Report: Twitter mulls $1k monthly fee for businesses to keep verified gold checkmarks

By Abubakar Yunus Abuja

Twitter is planning to charge businesses a monthly fee of $1,000 to keep their verified gold checkmarks, The Information is reporting.
The report said firms that do not pay the fee will lose their badges.
Last year, the micro-blogging platform said it would add a new “official” label to some verified high-profile accounts.
The company said the label would be located beneath the account name and handle.
Twitter also said the new label was not available for purchase and would only be offered to “government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers, and some public figures”.
But, according the report, Twitter, in an email to an unknown business, said it will begin to charge businesses $1000 each month for them to keep the gold badge.
The social media firm did not state when implementation of the fresh money-making scheme would commence.
The report added that internal messages revealed that Twitter is also considering tacking on an extra $50 per month charge to add badges to each account affiliated with the business.
“As an early access subscriber, you’ll get a gold checkmark for your organisation and affiliation badges for its associates,” the email reads.
“If you’d like to subscribe, verified for organisations is $1,000 per month and $50 per additional affiliated handle per month with one month of free affiliations.”