Feb 20: Meta Verified will cost $11.99 (£9.96) per month on the web, or $14.99 for iPhone users.
It will be available in Australia and New Zealand this week.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, said the move will improve security and authenticity in social networking apps.
The move comes after Twitter owner Elon Musk rolled out Twitter Blue’s premium subscription in November 2022.
Meta’s paid subscription service is not yet available for businesses, but any individual can pay for verification.
The badges, or “blue marks”, have been used as verification tools for high-profile accounts to indicate their authenticity.
The subscription would give paying users a blue badge, increased visibility of their posts, protection against impersonators and easier access to customer service, Meta said in a post on its website.
The company told the BBC that the change would not affect previously verified accounts, but noted that there would be an increase in visibility for some smaller users who get verified thanks to the paid feature.
Allowing paying users access to a blue tick has previously caused problems for other social media platforms.
Twitter’s payment verification feature was halted last November when people began impersonating big brands and celebrities by paying for the badge.
Meta said Instagram and Facebook usernames will need to match a government-provided identification document to be granted verification, and users will need to have a profile photo that includes their face.
Other websites like Reddit, YouTube, and Discord similarly use subscription-based models.
Meta has not yet specified when the feature will roll out to other countries, though Zuckerberg said in a post that it would be “soon.”
In November, the company announced the loss of 11,000 jobs as a result of overinvestment during the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the time, Zuckerberg said he had predicted an increase in Meta growth based on the increase it had during the pandemic, but that ultimately did not happen.
“Many people predicted that this would be a permanent acceleration,” he wrote, “so did I, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments.”
Instead, he said the “macroeconomic downturn” and “increased competition” caused revenue to be much lower than expected.
“I was wrong and I take responsibility,” he said at the time.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and while many in the tech industry were quick to criticize Elon Musk for introducing a paid tier to Twitter, it turns out his peers were watching closely.
Times are tough for Big Tech, but they are also tough times for Big Tech customers, of course, that’s you and me. Elon Musk’s experiment has shown that people are still willing to pay for an improved experience.
It is often said of the huge free to use digital platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok that if you are not paying for the product, the product is you.
That means every drop of data those companies collect about you is used to sell you things in the form of advertisements. It’s a multi-billion dollar idea and it has made many companies very, very rich.
But people are realizing it and they are voting with their feet.
Apple released an optional feature that prevents your online activity from being tracked, and guess what: it turns out that if you ask people if they care about companies watching what they do and where they go online, most of them they choose not to participate. Meta, which owns Facebook, has complained bitterly about it.
Is subscription the alternative, and if so, how much are consumers willing to pay? It seems that first Musk and now Zuckerberg are determined to find out.
