Data Reveals X Premium Subscribers Get Significantly More Post Reach

New data reveals X Premium subscribers get significantly more post reach, highlighting the platform’s growing focus on paid visibility and engagement.

To attract more users to subscribe to the X Premium feature, the platform has offered multiple reach-boosting features, including prioritized display within post replies. These additions include ranked replies and boosted posts via its new “Boost” feature.

X Premium Provides Significant Reach Increase

Recent scraping of X’s algorithm has also finally uncovered the general visibility bump that paying a monthly fee provides to premium versus SFW subscribers. But how big is this surge?

A recent study by Buffer analysed 18.8 million posts from 71,000 profiles over the past year. 27% of these accounts subscribed to some level of X Premium while in the study.

Here is the comparison chart:

X Premium accounts receive something like 10 times the reach per post as unpaid accounts.

Trends and Changes Over Time

The reach advantage for X Premium subscribers has declined over time, possibly due to algorithmic adjustments that affect certain accounts differently. It suggests that if you want to be as visible as possible on X, a Premium subscription may be a good option.

However, such a feature is likely of little value to the vast majority of everyday users. Around 80% of users who infrequently post or engage on Twitter make it an odd thing for X to focus on.

However, in terms of branding and marketing, the data suggests that there’s a significant opportunity to be gained by doing so, even if you’re trying to expand your audience. Buffer’s research also showed that X Premium accounts at higher tiers receive a far more dramatic increase in reach than those in lower tiers.

According to Buffer’s statistics, reach for X Premium ranges considerably among the three tiers:

• Basic users: Usually receive fewer than 100 impressions per post.
• Premium users: Getting about 600 impressions per post.
• Premium+ users: Reach over 1,550 impressions per post, more than double the reach of the Premium tier.

Higher tiers get you a lot more reach, but they’re also priced much higher. Basic starts at $ 3 per month, and Premium+ costs $40. Brands should consider these costs in relation to the potential visibility they’ll gain when setting their budget.

Engagement Patterns Across Tiers

The levels do not differ significantly in terms of engagement metrics (such as replies and retweets). Median engagement rates among Premium Basic users are also slightly higher (0.55%) than those of Premium+ (0.53%).

Premium users engage less frequently but still fairly regularly (0.49%). Regular users, on the other hand, have a median engagement rate of around zero.

The best engagement rates for Premium subscribers are achieved through text and video posts, both of which are expected to reach a median engagement rate of 0.9% by mid-2025.

Images provide a gentle level of engagement, and links are punished quite harshly, even if you can’t see them, unless you’re Premium, in which case there is still some coverage.

Bottom Line

For brands looking to maximize reach on X, subscribing to X Premium is a strategic move. Especially with Premium+, businesses gain significant reach advantages, but costs should be factored alongside other advertising expenses.

You can read Buffer’s full report here.