Meta launches Meta One subscriptions to charge for heavy AI use

Meta has launched its new "Meta One" subscription bundles globally, putting a clear price tag on heavy use of its artificial intelligence tools across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The move, which targets individual power users, creators, and businesses, represents Meta’s latest push to directly monetise its massive investments in generative AI. It comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg publicly threw his weight behind safety evaluators over any industry-wide slowdown of AI development, arguing that testing systems is a better approach than pausing progress.

What are the new subscription tiers?

For individual users, the company is offering two tiers: Core at $7.99 a month and Premium at $19.99 a month. Both packages bundle Meta's existing standalone social subscriptions—Facebook Plus, Instagram Plus, and WhatsApp Plus—which would otherwise cost $11 a month separately. The main draw, however, is expanded access to Meta's "Muse" image and video generation models, alongside in-app creative features like Instagram's AI-powered Restyle tool. Meta has declined to specify exact usage limits, noting they will vary by country and system conditions.

For creators and businesses, the subscriptions scale from $14.99 a month for an "Essential" plan up to $499 a month for the "Max" tier. The mid-range "Advanced" tier starts at $49.99 a month and allows businesses to schedule stories up to 30 days in advance, insert links into organic posts and reels, and grant team access without sharing passwords. These higher-end tiers also offer business-centric features like impersonation monitoring, verified badges, higher search visibility, and increased message capacity for Meta's automated Business Agent on WhatsApp.

Why is Meta charging for AI?

The launch follows a dramatic spike in Meta's subscription revenue. According to data from market intelligence firm Appfigures, Instagram's daily global revenue jumped to an average of $1.2 million during the week of September 9, while Facebook's climbed to $528,000—increases of 475% and 143% respectively from the prior week. Financial analysts are predicting massive gains; BNP Paribas estimates Meta's subscription efforts could add $13.5 billion in revenue by 2028, and Truist projects that figure could reach $20 billion by 2030.

This subscription push is designed to help Meta claw back its heavy capital expenditure. In 2025, the tech giant poured $14.3 billion into startup Scale AI, whose chief executive Alexandr Wang was brought in to lead Meta's AI efforts. While the core experience of Meta AI and its social apps remains free, the company is betting that heavy users will pay a premium to bypass standard usage caps.

Zuckerberg favours evaluators over slowdowns

As Meta rolls out these paid tiers, Mark Zuckerberg has positioned the company against those calling for a pause on advanced AI development. Zuckerberg stated he favours deploying rigorous safety evaluators to test models for risk, rather than slowing down the pace of technological development. The strategy aligns with Meta's open-source push, where the company releases its underlying models to the public but seeks to monetise access and compute-heavy features via consumer-facing tiers.