If you’ve ever wished WhatsApp had cooler themes or wanted to know who kept rewatching your Instagram Stories, Meta now has a subscription for that.
The tech giant has officially rolled out Instagram Plus, WhatsApp Plus, and Facebook Plus in Malaysia, giving users the option to unlock extra features for as little as RM3.50 a month. The subscriptions are entirely optional, meaning the free versions of all three apps aren’t going anywhere.
What exactly do you get?
The cheapest option is WhatsApp Plus at RM3.50 per month. It focuses mainly on personalisation, letting users customise the app with exclusive themes, icons, stickers and ringtones, while also increasing the number of chats that can be pinned from the usual limit to 20.
Meanwhile, Instagram Plus and Facebook Pluscost RM4.50 per month each. These subscriptions are aimed at people who use Stories frequently, offering perks like extending Stories to 48 hours, seeing how many times a Story was rewatched, searching through your viewer list, and unlocking exclusive profile customisation options such as new app icons and animated reactions.
Subscribing to all three services will cost RM12.50 per month. Meta is also offering limited-time introductory discounts for some of the plans.
What does this mean for Malaysians?
For the average Malaysian, not much will change if you choose not to subscribe. Messaging on WhatsApp, scrolling Facebook and posting on Instagram will remain free, and the core experience stays exactly the same.
The paid plans are more likely to appeal to content creators, influencers, social media managers and users who enjoy personalising their apps or want deeper insights into how their content performs.
That said, the launch also signals a bigger shift in the social media landscape. After years of being completely free, the platforms many of us use every day are gradually introducing premium features that reward paying users with extra convenience, customisation and analytics.
Whether those extras are worth RM3.50 to RM4.50 a month will ultimately depend on how much time you spend on Meta’s apps.
