Go or no-go, target users and price for an ad-free Twitter subscription tier
Company: X (Twitter)
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product / Decision Making
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Twitter is considering a paid subscription tier. Subscribers would get three things: no ads, the ability to undo a tweet, and a handful of smaller features.
How would you decide whether launching this tier is a good idea, which users it should be sold to and what it should cost? Cover any other decisions you think the launch depends on.
```hint What a free user is worth today
Before choosing a price, think about what Twitter earns from a user who sees ads, and about which users would be the first to sign up.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- What is the main goal: revenue that does not depend on advertisers, more value for the most active users, or both? Is the tier expected to be profitable on its own?
- What does "undo" mean here: a short window to cancel a tweet before others see it, or something beyond deleting a tweet, which anyone can already do?
- Does "no ads" remove every promoted tweet, account and trend across the product, or only ads in the home timeline?
- Which markets would launch first, and would the subscription be sold through the mobile app stores, the website or both?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A go or no-go framework that weighs the strategic goal, the value of each feature to users and the economics, including the ad revenue Twitter gives up on each subscriber.
- Target segments ranked by willingness to pay and by the ad revenue they generate today, with a justified first segment.
- A price grounded in both a floor (forgone ads, store fees, costs) and the value users see, plus packaging and regional pricing choices.
- Effects on free users and advertisers, and the metrics and guardrails that would show the tier is working.
- A plan to validate demand and price before a broad launch, with clear criteria for stopping or changing course.
### Follow-up Questions
- Advertisers complain that the most engaged users are vanishing from their audience. How do you respond?
- Would you charge the same price in every country? How would you set prices by region?
- If research shows few people would pay for undo, what would you do with the tier?
Overview: A product strategy and pricing case about a proposed Twitter subscription that removes ads and lets users undo tweets. It tests deciding whether the tier is worth launching, choosing which users to charge, setting a price and planning how to validate demand before a broad rollout.