Serious question.
Lets say tomorrow Twitter decides the service is no longer free and you need to pay a monthly fee to continue to use it.
Would that be enough to get you to stop using it?
Would $10/month be to much?
Would $50/month be to much?
At times Twitter has been priceless for me.
Its made connections with people I would have never otherwise been able to reach.
Whats it worth to you?
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2416 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 107 comments… read them below or add one }
Well, I for one have NOT seen the value of my twitter account. At least not the first one I started. I feel like I have being followed, but not really, so if they had to charge for accounts, it would be bye-bye for me at this point.
I have friends from twitter and all that, but there is no ROI at this point, $$$ or otherwise.
I’d probably just stop using it. Twitter makes following people more convenient, but it’s still easy to just subscribe to their blogs or add them on Facebook.
Well, if I measured the ROI and had to put a price on my Twitter account, it would be way worth the $50/month. However, my cheap good sense would never let me pay this amount. I am one of those that think Twitter should be free for all, and have a premium for power users, which I don’t consider myself to be.
What about you Shoe?How much are you will to pya for your Twitter account?
Not sure im at the point where i could really calculate an ROI but i have also made some great contacts and may have landed an advertiser or two all strictly from tweets.. very cool
The best things in life are free….right?
So would twitter be worth anything if it cost money?
For my money, I would say that twitter’s worth comes from the fact that it is free and easy for everyone. 0$/month is what I think I would pay…
I like the question and look forward to hearing all of the responses!
I take it back lol…
Originally I figured once you charge, twitter isn’t twitter anymore – so it loses all of it’s value.
In reality, twitter would undoubtedly change forever…but this new crowd may indeed to be worth more than ever. If they are willing to pay for twitter, from an affiliate standpoint, I would like to have that traffic! Most often times I would say the priceless relationships you create on twitter would result with this crowd anyway.
I think in the same way that adwords competition grew, the more intuitive marketers stand to make more money than ever. The crowd is different, smarter and more targeted.
I think I could potentially pay more that I ever thought for twitter if that day came! haha
Twitter would be worth $50/mo for me, since it has brought me a lot of connections that I would never have imagined. A lot of people out there looking to help you make money; Most are on twitter!
$50 is worth it to me. The product is sweet, I would hit a donation box every week or two if they had one.
Maybe there should be a tip jar like second life? Read a great tweet, hit the tip jar icon?
On a business blog and twitter account I manage, it means growing followers from 0 to over 2,000 in less than 3 weeks. The blog got over 100 uniques/day within 2 weeks and 3 sales within those 2 weeks. And the relationships with some incredible people. So, right now, twitter is killer for me. I’ve never done those numbers that quick with a website or blog. Definitely $50/month at this point is worth it.
if you already have thousands of followers, then 50 per month is nothing. but from a new user perspective, it is totally absurd to pay for something that has no initial value yet. so i dont think twitter will ever make it commercial.
but yea, hypothetically speaking, i’ll pay 30 dollars per month max.
Very Interesting post Shoe ..!!
Well at this point of time my Twitter account is worth atleast $1000 for me because i am getting ton of traffic on my blog using Twitter services & i am really excited about it.
In case if Twitter starts charging for the account i guess i can pay $10 monthly for sure, because of its vast advantages of Social media marketing. Twitter is growing at such a pace that i guess it will eat up Face book and other big social network players on the Internet, What do you think Shoe ??
Any Amount would be to much. Twitter is cool but not worth me paying for
Most of the people I am trying to market to would not pay $10 so…probably not.
Wouldn’t they make more money if they did a ChaCha style thing? Where they’d just strike a deal with a telecom company and take portion of profit from text messages?
The idea of Twitter being subscription based reminds of this popular game Sony had back in 2002, Cosmic Rift. After a year of being in “beta” Google style they decided to bundle up two other games and create the Sony Station Pass. It cost something like 4.95 a month, but no one paid for it. Like at most 10 people were on at any given time vs. around 500 in beta.
Anyways, my point is when marketers value something its usually way over what the common user would find reasonable. To stop filibustering, lol, if the user tweets from a phone they should get a slice of that. Whats it worth to me? What ever my users want to pay for it.
I believe a tool like twitter should be free but if they decide to charge a fee to kill off the spammers, I would say less than $20 a month is cool for me.
