After nearly a decade of serving as a digital time capsule for life’s moments, Snapchat is putting a price on its Memories feature. The social media company announced that free access to Memories will now be limited to 5GB of storage. Users whose memories exceed this limit will need to subscribe to one of the new Memories Storage plans.
The introductory storage plan offers up to 100GB of storage for one dollar and ninety-nine cents per month. Snapchat Plus users will receive up to 250GB of storage as part of their three dollar and ninety-nine cent monthly subscription. Snapchat Platinum users will get 5TB of storage with their fifteen dollar and ninety-nine cent monthly subscription.
Snapchat explains that when it first launched Memories, it did not anticipate the feature would grow to its current scale. Users have now saved more than one trillion Memories on the platform.
The company acknowledged that transitioning from a free service to a paid one is never easy. It expressed hope that the value provided by Memories justifies the cost. These changes are intended to allow continued investment in improving Memories for the entire community.
For any Memories that exceed the 5GB limit, Snapchat will provide 12 months of temporary storage. The company notes that users can download Memories directly to their personal devices. If a user is over the limit and does not sign up for a plan, their oldest Snaps will be preserved, while the most recent ones over the storage limit will be deleted.
Snapchat states this change will not affect the majority of its users, as most have under 5GB of Memories. The new policy will primarily impact those with thousands of saved Snaps.
This decision to introduce paid storage allows Snapchat to manage growing infrastructure costs and monetize users with high storage needs, while maintaining free access for the vast majority of its user base.