Telegram Launches Premium Tier With a Ton of Features

Telegram, the messaging app that has seen enormous growth in recent years, announced a premium tier for users who want a little extra and also as a way to help the platform generate a little money and remain free to use. Unlike Twitter’s Blue subscription, Telegram is adding features you might want to pay for.

Things like bigger file uploads, faster download speeds, double the amount of folders and channels you can access, voice-to-text transcriptions, unique stickers, badges, and premium app icons have all been announced. You get the feeling that this is only the beginning, though. If you are a big time Telegram user (not just a casual chat guy), subscribing might be worth it.

Here’s everything included in Telegram Premium.

• 4GB file uploads: Telegram is doubling the file size you can share from 2GB to 4GB. On the flip side of this, know that all free users will be able to download (or receive) those 4GB files from a Premium user.
• Faster downloads: Premium subscribers will be able to download “as fast as your network can keep up” with no limits on speeds. For everyone else, things could be slower at times.
• Double chats, folders, channels and more: For Premium, Telegram is doubling a number of items like groups and channels (500 to 1000), pinned chats (5 to 10), public links (10 to 20), saved GIFs (200 to 400), 20 chat folders with up to 200 chats each, and up to 10 favorite stickers. You’ll also be able to add a fourth Telegram account and write more in your Bio, with the option to add a link.
• Voice-to-text transcriptions: When voice messages come through, Premium users will see a button that will attempt to transcribe them into text, should you be in a situation where you can’t listen.
• Unique stickers: Telegram continues to push its dozens of full-screen animation stickers that are available for Premium users, but that will show animations to all users.
• Unique reactions: Premium users will get more reaction emoji, with over 10 options to choose from.
• Chat management: Premium subscribers can better manage their chat setup, with an option to choose a default folder or have the app always open to a custom folder, like unread messages instead of all messages.
• Animated profile pictures: Want a livelier profile picture? Premium users can add a profile video that then acts as an animated profile image for all users to see.
• Premium badge: If you pay for Premium, you’ll get a special badge to show off.
• Premium app icons: Paying for Premium also means you’ll get premium icons to chose from for your home screen.
• No ads: In some countries and in some public channels, there are ads or “Sponsored Messages” – Premium makes those go away.

Quite the list, right? A lot of the new Premium features are only going to be beneficial to Telegram power users with massive lists of contacts or group chats or channel subscriptions, or who send lots of large files. However, things like voice-to-text of audio messages, more reactions, animated profile pictures, all of the cool new chat management stuff, and faster downloads would probably be useful for most of us.

So how much is Telegram Premium? The price varies depending on region, but it looks like Telegram will charge $4.99/mo here in the US.

Telegram is rolling out the Premium subscription, so you’ll want to be on the lookout for an update depending on your platform of choice.

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