The problem is that this is a loaded question. As it is, it is worth a small monthly fee easy. However, if they actually charged a monthly fee I wonder how many of my followers would drop the service and the value would be greatly decreased.
I agree.
If everyone was charged? $0, because the userbase (and audience) would be reduced to a tiny fraction of what it was before.
Not to mention a free clone would pop up overnight, and people would start using it instead. Twitter (with its’ current features) could be coded in an afternoon by a couple sharp programmers. The value is in their brand and reach.
Theres more to Twitter than just the public facing code that you and I use on a daily basis.
Just keeping twitter running requires dozens of servers and a team of people maintaining those servers, any free clone that was to take it’s place would require significant investment, both financially and from an infrastructure perspective.
They’d need to charge enough to keep out the spammers and “social media experts” but not so much that most people deserted. A tier with $10-50/mo options sounds reasonable to me. (I agree with others that my Twitter account is worth serious money to me, but again, if I paid what it was worth, it would no longer be worth that.)
From a personal perspective my Twitter account wouldn’t be worth anything. But in terms of business, if they wanted to charge a small fee for all business accounts then it might be worth a nominal fee, but only if they kept it free to none business users.
As plunge said, it they charge everyone then your user base is going to drop. So it will be less useful for most businesses or blogs looking to attract readers.
$0 / month
I agree with Richard M. “if they wanted to charge a small fee for all business accounts” that would be fair…
I think I would pay for it 10$ a month max. If they would set up the price a lot of people will stop using it and I would lose my future visitors. I can generate some traffic with Twitter but not so much, still working on it.
Simple formula: money made from twitter leads in a month – costs (including your life style costs) = amount willing to pay for twitter.
If user base declines and you’re losing money, pull the plug.
i believe its not worth alot,
i normally engage into social tweets and my followers are not related my niche as i have just started some time ago,
i am concentrating on my niche basically,
right now it could be said 0$
I would pay up to $50 for the first month while I wait for everyone else to migrate over to similar service that’s free.
I don’t think I’d pay to use twitter. It’s of course a useful service but I’ll live fine without it
I have about 200 followers, so I will not pay more than $2 /month
If Twitter charges, it should call its fees “Twitmoney”! Twitter still has too high a trash factor to make it worth everyone paying good money for. If they charge subscription fees, then free competitors and free similar alternative services will become more attractive; however, if they wanted to charge a premium for some special features or services that may be a good compromise enabling everyone to use it for free but also enabling Twitter to earn money from customers willing to pay for ‘extras’.
It’s worth a million dollars as long as it’s FREE
They couldn’t pay me to use twitter.
About 3 fiddy.
Seriously though if twitter started charging how long would it take for someone to come out with a twitter killer? Social media should be free it is built for the masses and should make its revenue off of advertising like everyone else.
Let’s say for example you had a blogger blog, and they decided charging (no you as an Internet markter, just one of the normal people that follow @oprah) would you continue to use blogger or would you find another free blogging platform?
I get about 150 visitors from twitter every day – so I would probably pay up to $100.
Of course I vote for FREE… dont want to add another cost on my business
I get a few more followers on Twitter every day but I couldn’t see myself paying for the privilege.
I dont think I would pay for it either. I see less than 3 percent of my overall traffic from Twitter….
I’d pay $50 a month for unlimited use.
I think Twitter should be free. They need to look at advertisers to make their money. If they start charging our followers will go bye bye. Greg Ellison
As a person I still haven’t really experienced any major benefits of a Twitter Account, so I would pay zip for this service. From a company point of view on the other hand the willingness to pay would slightly increase, but I think Twitter is a form of social media, which in all times should remain free.
In other words; I wouldn’t pay, even if I was a company (just to make a statement).
Right now, I am still very new to Twitter and have not seen great success yet. I do, however realize the potential Twitter has so I would be will to pay for that potential. But the big question is if Twitter charges will it still be effective?
Trust me, Twitter will always be free!
For me personally, the service is priceless, but not for the money/sales/profit part. It enables me to connect to people that would be invisible or unreachable otherwise.
I think that Twitter should be free too. They need to look for another monetizing way to make their money. If they start charging people for using social media, I think that they will lose more than 50% of the users..
I think that twitter do need to come up with a viable revenue model to make money Online revenue models could easily be created for them. An aliance between Google and Twitter could really help them. I am not sure that charging people for twitter is a good idea.
