New Delhi: Snapchat recently announced that there will be significant changes they have made in the application, and to their Snapchat Memories, they are going to place a cap on the once-unlimited features that have stored more than a trillion Snaps since its launch in 2016. The company has now confirmed that users will be limited to 5GB of free storage, after which additional space will require a payment. The shift marks a significant change for those who have long treated Memories as a personal photo archive.
Now, to manage the overflow, Snapchat is rolling out the Memories Storage Plans. The entry-level subscription offers 100GB for the price of $1.99 per month, while the existing Snapchat+ subscribers at $3.99 per month will now see their limit automatically raised to 250GB. Now there is the latest Platinum plan at $15.99 per month, which is going to include a massive 5TB of storage for users unwilling to part with a single Snap. The company also insisted that most of the users will not be affected, with the majority falling well below the 5GB threshold. For those who have already exceeded the limit, Snapchat will be offering a one-year grace period for temporary storage before the plan becomes mandatory.
The move underlines Snap’s efforts to diversify revenue beyond advertising. In August, it is going to introduce Lens+ at $9 per month, offering subscribers exclusive augmented reality effects. The addition of the paid storage places Snapchat alongside the tech giants Google and Apple, both of which have already monetised cloud storage. For those casual users, the change may go unnoticed, but for the heavy users with years’ worth of saved Snaps, the choice is clear: delete old memories, or start paying to preserve them.
