Social media platform Twitter, rated best platform for B2B marketing in a recent study, is testing a $99-per-month marketing subscription package for small- and medium-sized businesses, reports Mashable. The program, which is called the Twitter Subscription Ads Beta Program, is in private beta now with a 30-day free trial. Users must apply to become part of the program, and only those who are invited may join the beta test.

“We’ve developed a way for you to grow your following and have your tweets reach more people without creating ads or managing campaigns,” says Twitter’s subscription landing page.

Prospective users are asked to fill out on online firm with their email address, Twitter handle, interest category (e.g., books and literature, automotive, business, education etc.) and location. Right now a Twitter subscriber can only choose an area of interest OR location, but not both.

Twitter doesn’t clearly define what businesses get for $99 a month though, except that they will automatically promote some tweets, and users will receive a biweekly report with information about followers and engagement. Instead, users just go about their business and can prepare to be amazed at what Twitter can do for them.

“Instead of creating and optimizing separate Twitter Ads campaigns yourself, this program will do the heavy lifting,” says Twitter on its FAQs page. “You just need to continue using Twitter as you normally do – Tweeting updates, links and media that you want a larger audience to see. Then, the promotion of your Tweets will be automated.”

Businesses who are currently using Twitter Ads will no longer be able to do so. Their ad accounts will not be accessible under the new program, but if Twitter users want information from their old ads account, they can email Twitter for that information, and they’ll provide.

Twitter says that the new program will…

• Run a Promoted Account campaign for an entire month
• Run a Promoted Tweet campaign that includes up to the first 10 tweets sent each day, but will not include retweets, quote tweets or replies.
• Display ads to people with similar interests to what the subscriber tweets about OR in their metro area, but not both.

“Not every Tweet that is added to your Promoted Tweet campaign will serve an impression, and the extent each Tweet is promoted may vary based on performance,” Twitter explains.

The news of the subscription service comes on the heels of Twitter’s second quarter 2017 financial report released on July 27 in which the company reported a quarterly GAAP net loss of $116 million, and a GAAP diluted earnings/loss per share of $0.16. This is an improvement of the quarterly GAAP net loss of $107 million in the second quarter of 2016.

Average monthly active usage (MAU) was 328 million for the second quarter, a 5 percent increase year-over-year, but no change from the first quarter. Average daily active usage (DAU) grew 12 percent year-over-year, but Twitter did not specify what it was.

CEO Jack Dorsey commented on Twitter’s performance for the quarter:

“We’re proud that the product improvements we’re making continue to increase their overall contribution to Twitter’s growth. Monthly active usage (MAU) increased 5% year-over-year and daily active usage (DAU) increased 12% year-over-year, marketing the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth,” Dorsey said.

“We’re strengthening our execution, which gives us confidence that our product improvements will continue to contribute to meaningful increases in daily active usage. We’re also encouraged by the progress we’re making executing against our top revenue generating priorities as we focus on making Twitter the best place to see and share what’s happening, where you can see every side and perspective,” Dorsey added.

Twitter COO Anthony Noto also commented on the company’s second quarter financials.

“We continue to invest in revenue products and services that leverage Twitter’s unique value proposition and are delivering more value to advertisers than ever, with double-digit growth in daily active usage, improvements in ad relevance and better pricing,” Noto said.

“We’re proud of our strong growth in video, which remained our largest and fasted growing ad format, and we received a positive response from advertisers around the live premium video content debuted at Twitter’s Digital Content NewFronts. We remain focused on growing revenue by improving the performance and measurement of our revenue products, tapping into new channels of demand and continuing to grow our data licensing revenue,” added Noto.

Investors weren’t impressed with the financial report. As of 6:16 PM EDT yesterday, Twitter stock was valued at $16.07 per share. The day before quarterly financials were released, July 26, stock stood at $19.61 per share. This time last year, August 3, 2016, it was $17.61 per share.

Insider Take:

We commend Twitter for changing up their business model by adding a subscription product to provide a new revenue stream, and to hopefully move the company into the black at some point, but we aren’t sure this is the right product. To start with, it is expensive for some small businesses who might want to try automated marketing through Twitter.

Also, it isn’t clear why a business should sign up or what exactly they are getting out of it. Perhaps a better way to approach the new product would be to let businesses try it for a longer period of time at no charge, or at a nominal cost, and then promote the program through case studies that show an actual increase in engagement.

As it stands, Twitter is asking businesses to give them $99 a month for a product over which subscribers have no input or control with the loose promise that engagement will increase. That’s not good enough, and $99 a month is a risk for some small businesses. Twitter needs to clarify its value proposition and improve its transparency, or it will see this subscription product fall flat on its face.