Messaging app Telegram will launch a paid subscription plan for its customers this month, founder Pavel Durov mentioned on Friday.

Users who will go for Telegram Premium will get the next restrict for chats, media and file uploads, Durov mentioned in a blogpost.

“The only way to let our most demanding fans get more while keeping our existing features free is to make those raised limits a paid option,” he mentioned.

The app, together with messaging device Signal, have seen a rise in customers following privateness considerations with bigger rival WhatsApp, owned by Meta Platforms. Telegram presently has 500 million month-to-month energetic customers and is without doubt one of the 10 most downloaded apps on the planet, in line with its web site.

Durov mentioned the transfer to supply a paid subscription was to make sure that Telegram stays funded primarily by its customers and never advertisers.

A current report famous that customers downloading the app are presently seeing the tagline—“Telegram will be free forever. No ads. No fees”. However, this might change shortly. In the most recent replace, code for an upcoming model of the Telegram app has been noticed on-line with a special tagline dropping the free slogan. The new strings point out that the corporate is testing one other manner for the app to achieve income.

Noted developer Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) on Twitter steered that Telegram is altering the preliminary tagline of the app to launch its paid model quickly. The new knowledge strings shared by the developer embrace a brand new tagline “Telegram provides free unlimited cloud storage for chats and media.” The screenshot additionally means that there are plans to point out adverts. The Telegram Premium subscription is anticipated to unlock further stickers as effectively.