If you’re a heavy Snapchat user, you may have invested in some lenses recently, which cost $0.99 apiece and let you permanently unlock the ability to make your face puke a rainbow or look old. Just a few months after launching the ability to buy Lenses, though, Snapchat is removing that feature.
Snapchat has confirmed that this Friday, January 8, it’ll pull the ability to buy Lenses from its app. The company hasn’t said exactly why it’s removing the ability to buy lenses, but the good news is that any lenses that you’ve already bought will remain available to you. Snapchat says that it’ll continue to offer a rotation of free lenses as well as sponsored lenses for events (Snapchat recently offered a special lens for The Peanuts Movie).
Snapchat says that it’s sold tens of thousands of lenses and that there are approximately 10 million snaps sent with a lens every day. Even if it’s sold tens of thousands of lenses, though, that’s not exactly a ton of money. To compare, sponsored lenses reportedly sell for between $450,000 and $750,000 each. That’s way more than Snapchat likely made from customers buying lenses. So perhaps it’s pulling the lens store to focus its efforts on other features and to keep users coming back to check the free daily lenses.
Have you ever bought a Snapchat lens?