Meta’s head of product Naomi Gleit announced on May 27 that the company will begin testing paid subscription tiers for its Meta AI chatbot, marking the first time consumers will be charged directly for expanded access to the assistant. Two tiers, Meta One Plus at $7.99 a month and Meta One Premium at $19.99 a month, will be offered in Singapore, Guatemala and Bolivia starting in June, according to reports from Bloomberg, TechCrunch, CNBC and The Information that cited a Meta spokesperson.
The test arrives just weeks after Meta raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $125–145 billion, intensifying investor focus on how the company will monetize its artificial-intelligence investments. Advertising remains the dominant revenue engine, generating $55.0 billion out of Meta’s total $56.3 billion in first-quarter sales. The subscription test, while limited to three small markets, adds a new revenue line alongside that business, though Bloomberg noted the move could be seen as a way to offset spending, a claim Meta has not made.
The paid AI tiers are part of a broader subscription push announced by Gleit. Instagram Plus, Facebook Plus and WhatsApp Plus—priced at $3.99, $3.99 and $2.99 a month—are rolling out globally and, along with future plans for creators and businesses, will sit under the new “Meta One” umbrella. For Meta AI, the free version will continue to be available for casual use; paying subscribers gain access to higher-compute queries, deeper reasoning and expanded image and video generation across Meta’s apps.
Meta’s non-advertising revenue streams remain modest. In the first quarter, “Family of Apps other revenue” was $885 million and Reality Labs contributed $402 million. The company has provided no revenue forecast for the AI subscription tests, making it impossible to gauge their effect on the consolidated top line.
The pricing pitches Meta One Plus well below the standard $20-a-month charged by OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus, Anthropic’s Claude Pro and Microsoft’s Copilot Pro, while the Premium tier matches that level. Google has also been reported to offer an AI Pro plan at $19.99 a month. Meta’s distribution advantage—its apps are used by billions—is significant, but user willingness to pay for a chatbot that is currently free remains unproven.
This is not Meta’s first subscription product: it already sells Meta Verified badges and ad-free plans in the European Union. Nor is the AI subscription concept a surprise; CNBC reported in February 2025 that the company planned a paid AI service. The timing, naming and test markets are the new details.
Meta has not disclosed an exact June start date, usage caps or the precise functional boundaries between the two paid tiers. A standalone pricing page for the AI subscriptions did not appear on Meta’s website by the time of the announcement, leaving the media reports as the primary source for details. The company also has not indicated how it will report subscription revenue in future filings.
For Meta, the test is a small but concrete step toward charging directly for AI, even as advertising continues to fund the overwhelming majority of its operations. The move signals to investors that the company is exploring ways to generate returns from the billions it is pouring into infrastructure, but the near-term financial impact will be negligible.