Telegram launches premium service: What's new and what are its benefits

Telegram, one of the world’s most widely used instant messaging services, has unveiled a new premium subscription service. Subscribers for a fee of $4.99 a month can enjoy double the limits that a user of the messaging service enjoys. The premium subscription is expected to be a huge draw for dedicated users among the 700-million-strong user base for the app.

Telegram said that Premium users will have access to faster downloads as well as being able to upload files of up to 4 GB in size, instead of the 2 GB upload limit imposed on free users. However, at the same time, the company is not gatekeeping the entirety of this feature behind a pay wall. Free users can still download files larger than 2 GB that the new premium users are able to upload.

Premium users will also have double the limit on nearly everything else in the app. They can now follow 1000 channels, pin 10 chats to the main list, create 20 chat folders with up to 200 chats each, and add a fourth account to their Telegram app. Premium users can also save up to 10 stickers and 400 GIFs as favourites. Finally, premium subscribers can reserve 20 public t.me links.