It seems like some businesses might not have to pay Twitter $1,000 a month to have the privilege of keeping their verified status and ticks. According to a New York Times report, Twitter is giving a free pass to the 500 advertisers who spend the most on its platform and the top 10,000 organizations by follower count.
The decision comes as Twitter prepares to fundamentally change the way verification works on Twitter. It is said that the old verified program will be discontinued in April and plans for it will be announced Twitter verification for organizations. The latter aims to allow businesses willing to pay $1,000 a month to keep their verification and mark certain accounts as “connected.”
For example, a newsroom like The Verge could screen the journalists that work for them and prove that the person seeking an interview actually works there. (Although, to be clear, Vox Media currently has no plans to do so.) Brands could also use it to verify connected accounts; Twitter is currently doing this with its Twitter support And Twitter Blue accounts.
Businesses that don’t get the free pass could rack up a large Twitter bill
However, this feature does not come cheap. In addition to the $1,000 per month verification for organizations, you must also pay $50 per month for each connected account. The price could add up quickly.
Twitter, which offers advertisers and organizations with large numbers of followers at least part of this package for free, could help ensure that the steep price increase in verification does not affect the Twitter community too much. People who use the service as a source of information want to know that they’re actually from a verified account, and it sounds like a lot of the big players won’t lose their ticks even if they don’t want to move $12,000 per year for Twitter.
It’s also obviously an olive branch for advertisers, whose relationship with Twitter has been strained of late. Twitter’s ad revenue has reportedly fallen precipitously since Elon Musk took over, as major advertising firms have warned clients to be cautious. It’s very possible that a $1,000 monthly bill is the last straw for many advertisers, but when Twitter offers it for free, they don’t have to make that decision.
However, it could make it harder for new businesses to build an audience on the platform, as they either have to compete with brands that are verified when they’re not, or spend $1,000 a month to also get the tick to get .
Brands are the most vulnerable to identity theft, as we saw with the wave of fake accounts that surfaced when Twitter Blue verification first launched, letting people buy a blue tick. Twitter has put up some guard rails in an attempt to prevent this — if you change your profile picture, display name, or @handle, you’ll temporarily lose the tick until Twitter reviews your profile to make sure you’re not violating its anti-impersonation rules.
But as Twitter prepares to strip people and institutions of the “old” ticks unless they pay for Blue or Verification for Organizations, impersonators and other bad actors will almost certainly test those security systems. We’re used to seeing lots of people with blue or gold ticks next to their names, like the New York Times, the White House, or LeBron James.
If they decide not to pay for a tick, there is a chance that hoaxes and scammers will create an account that at first glance looks more official than the real one. However, for the businesses that Twitter specifically wants to protect, this doesn’t seem to be such a big issue.