Tumblr announced today that it’s rolling out an ad-free browsing experience for web and mobile. On a monthly basis, you’ll have to pay $4.99 per month for what Tumblr calls “pure, unadulterated nonsense,” but its yearly price of $39.99 gives you four months free. To opt-in, users can navigate to their account settings and press the “go ad-free” button, where they will be prompted to choose between a yearly or monthly subscription. Though ad-free browsing is available on mobile too, it can only be enabled on the web. While the feature hides third-party ads, it doesn’t hide sponsored posts from Tumblr users.
This is Tumblr’s latest attempt to monetize the platform, which has depreciated in value over the years. In the last several months alone, Tumblr has unveiled a Post+ subscription, as well as Tipping, which allows users to send their favorite bloggers cash via Stripe. Tumblr earns a 5% commission on Post+ earnings, but all tips go directly to creators, minus standard credit card fees (2.9% + $0.30).
Tumblr’s audience is notorious for lashing out against any change to the platform, but an ad-free subscription is a less-intrusive feature than paywalling posts. Tumblr serves exceptionally strange ads (our personal favorite is the one that suggests you purchase one square foot of land in Scotland to become a Lord), but some users pointed out that they already get an ad-free Tumblr by using browser extensions, so they aren’t incentivized to pay.