X Considers Free Trials for X Premium

X is looking to test another way to attract more X Premium subscribers, this time through a free trial, allowing potential users to try out its add-on features before paying.

Although exactly how this would work is unclear at this point.

A new code to support the X Premium free trial has been spotted by Radar X Updateswith recent changes to the code string referring to a “free trial” period of indefinite duration. This would presumably allow potential subscribers to test out Premium and things like its Grok AI chatbot before purchasing, though some commentators have suggested this would defeat the entire purpose of X’s subscription program.

The original concept of subscriptions, as presented by X owner Elon Musk, was to combat bots, by ensuring that genuine paying people were identified in the app. But a free trial would mean that any spammer and/or scammer could sign up, and as they continued to create fake profiles, they could simply continue to activate the free trial for each of them, furthering their deception.

This would mean that it no longer serves as a deterrent to bots, but again, that also depends on whether this is still part of the actual purpose of the X Premium program.

X owner Elon Musk has previously indicated that Premium would make bot farms much more expensive to run, as their operators would eventually have to pay to register every profile they create, in order to be considered legitimate in the app. But with less than 1% of X users signed up for Premium, it’s not the major hurdle Elon hoped it would become, and as a result, X Premium may now be more about maximizing revenue and increasing visibility for its AI bot than being an anti-bot measure.

As such, a free trial would make sense, and it would also be interesting to see how many people would actually want to try a free version of Premium, as a measure of the broader market for the package.

Because for now, this market still seems quite limited. And while X seems confident that its Grok AI bot will work as an additional way to attract users, I’m not sure there’s a large audience of people who are actually interested in integrating more AI into their social media experience.

Maybe a free trial would give more perspective on this, or maybe X only plans to offer it to some users. I mean, they’ve already tried offering Premium to some users, so a free trial makes sense. I’m not sure it’s going to drive broader interest in the program, or a significant increase in signups, as it stands.