Meta Offers Free Verified Badges to Select Creators in Strategic Outreach Push

Adshine.pro07/08/20258 views
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Meta has begun offering free Meta Verified subscriptions to select creators, a move that’s unlikely to inspire overwhelming confidence in the organic uptake of its paid verification offering.


Meta Verified offer

In recent weeks, Meta has been reaching out to various users—particularly creators—offering them a complimentary one-year subscription to Meta Verified. As shared by creator @ayfondo on Threads and reposted by social media analyst Matt Navarra, Meta is pitching the trial as a “reward” for “valued creators,” encouraging them to sample the benefits of its subscription model.


Meta Verified promises a suite of enhanced tools, including identity verification, increased account protection, priority customer support, and new profile customizations, capped off with the once-coveted blue checkmark. On paper, it’s a compelling package—particularly for creators looking to build and safeguard their presence. But the fact that Meta is now giving it away, even temporarily, raises an obvious question: Is demand as strong as Meta had hoped?


The move follows in the footsteps of X (formerly Twitter), which was the first major platform to commercialize verification. While these subscription tiers do provide new revenue streams, they also fundamentally shift the meaning of the verification badge itself. Where the blue checkmark once represented notability, it now signifies payment. In the process, the checkmark’s original value—as a symbol of public interest and institutional credibility—has been diluted.


And yet, for Meta and other platforms, this shift is generating meaningful revenue. While Meta has not released official subscriber figures, some rough math gives us a glimpse into performance. Meta’s “Other” revenue category (excluding Reality Labs) has increased by approximately $280 million per quarter since Meta Verified launched in Q2 2023. Assuming a monthly subscription fee of $13, that suggests roughly 7.2 million active subscriptions—amounting to less than 1% of Meta’s sprawling user base across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.


That number aligns with the subscription uptake seen across the broader social media landscape. Paid verification, for all the noise, remains a niche product, popular among a small fraction of users seeking elevated support or visibility.


Still, a few hundred million dollars in added quarterly revenue is hardly insignificant—especially for a product that didn’t exist until two years ago. And with the infrastructure already built, it’s low-hanging fruit for monetization.


So what’s the endgame in gifting subscriptions to creators? Most likely, it’s about visibility. If users see respected or influential creators using Meta Verified—complete with enhanced visuals and elevated platform presence—it may help normalize the offering and increase uptake, especially among aspiring influencers or brands.


Whether that gambit pays off remains to be seen. But Meta seems content to sacrifice some of the badge’s former prestige in exchange for subscription income, betting that what the checkmark lacks in exclusivity, it can make up for in scalability.


In the end, the initiative speaks less to the allure of verification and more to Meta’s growing emphasis on recurring revenue—an increasingly common theme across the social media landscape. And for now, that’s enough to keep the experiment going.


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