I bought Instagram's new Meta One subscription — here's what $7.99 actually gets you

You may have noticed Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — all products of Meta Platforms — have AI tools. More specifically Meta Muse. And, if you've been having fun playing around with the various features like send emails, book travel or create images, I have news for you: you may eventually run into a paywall.On Tuesday (Sept. 15), Meta officially launched Meta One, a new subscription service that bundles premium features across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp while giving subscribers higher limits for some of the company's most compute-intensive AI tools.The company says Meta One plans are available globally, although pricing, features and availability can vary depending on your region, app and account.You definitely don't need to subscribe to keep scrolling Instagram, messaging friends on WhatsApp or using Meta AI normally. Meta says the core experiences across its apps and Meta AI will remain free.The catch is that some of the more demanding AI features now come with usage limits. Hit one, and you could be asked to pay if you want to keep going.So what exactly are you paying for?Interestingly, Meta One isn't a single subscription with a single price.In the U.S., Meta offers separate Plus plans for its individual apps: Instagram Plus costs $3.99 a month, Facebook Plus costs $3.99 and WhatsApp Plus costs $2.99. Each adds its own collection of extras.Sign up to the Tom's AI Guide weekly newsletter summing up all the biggest AI news you need to know. Plus, analysis from our AI editors and tips on how to use the latest AI tools!Instagram Plus, for example, includes features such as custom fonts for DMs and Stories, notifications when certain people view your Story and DM previews. WhatsApp Plus includes exclusive themes and icons, special-effect stickers and the ability to pin more chats. (Image credit: Shutterstock)The plans for anyone using Meta's AI tools are Meta One Core and Premium. Core costs $7.99 a month and includes the features from all three individual subscriptions. More importantly, it increases how often you can use features including Instagram Restyle and voice effects, as well as how many images and videos you can generate with Meta AI.Premium jumps to $19.99 a month and includes everything in Core with even higher AI usage limits.In other words, Meta isn't necessarily charging you to use its AI. It's starting to charge its heaviest users to use more of it.How soon will you hit a paywall? Despite having the subscription and using the AI tools pretty regularly for experimenting and reviewing, I have not hit a paywall yet, but Business Insider's Sydney Bradley encountered the limit while experimenting with Instagram's AI photo-editing effects. After repeatedly using the tools, Instagram presented an option to upgrade to Meta One Core for additional AI usage rather than continue using the feature freely.If you occasionally use Meta AI to answer a question or try an Instagram AI effect, Meta says everyday Meta AI use remains free. But start generating or editing enough images and videos and you may find there's now a ceiling on how much you can do without paying.Meta hasn't published one simple universal number telling users exactly how many AI generations or edits they get for free. The company says plans, benefits and availability can vary by account and region.That could make the change particularly noticeable for people who don't realize they're approaching a limit until Instagram asks them to subscribe. (Image credit: Viacheslav Lopatin | Shutterstock)Meta One also gives us a pretty good idea of where Meta is heading.The company says more than 50 features have already launched as part of the broader Meta One rollout, which has accumulated 15 million subscriptions and trials so far. The service will eventually expand beyond Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Meta AI to include Edits and Meta's AI glasses.There are separate Meta One subscriptions aimed at creators and businesses, too, with features including analytics, publishing tools, verification and greater access to Meta Business Agent. Those plans start at $14.99 a month and climb dramatically from there, with Meta's highest business tier starting at $499 a month.For most people, though, Core and Premium are the plans that make the most sense.Probably not — at least not yet. I have it because, well, I tinker around with AI a lot (it's literally my job). If you primarily use Instagram to scroll through Reels, Facebook to keep up with friends and WhatsApp to send messages, nothing fundamental is disappearing behind a subscription.To be clear, Meta AI isn't becoming a paid-only service. What Meta is doing instead is drawing a (somewhat fuzzy) line between using AI and using a lot of AI. It's no different than what Google or OpenAI offer because image and video generation demand requires considerably more computing power than ordinary social media features.Meta One gives the company a way to let everyone try those tools while charging the people who use them most. Whether consumers think Instagram's AI effects are worth another $7.99 a month is another question entirely. Meta clearly thinks some of us will.During early testing, the company says more than half of subscribers used both AI and expression features, with Instagram's Restyle and voice effects among the biggest reasons people signed up. And with 15 million subscriptions and trials already under its belt, Meta may have found another subscription we're willing to pay for on apps we've spent years using for free.Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Subscribe to Tom's Guide on YouTube and follow us on TikTok. More from Tom's GuideAI is turning ordinary photos of kids into sexual abuse imagery — here's how to protect your familyOpenAI paid contractors to read ChatGPT conversations — here's how to protect yourselfI stopped reading the fine print myself after discovering this overlooked ChatGPT trick