The popular Telegram messenger will have not only a free but also a premium version, said the founder of the service Pavlo Durov. According to him, the innovation should expand the capabilities of users who will be willing to pay for them, rather than limit the available free features.

“A free app as powerful as Telegram was revolutionary in 2013 and is still unprecedented in 2022. To date, our restrictions on chat, media, and file uploads are second to none. And yet many are asking us to lift the current restrictions even further, so we’ve been looking for ways to let you go beyond what’s already crazy. The problem is that if we removed all restrictions for everyone, the cost of our server and traffic would be unmanageable, so the party, unfortunately, would be over for everyone.

Thinking about it, we realized that the only way to allow our most discerning fans to get more while leaving our existing features free is to make these increased limits paid. So this month we will introduce Telegram Premium, a subscription plan that allows anyone to get additional features, speed, and resources. It will also allow users to support Telegram and join the club, which is the first to receive new features,” writes Durov.

Telegram Premium will allow users to upload larger files, receive exclusive stickers and reactions, not see ads in channels, have more folders in the chat, as well as subscriptions in channels and supergroups.

Users who do not subscribe to Telegram Premium will also be able to enjoy some of its benefits: view extremely large documents, media, and stickers sent by Premium users, and use Premium responses already added to the message to respond in the same way.

According to Durov, despite the successful launch of advertising in channels, he believes that Telegram should be funded primarily by its users, not advertisers. The founder of the service has not announced the full list of benefits of the premium version, as well as when users will be able to try it. In addition, its value is still unknown. Earlier it was reported that Telegram Premium will cost $4.99 per month.