• by Colin Kirkland , January 3, 2024

Elon Musk's microblogging app X (formerly known as Twitter) is slashing the price of verification for small businesses -- lowering the price from $1,000 per month to $200.

After alienating its biggest advertisers with concerns over brand safety, X is now prioritizing small businesses, hoping they will make up for the offset in revenue due to the loss of ad-spend from AT&T, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Capital One, Nike, Bank of America and other major brands.

“Our new Verified Organizations Basic tier is now available for $200/month or $2,000/year!,” reads a tweet from X's Verified account. “Designed for smaller businesses, subscribers receive ad credits & priority support to enable faster growth on X.”

The package will include a gold checkmark for brand profiles, as well as priority support, access to job listings via X Hiring, X Premium+ benefits and more, at a fifth of the original price.

Musk began hinting at this low-cost option not long after the company launched its Verification for Organizations tier globally in April 2023, addressing concerns that small businesses would not be able to pay the $1,000 per month, or that they wouldn't want to due to a lack of incentive.

Above all else, the offering allows an organization to link any number of their affiliated individuals, businesses and brands to their account.

From there, affiliated accounts receive a small badge of their parent company's profile picture next to their blue or gold checkmark. Employees' accounts will also receive an automatic blue checkmark.

Critics of the original Organizations tier launch wondered why X did not announce a lower-cost tier back in April. Now that it has arrived, nine months later, the incentive may be less effective due to the app's dwindling user base and tarnished reputation.

The company has used other tactics to win over small businesses, suggesting potential ad opportunities in “Q5”-- the period between mid-December and mid-January -- highlighting “reduced CPMs and cost-per-conversion as consumers shop for post-holiday deals and products to support their New Year's ambitions.”

In addition, after Musk told major brands that had halted or suspended advertising on X to “go f*** yourself,” he tried to court small businesses, saying that they “are a very significant engine that we have definitely underplayed for a long time.”

“It [was] always part of the plan,” he added. “Now we will go even further with it.”