Hmmmm.. What if SHOEMONEY started charging to access THIS site?
How many would pay to get that precious inbound link from a PR6 site and get all this great info?
How much would YOU pay?
Precious nofollow PR6 link you mean
for me $0 ~
I’ve yet to see any value from it.
$0 to me because it hasn’t generated enough traffic (or anything else) for me to make it worth my while.
Largely I haven’t had the time to utilize it, but I guess that says something about how I few its value as well.
Just like all of these sites, paying a smallish fee would be fine except that if they did everybody would go away to the other similar sites. Then the pay site wouldn’t be worth it.
I’d pay up to $100 a month. I have setup twitter accounts for a few of my site projects. If you target the right people, the ROI justifies $100 a month. It’s all about creating and maintaining a conversation and Twitter is a great tool for that.
For me FREE. I think many would pay but you would also have many who would not pay. Therefore you would not have as many people using twitter which would hurt those that would pay.
$0
Twitter for an average entertainment site seems useless…i talk to other blog owners that have had posts RT hundreds of time only to see a tricky of traffic.
I just believe Twitter is not for everyone and if they charge it will ruin the whole idea of it
The value of twitter is the user. If you have enough followers you can quickly get a message out in real time to a ton of people. With that said if they do anything that would limit the amount of people that will join, (some people equate online with free and will never pay for anything) some of its value will be lost, and that will create opportunity for some on else to make a better twitter.
Twitter is worth nothing to me.
All too often I read messages where people tell me what they had for lunch, when they went to bed, etc.
Too Boring.
Will not pay
yes man!
I would have to go along with the $0 crowd, I have nearly 2000 followers, but the traffic it generates for me so far i sporadic at best, of course I am not currently utilizing it as best I could because its not a high priority now.. Once things get going more, i will start being more active on it and then it would be worth more to me.. Time will tell
I won’t pay any money.. Twitter is priceless and I use it only till it’s free. If it gets any price per month I will delete my account the same day.
It’s worth a lot to me, but how much I’d be willing to pay would depend in part on how many people would flee if they started charging. For my various identities and projects, I need to be wherever the people are.
I’d be willing to pay basically an unlimited amount if it were to remain as is. However, if Twitter weren’t free, it wouldn’t be nearly as popular and, as such, my use for it would greatly decrease…not really sure how they can charge for it and maintain a viable service to the masses. Of course if we’re talking about some premium service I would have to weigh out how it would benefit me vs. the standard service that would be free.
I agree if a lot of people stop using Twitter I don’t know if I would be willing to pay for the service. Who am I kidding, if the price of Twitter was reasonable I would most likely pay.
$0 for me!!!
we can´t generate enough traffic, and that
worth it´s high for me
Our list is huge on Twitter and Facebook. Now if Facebook would only allow us to download our contacts!
Although fun at first, I don’t find twitter as entertaining as it was when I first got into it. Though it is effective when it comes to marketing, I would not pay anything for it on a monthly basis.
I’ve made some great connections with Twitter so I always find it funny when someone calls it useless. I guess they don’t know how to work this social networking site.
At first I couldn’t stand Twitter. Now I don’t go through the day without it. I think I’d be willing to pay $30/month for it because of the contacts I’ve made from it.
I think this is a real interesting thought and a very good question. And it’s interesting how about half of the commentators vote for free and the other half is willing to pay.
I am not quite sure but I think i wouldn’t pay to use a micro blog…
Nothing
It’s worth $0. I have met some great people, but I can do without it as there are enough free services that I can use.
I think that the only reason twitter is popular is because “famous” or “high profile” people say that it is this “great thing”. Twitter is not really useful at all. If anything, I think that the time that is wasted on twitter could be much better used doing pretty much anything else.
So to answer your question…anything is too much to pay for twitter.
I don’t think I would pay for it either. Part of the reason why twitter is what it is now is because its free.
Depends on the site and how much the traffic from Twitter converts.
If you don’t put out quality content Twitter wont’ help.
I would hope that there would be an option for a free and premium account.
My account would be worth around $5/monthly to me, though I do not have that many followers.
I admittedly still have alot of learn about using Twitter to gain and communicate with my customers.
Twitter will never make itself a paid service. The day it does, it will fall.
