pace despite Elon Musk's attempt to throw money at creators in an attempt to get people to sign up.
That's according to new figures which suggest that the number of people who have agreed to pay X's $8 per month subscription fee has only grown by a modest amount since July 1.
Ongoing income, via things like X Premium, is key to Musk's attempt to make X more profitable than the Twitter he bought for $44 billion in 2022. But it seems increasingly unlikely that X Premium will be the golden goose he'd been hoping for.
Where are all the subscribers?
Mashable reports on data collected by third-party researcher Travis Brown, with that data suggesting that fewer than 100,000 subscribers joined X Premium between July 1 and August 10.
Brown has been keeping tabs on active subscriptions to X Premium since the rebrand happened, and it won't make for good reading for Musk. X reportedly gained around 16,000 net new subscribers each week over the last six weeks. According to Brown, X Premium only has 827,000 users overall.
This all comes as Musk and X continue to throw money at creators via a new system that sees them earn money based on the ads shown alongside their posts. Creators who want to take part in revenue sharing must pay for X Premium of course, but that doesn't seem to be driving new subscriptions.
"The data suggests that monetization has, thus far, failed to significantly move the needle for X Premium aka Twitter Blue subscribers," the report notes. "Especially when compared to subscription upticks based on Musk's previous moves, such as, ones that make the free version of X worse."
X Premium does offer more features than just revenue sharing for those with huge followings, however. A blue verification badge and the ability to post longer messages are included, as is an option to edit posts after they were posted.
Musk's change of name from Twitter to X continues to come under fire as well, with some arguing that he has ditched one of the world's most recognizable brands for something nondescript.
