You can keep using Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Meta AI free. Meta said so on Wednesday, in the same breath as launching a subscription for everything else.
Meta One went global on September 16. More than 50 paid features across the four apps, and Meta says 15 million people have already subscribed or started a trial. The pitch is more AI: higher limits on image generation, editing and video, on top of the creator and business tools they've been selling piecemeal for two years.
The tiers, plainly
Single app, $2.99 to $3.99 a month. Premium features in one app.
Core, $7.99. Three of those bundled, plus higher Meta AI limits.
Premium, $19.99. Higher AI limits again and the rest of the premium set.
Creator and Business, $14.99 to $499. Verified badge, impersonation protection, 24/7 support through the WhatsApp Business Agent, scheduling, analytics, team access.
Prices vary by country and account type. Those are the US examples.
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Right. Back to it.
Who should pay
Nobody who reads this for the AI. Meta AI's free tier is the same model with a lower cap, and if you're making enough images to hit the cap you're better served by the Gemini or ChatGPT plan you probably already have, which does everything else too. Paying Meta $7.99 for image credits is paying for a fourth AI subscription. That's tool-stuffing, and I think it's stupid.
Two groups it makes sense for:
You run a business on WhatsApp. The business tier's support agent and scheduling are the actual product, and $14.99 is less than one missed reply costs you.
You get impersonated. The verified badge plus impersonation protection is the one thing here you can't get anywhere else. If a fake account of you has ever gone up, that's worth the fee on its own.
Everyone else: the free apps didn't change this week, and Meta would have told you if they had.
What to do this weekend
Check what you already pay Meta for. Verification and app extras have been sold separately for a while (check your App Store subscriptions, not your memory), and the bundles are cheaper than three singles. If you pay for two, Core is a saving. If you pay for none, keep paying for none.
Paste this into whichever AI you use:
Here's what I use Meta apps for: [two lines]. Here's what I pay Meta for today: [list, or "nothing"]. Here are the Meta One tiers: [paste the four lines above]. Tell me in one line whether any tier saves me money or solves a real problem I have. If not, say "none".Make it say "none". It will, for most people.
Make it stick
If you start a trial, put the end date in your calendar the same minute. Trials roll into paid, that's what a trial is for, and a $7.99 line you forgot about is the most common subscription there is.
That's one subscription decision made in two minutes. An owner makes that decision on thirty tools a year, and most of them never get cancelled.
If you own a business and want the boring work off your plate, that's what Run On Claude is for. Every repeat job you'd hire for, set up on Claude so it runs on autopilot, with the install files. You keep the decisions. Owners only. $147 a month until member 50.
Quick one.
What are you already paying Meta for? Hit reply, I'm building a list.
Talk soon,
Zephyr
