After almost ten years of being a digital time capsule for special moments in your life, Snapchat will be charging for its Memories features. According to the social media platform, the free usage of the feature will be limited to 5 GB. Users must sign up for one of its new Memories Storage plans if their collection goes beyond this limit.
According to Snapchat, Memories was initially unimaginable when it was first launched, with over 1 trillion memories recorded by users.
Snapchat acknowledged in a blog post that transitioning from a free service to paying for it can be challenging, but we believe the value we offer with Memories is worth the price. We will be able to continue investing in improving Memories for our entire community thanks to these changes.
According to the company, the first storage package is priced at $1.99 per month and offers up to 100GB of storage. Snapchat+ users can store up to 250GB of data for $3.99 per month, while Snapchat Platinum customers can keep up to 5TB for $15.99 per month.
Snapchat will temporarily store memories that exceed the 5GB storage limit for 12 months. According to the company, users can download memories directly to their devices. Your Snaps that exceed the storage limit will be deleted, but your oldest Snaps will be saved if you are over the limit but not subscribed to a plan.
Snapchat reports that most users have less than 5GB of memories, so this change won’t have any impact on them. According to the firm, those with thousands of Snaps will be most affected.
Snapchat can address infrastructure costs and monetise users with high storage needs by introducing paid storage for Memories, while still maintaining free access for most users.