I totally agree because many people still don’t understand what all of the fuss is about this service
I usually do not use Twitter. It is quite hard for me, I’m blonde, but actually will value my account to 15 USD/month
If twitter became a paid service I would have to say goodbye to it because I don’t use it that much.
Funny you say that because to me and its strictly my opinion its a big time waster because you can be constantly chatting with one person or many.
No!! I don’t want this thing to happen.
At this point, I wouldn’t pay a cent to tweet, but probably I’d pay $20/mo to follow (read) others’ tweets.
If there ever will be a premium account I think they should add a little more features to the software. It’s already serving a purpose to keep in touch with your friends and family, and retrieve tons a traffic on your blog, but it would be cool if it goes micro video, and have people to choose premium or free versions.
As great an idea as twitter is, I think some people are already getting too carried away with it, in the sense that it’s become another tool for them to use to pretend the world is all about “me” and if it doesn’t relate to “me” then it must not be important. I think it twitter started charging, a lot of this childish nonsense can be taken out picture, and twitter can be a very productive and conducive service to both society and FOR business, especially online businesses.
My Twitter account is worth NADA!
-Mike
I totally agree so is my account I barely use twitter because I wouldn’t have the time or day to use Twitter as those are the two things you need when you use Twitter
As of now, it doesn’t worry any penny nor useful function because I have few friends using it. Maybe if the time comes that I really need to update it regularly for the sake of someone I need to talk to.
If Twitter stopped being free then I would stop using it.
The day Twitter becomes paid, another similar, free service will launch and everyone will go there. Simple.
I’d pay up to $100/month for my twitter acct.
–Chubbs
If they started charging monthly for Twitter I would keep my account all depends on how many followers I have following me. If I had Oprah status on Twitter. Definite keeper! This is a good point to keep in mind about twitter.
Priceless, twitter is the best, even though i dont get any mad traffic from it, i just love twitter it allows me to connect with people so easily.
I think I will stop using twitter!
My Policy is to use resources for free!
Hi,
I not agree with because social media site also free and I hope that Twitter not pay account and ferever free if twitter paid account so many people to leave twitter,ok
I think its Priceless because those people who have added us on Twitter are the one who joined because of our work.
Imagine my selling my Twitter ID to anyone and he use it for affiliate spam or link spam, It’s my reputation which will be on stake.
The big thing is few days back I have seen a website which is selling Twitter profiles. Can you beat that.
I think it is users who are worth something to companies like twitter and not free accounts that are worth anything to users. Venture capital firms appraise Internet ventures on the basis of registerred users or active users. Maybe Twitter should be paying something of value to its users. If Twitter charged, inevitably something similar would be offered free by another entity.
Twitter is indispensable as a social networking medium. It has helped me connect to quite a few people who have added value to my business. At the same time, it has also helped me grow my business.
So if tomorrow, Twitter becomes a paid service, I will have to evaluate the ROI and will then have to decide if I will still want to continue with Twitter.
twitter is a phenomenal tool – but once they charge a price the whole structure is going to change and its value will decrease.
Right now around $80 a month and I have 4,500 followers.
Interesting post and poll but we are more interested in what do you think and how much you are expecting for your account ?
If they started charging my Twitter account would be worth leaving. I’d head straight over to Plurk.
Very nice site!
I wouldnt pay anything for it cause once they started charging many others that are FREE would emerge.
Our school is currently having a fundraising project where we sell Liquid Essentials(natural food supplements) online. It’ll be a good thing if we have a twitter account, to collect more funds.
I can’t see twitter going with a pay only format…maybe an upgrade option. http://twitter.com/lapauly
I never thought first that we could earn some extra money using twitter. But i never use it and i don’t earn from it i used twitter to connect with my family, publish my own ideas, experiences, and thoughts and i used twitter to met new friends from the other side of the globe. And i don’t like that twitter will charge us every month. It should be free.
Siteniz çok güzel bilgiler için tesekkürler.
People don’t even know what real life is anymore, they are so obsessed with these sites like twitter and the rest.
Many thanks for taking this possibility to talk about this, I’m strongly regarding it and I make use of studying this subject. If at all, when you gain data, please update this site with new information. I’ve discovered it extremely useful.
If they started charging monthly for Twitter I would keep my account all depends on how many followers I have following me.