Meta launches a payment verification service for Facebook and Instagram

() — Meta is testing a subscription service that will allow Instagram and Facebook users to pay to get verified, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Instagram on Sunday.

“Meta Verified” will start at $11.99 a month on the web or $14.99 a month on iOS, and the company will start rolling it out in Australia and New Zealand this week with “more countries coming soon.”

The service also comes with other perks: extra protection against phishing accounts and direct access to customer support.

To avoid fake accounts, customers who want to earn the blue badge will need to provide a government ID that matches their profile name and photo. Users must also be over the age of 18 to be eligible.

“This new feature is all about increasing authenticity and security across our services,” Zuckerberg wrote on an Instagram broadcast channel.

In a statement, Meta clarified that there will be no changes to accounts that are already verified. Verification was previously for users who are “authentic and notable.”

“We are evolving the meaning of the blue badge to focus on authenticity so we can expand verification access to more people,” a Meta spokesperson said. “We will show the number of followers in more places so that people can distinguish which accounts are notable public figures among accounts that share the same name.”

Meta joins other platforms, such as Discord, Reddit, and YouTube, which have their own subscription-based models.

Twitter relaunched its own verification subscription service, Twitter Blue, in December, after an appearance of fake “verified” accounts forced it to pull the feature. The checkmark options now have different colors to differentiate between accounts: gold checkmarks for businesses, gray checkmarks for government entities and other organizations, and blue checkmarks for people, whether celebrities or not.

Twitter Blue costs $11 a month for iOS and Android subscribers, part of owner Elon Musk’s bid to boost his subscription business after buying the platform for $44 billion.

— ‘s Clare Duffy contributed to this report.