Meta One Subscriptions Show Positive Early Signs, Analysts Forecast Long-Term Growth

Key Points

• Meta Platforms stock has risen more than 25% since August, driven partly by its Muse AI agent becoming the top free U.S. App Store download.
• Meta expanded its Meta One subscription plans with pricier business and creator tiers, reaching 15 million subscriptions and trials globally so far.
• Analysts at BNP Paribas and Truist project Meta's subscriptions could generate $13.5 billion by 2028 and $20 billion by 2030, respectively.

Shares of Meta Platforms NASDAQ: META have been on an absolute tear. The stock’s closing low in August was approximately $543. Since then, shares have gained over 25%.

The company’s Muse personal AI agent has been a primary driver of this surge. Muse recently became the most-downloaded free app on Apple's NASDAQ: AAPL U.S. App Store, taking the top spot from OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The excitement comes as Muse could become a key avenue for Meta to drive non-advertising AI revenue.

Muse is not the only way that Meta is looking to juice its non-advertising revenue. The company also unveiled various subscription plans months ago and recently announced an update to this initiative.

Meta Pushes Forward Subscription Plan Rollout

Meta released several subscription offerings in late May, called “Meta One” plans. These subscriptions cost between $2.99 per month and $19.99 per month for consumers. The more expensive plans provide more premium features across all three of Meta’s apps: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, as well as more AI usage. The company also released business and creator plans, starting at $14.99 per month and going up to $49.99 per month.

It appears the company has now introduced even more expensive business and creator plans. The Expert plan costs $149 per month, while the Max plan is $499 per month. These plans greatly increase the human support businesses can receive, with the Max plan providing unlimited support cases per month and offering the most access to the Meta Business Agent.

These plans are now globally available, following an initial rollout over the past few months. Meta notes that it has so far amassed 15 million subscriptions and trials to date. Given that this figure includes both subscriptions with an unknown price breakdown and trials, it is difficult to assess the revenue effect. However, assuming a blended price of $10 per month for 15 million users would equate to $1.8 billion in annual sales. This would be very small relative to Meta’s expected total revenue of over $250 billion in 2026, but the offerings are still in the early stages of rollout.

Recent Data Shows Spiking In-App Purchase Activity

Some particularly interesting data points come from the mobile consumer data platform Apptopia. The company measured in-app purchases (IAP) revenue between Meta’s initial subscription rollout and mid-September. Up until Sept. 9, there was essentially no change in these numbers. However, that day, IAP revenue soared and has remained elevated since. Daily average IAP revenue on Instagram rose 475% to $1.2 million compared to $209,000 in the prior eight weeks. On Facebook, average daily IAP revenue rose 143% to $528,000. Both of these figures surpassed previous all-time high IAP levels. These figures imply incremental daily IAP revenue of approximately $991,000 for Instagram and $311,000 for Facebook, or around $1.3 million combined.

As an illustration, extending this over 365 days would imply a $475 million IAP uplift, a very small figure versus Meta’s revenue base. However, again, the rollout is in the early innings, meaning that a further uplift from here is fully possible. Additionally, Apptopia’s figures omit WhatsApp, which has its own subscription plan, but can also be bundled with Facebook and Instagram plans.

Notably, Wall Street analysts see Meta’s subscriptions as a significant longer-term opportunity for the Magnificent Seven giant. BNP Paribas and Truist estimate Meta’s subscriptions could generate $13.5 billion in sales by 2028 and $20 billion by 2030, respectively. These figures are equal to around 5.3% and 7.9% of Meta’s expected total revenue in 2026.

Taking BNP Paribas’s 2028 forecast with an assumed blended price of $10 per subscription would require 112.5 million paying users over a full year. While this number is large in absolute terms, it would represent just 3.1% of Meta’s 3.6 billion daily active user base. Additionally, the much more expensive business and creator plans could push the blended subscription price higher.

Subscriptions and Muse Adoption: 2 Non-Ad Metrics to Watch

At this point, it appears unlikely that Meta’s subscription plans are moving the needle significantly on the company's revenue. However, the longer-term growth potential is what is important, with recent IAP data providing encouraging early signals.

Meta’s Q3 earnings report typically takes place near the end of October, at which point the firm may provide a more substantial update on subscription adoption. However, Meta tends to remain tight-lipped until new offerings reach a critical mass, meaning that updates could be limited for some time. Still, subscription adoption and Muse adoption are two new data points for investors to monitor in future earnings calls to assess Meta’s non-advertising growth trajectory.