How does Snapchat make money

Matthew Lo
Jul 31, 2017
1 min read

Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platform in the world. It's a free app that allows you to send messages that will be deleted after you've seen it. Many people might question, how can it make money?

Geo Filters

Snapchat introduced the geo filters which allows people to change their filter by swiping left and right after taking a photo. The filter changes when you arrived a different place. There are 2 categories of filters: personal and business. After finishing the template of 1080 pixels wide and 1920 pixels high in PNG format and sent to Snapchat, you'll need to pay for it.

Lens

While you're taking selfies, touch your face to enable lens. You can choose from a range of filters from doggy face to a dancing bee. Those lens are provided by Snapchat. Meantime, companies pay for the lens as a channel to promote. For example, X-Men: Apocalypse film paid to have branded X-Menfilters. Also, Harry Potter paid to have show a scare on the forehead of users' face.

Discover

Media or magazines pay Snapchat to display their articles and videos on Discover. Snapchat collects the fee on a cost-per-impression basis. Companies such as National Geographic, BuzzFeed and Refinery29 are Snapchat's major Clients. For companies like them, Snapchat is an effective way to advertise and broaden audience base.