ByteDance's DouBao Initiates Paid Testing

ByteDance's DouBao has recently launched a paid subscription test, with a paid service agreement and three-tier plan appearing on the App Store page. The standard version is 68 yuan per month, the enhanced version is 200 yuan per month, and the professional version is 500 yuan per month, while basic daily use remains free.

The core of this test is not to charge all users, but to include high-computational functions such as PPT creation, data analysis, and video production as value-added services. DouBao reportedly has 345 million monthly active users as of March 2026, with an average daily Token consumption of over 120 trillion. The larger the user base, the more significant the pressure on computational cost.

Morgan Stanley believes that DouBao's move has sent out an industry signal: the cultivation phase of Chinese consumers' AI usage habits has basically been completed, and the industry is shifting from user subsidies to commercial sustainability. For ByteDance, this also relates to the rationality of continuing to invest in AI capital expenditures.

Looking at the pricing, DouBao seems more like it is testing the waters with professional users. The standard version at 68 yuan per month is higher than Kimi's 49 yuan entry level, while applications like Tongyi, Yuanbao, and Wenxin Yayan are still free.

The subscription revenue space is still in the early stage of validation. Morgan Stanley calculates that, assuming a paid conversion rate of 0.3% to 3.0%, monthly active users between 345 million and 525 million, and an average annual paid user income of about $98, DouBao's annualized subscription revenue range is between $101 million and $1.5 billion.