Snapchat Monetization: 3 Replays For Under $1 (Is Apple A Beneficiary?)

• Are Snapchat users willing to pay to see messages that have already “disappeared”?
• The messaging app introduced a new paid service on Tuesday
• For those not familiar with the disappearing-messages app, the concept is quite simple: users can send texts, images and videos that vanish after the addressee sees them for a few seconds.

Snapchat users can now go “back in time.” As of Tuesday, the app introduced a new feature that allows users to “replay” messages (and images and videos) that have already “expired.”

However, there is a catch: each replay costs 33 cents. The new in-app purchase option offers the possibility to buy three extra message “playbacks” for 99 cents.

It should be noted that the app already allows for one free “replay” a day. The new paid service increases this number to four.

In an official blog post, the company said, “We introduced Replay in Additional Services almost two years ago, and we’ve used it to relive those amazing moments (or the ones we weren’t paying attention to…) just one more time before they disappear. We’ve provided one Replay per Snapchatter per day, sometimes frustrating the millions of Snapchatters who receive many daily Snaps deserving of a Replay. But then we realized — a Replay is like a compliment! So why stop at just one?”

The new feature provides another revenue source for Snapchat, which first started navigating the roads of monetization a year ago, when it introduced ads in the app, featuring publicity from big companies like The Coca-Cola Co KO, Mattel, Inc. MAT and Samsung Electronics.

Recently, re/code reported that the companyexpects to reach $50 million in revenue in 2015. However, according to Gawker, Snapchat generated only $3.1 million in revenue last year.

In an article published on The Wall Street Journal’s blog Digits, Douglas MacMillan explains that the new feature could also generate money for Apple Inc. AAPL, which usually takes a 30 percent cut of in-app purchases. “A Snapchat spokeswoman declined to comment on whether Apple is taking its standard cut for the replays,” he adds.