Things are heating up with Doubao’s paid plans — here’s the latest.
On June 1, insiders told 36Kr that Doubao plans to launch paid content in late June and will reveal related feature updates at the Force conference around the same time. The reason for this timing is that both PC and mobile versions still need about a month to adapt the basic features and payment system.
Reports say that if all goes well, Doubao will further integrate e-commerce features in Q3 to round out its payment scenarios, and will use subsidies to drive traffic to Douyin Mall, then enter the operational phase in Q4. These moves are all about preparing for commercial returns in 2027 and beyond. That’s why Doubao won’t measure paying user penetration as a key metric in 2026.
On May 4, Doubao’s App Store page announced that they would launch a paid version with more premium features, and revealed three pricing tiers: Standard at 68 yuan/month, Enhanced at 200 yuan/month, and Pro at 500 yuan/month. For annual plans, the prices are 688 yuan, 2,048 yuan, and 5,088 yuan respectively.
The pricing announcement sparked a lot of buzz. Back then, reporters learned that Doubaothe exact pricing and launch date hadn’t been finalized. Doubao’s official response was that they’ll always offer a free version, and on top of that, they’re exploring additional paid services—these are still being tested and details are under wraps.
Doubao is one of the most popular apps right now.On February 17, it topped the Apple App Store free app chart in China, beating Alibaba’s Qianwen and Ant’s Ah Fu. By March 2026, Doubao’s monthly active users reached 345 million, while Qianwen had 166 million, DeepSeek had 127 million, and Yuanbao had 57.35 million.
That massive user base comes with massive computing costs.Public data shows that as of March this year, Doubao’s daily token consumption skyrocketed from 120 billion at launch in May 2024 to 120 trillion—a 1,000-fold increase. Volcengine reports that enterprise clients with cumulative token calls over one trillion grew from 100 to 140.This means thatthe computing costs behind it (electricity, hardware depreciation)have greatly increased..
On the flip side, Doubao hasn’t nailed its business model yet, and that’s affecting its operations.Earlier reports said ByteDance’s total revenue for 2025 was expected to approach $200 billion, but net profit fell more than 70% year-on-year, largely due to AI investments. Douyin Group VP Li Liang clarified on Weibo that the actual operating margin decline was ‘nowhere near that big,’ but he did admit that slowing e-commerce growth and increased spending on new businesses caused a small drop in operating margin in the second half of the year.
When it comes to AI monetization, the three most common paths are subscriptions, ad revenue, and B2B model services.Among them, subscriptions are the first monetization scenario to be explored. For example, ChatGPT has a complete four-tier pricing system: Go at about $8/month, Plus at $20/month, Pro at $100/month, and Pro at $200/month. The Pro tier directly competes with Anthropic’s Claude Max, targeting heavy programming users.
Additionally, Kimi also adjusted its membership system this year, switching from a per-use fee to actual consumption-based billing. With per-use charging, complex and simple tasks cost the same; now they charge based on task difficulty and resource usage. Thisalsoreflects that Kimi has already sensed the rising proportion of complex task consumption.
Compared to ChatGPT,Doubao’s Standard plan at 68 yuan (about $9.9) falls in a similar range as ChatGPT’s Go/Plus ($8-20), while its Pro plan at 500 yuan (about $73) sits roughly at the intersection of ChatGPT’s Pro tier and Chinese consumers’ spending power.
One analysis report believes thatDoubao’s paid service marks a shift in China’s large model industry from ‘wild growth’ to ‘value realization,’ and the competitive focus will move from ‘model parameters’ to ‘commercial ROI.’
As of now,Tencent’s Yuanbao and Alibaba’s Qianwen have not announced any plans to charge, and industry insiders speculate that they may take this opportunity to attract Doubao users.
