Tumblr’s Paid Verification parody has increased the social network and blogging platform’s iOS in-app purchase revenue by 125% since November, according to a new analysis of in-app consumer spend on apps. After its 2019 acquisition, the company, now run by WordPress owner Automattic, has started responding to Twitter’s paid verification hustle, adding a purely superficial double blue check. Validation was of real value.
After all, at least some Tumblr users were willing to pay. Creator-focused subscriptions, Post+ and more. At one point, Post+ beat crabs in terms of monetization, after a backlash from the community. It’s a goofy paid feature that allows users to send animated dancing crabs to each other’s dashboards.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that Tumblr’s two blue check jokes increase the revenue of the service.
Consumer spending on Tumblr’s iOS app has increased since the release of Double Blue Check in November 2022, now totaling $263,000 in net revenue, according to new data provided to TechCrunch by app intelligence firm Sensor Tower. has reached While this is by no means a significant number in the big picture, it represents a 125% increase in spending compared to the three-month total from August to October 2022.
Looking at longer-term trends, Tumblr’s revenue is still growing, but not by much. According to Sensor Tower, in-app purchase revenue on iOS is up 19% compared to the 10 months prior to Blue Check’s launch (January to October 2022).
However, it’s hard to attribute these increases directly to Tumblr’s double blue checks alone. Tumblr also offers other in-app purchases such as crabs, paid boosts, and ad-free browsing.
Additionally, the app saw a large number of new installs after its acquisition by Twitter, which may have contributed to the increase in consumer spending.
Sensor Tower data shows that since November 2022, iOS installs have grown 56% compared to the previous three months, reaching a total of 934,000. Like some social his apps, Tumblr has benefited from increased interest in alternatives to Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover of his Twitter. Late last year saw a significant increase in installs for many potential Twitter competitors, including Mastodon, GETTR and Tribel.
That said, the link between Tumblr’s blue checkmark and revenue, even if it’s just a joke, makes for an interesting case study in the broader trend towards paid authentication. The “Important Internet Checkmark” in-app purchase, as Tumblr calls it, is currently available as a one-time purchase. It’s not a continuous subscription like both Twitter and now Meta offer. (The Tumblr feature has also been upgraded to include Rainbow He Checks, which can turn into a crab at any moment as the parody continues.)
Still, given the slight increase in revenue, it’s hard to imagine what would have happened if Tumblr had bundled the feature into an upgraded tier of its existing $4.99/month ad-free browsing subscription to boost recurring revenue. It’s worth wondering. It still could have done so “as a joke,” but encouraged a more long-term commitment to the punchline.
Meta’s new paid authentication and subscriptions to social apps like Twitter Blue have become more popular following Apple’s privacy changes that limit the platform’s ability to personalize targeted ads. As a result, these companies turned to mobile his subscription economy to make up for the losses.
For example, Snapchat launched Snapchat+, adding various premium features to the app for power users and now has 2.5 million paying users. But unlike Twitter Blue and Meta’s newly announced Meta Verified for Facebook and Instagram, it doesn’t include verification.
By comparison, Twitter has yet to make a convincing argument for subscriptions. As reported by The Information, he has just 180,000 subscribers in the US, less than 0.2% of his monthly active users.
With Meta’s entry into the space, it’s unclear where this market will head as we look at the costs creators and companies pay for exposure and better customer service in various apps.
And it’s less clear where Tumblr goes after completely opting out of participating in the paid authentication space, saying it was a joke.
The company historically didn’t fully understand monetization. Founder David Karp’s original vision for creative branded advertising and later, Yahoo’s 2013 acquisition under Yahoo’s then-CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s larger search advertising and other formats. Through its existence, such as planning, Tumblr has been unable to grow its revenue through more traditional means. Six years after Yahoo acquired him for $1 billion, its parent company (then Verizon), he reportedly dropped the service off to his Automattic for less than $20 million.
New owner Matt Mullenwag talks about Tumblr’s potential to be a better Twitter and his goal of making subscriptions half of Tumblr’s revenue. But recently, Mullenwag also hinted at plans for his Tumblr’s participation in the decentralized space known as Fediverse. This could hint at other avenues for the future of Tumblr and its bottom line, well beyond paid verification and parodies.
