Twitter previews Ticketed Spaces, says it’ll take a 20 percent cut of sales
Twitter’s getting ready for the launch of its Ticketed Spaces feature, and today, it’s previewing what users can expect when they go to host their first one. US users will be able to apply to host paid live audio rooms starting in the next couple weeks. Anyone who wants to charge has to have 1,000 followers, have hosted three spaces in the past 30 days, and be at least 18 years old.
The company is partnering with Stripe to handle payments, and it says users will receive 80 percent of revenue after Apple and Google’s in-app purchase fees are taken. So if you sell a $10 ticket, Apple would presumably take a 30 percent cut, leaving you and Twitter to split the remaining $7. Eighty percent would go to you, and 20 percent would go to Twitter. The company says it’ll cover the cost of Stripe’s transaction fees. (Hosts will also need a Stripe account.)
You can see the full product flow below:
A Twitter spokesperson says initial applications, when they open, will be processed within a few weeks, and the team plans to start with a small test group. Although only US users will be able to host these ticketed spaces for now, anyone around the globe can purchase access. Spaces just began allowing anyone with more than 600 followers to host and added the ability to schedule an event, and the company says it’s working on co-hosted spaces as well.
This live audio function is among the multiple ways Twitter has announced that it will help its users monetize. It’s planning Super Follows, too, which will let people pay for bonus content, like a newsletter subscription and more tweets, and it’s launching a communities feature. The company hasn’t said whether the 80 / 20 split will also apply to Super Follows.
Twitter also might offer a bigger subscription product called Twitter Blue, which could let people pay for additional features, like the ability to undo tweets. Although Twitter’s product has remained mostly stagnant for years, it’s issued a rapid-fire succession of consumer-facing product announcements this past year, seemingly all in an effort to diversify its revenue and build a more fully rounded place where people can consume a variety of content across text, audio, and video.
