X Puts TweetDeck (Now X Pro) Behind a Paywall

TweetDeck, which X recently rebranded as X Pro, has now become a paid feature (via The Verge) The dashboard used by many power users and social media professionals now requires an X Premium (formerly Twitter Blue) subscription, which costs $8/month or $84/year if you subscribe on the web.

The company formerly known as Twitter announced back on July 4 that TweetDeck would start requiring users within 30 days to be “verified” (a synonym for paying for Twitter Blue/X Premium) to access the app, so this isn’t exactly new. The change just took a little bit more than 30 days to happen.

To be fair, Twitter was reportedly planning to make TweetDeck a paid Twitter Blue feature even before Elon Musk acquired the company in the fall of 2022. Since then, X has completely revamped the premium subscription to give blue checkmarks to all members, as well as prioritized rankings in conversations and search. And in case you’re interested in the company’s new ad revenue sharing program, you’ll also need to sign up for X Premium.

If you really prefer TweetDeck (X Pro, remember) over the regular web app and don’t want to start paying for it, it looks like the old version of the app currently isn’t behind a paywall. Assuming you currently have access to X Pro, you can switch back to the previous version in the app’s settings.

While X Pro becoming a paid feature will probably ruffle some feathers, this move is also likely going to push more users to subscribe to X Premium. Even though Threads and other apps are trying hard to replicate the Twitter experience, X still has a massive audience and Elon Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino have an ambitious plan to turn it into an “everything” app.