Facebook, Instagram could have 12 million paying subscribers by early 2024: Bank of America

The new verified subscription service by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instragram, could land nearly 12 million subscribers by 2024, according to a Bank of America (BoFA) research note published Tuesday (21 February).

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the subscription service in an Instagram post over the weekend, pitching it as a way to increase "authenticity and security across our services."

The service, which starts at $11.99 per month, offers a verification badge and identity monitoring features and related tools. It is currently being tested in Australia and New Zealand, reports CNBC.

BoFA analysts described Meta's subscription service as catering to influencers and creators as opposed to consumers, and noted that businesses will eventually be able to sign up as well.

The subscription service could be attractive to influencers because it could "help them increase visibility and reach with a badge and potentially higher positioning in search and content results," they added. 

Considering the subscription services costs $11.99 a month, the BoFA analysts said that Meta could generate $1.7 billion "in high-margin revenue in 2024."

"Given a broader audience reach and bigger revenue opportunity for creators, we believe Meta could outperform the subscriber ramp (as a percent of users) of peer subscription offerings (the service will likely be refined and improved over time)," the BoFA research note said.

Meta's testing of a new subscription service follows the debut of Twitter's Blue subscription service in December, which costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for people who purchase it via Apple App's Store. The service has nearly 300,000 worldwide subscribers, according to a report by the tech news website The Information.

Snap Inc also has a subscription service called Snapchat+, which the social messaging service debuted in June with a price of $3.99 a month. The company said in late January during its latest earnings report that Snapchat+ now has over 2 million users.