Snapchat Now Lets Users Customize Their Filters

Usually, Snapchat users can only choose from a variety of fun, spontaneous filters on the app in order to take pictures of themselves with and then send it to their friends. Thanks to the new updates for the app, users can start getting access to new features intended to make it more fun. One of these is the ability to creature custom filters, which adds some depth to the lens battle in the industry.

Snapchat is currently fighting for its life against the attempts by Instagram and Facebook to obliterate the more popular app among younger users. The companies owned by Mark Zuckerberg have copied many of Snapchat’s most popular features to basically try and drown Snap Inc.’s product with sheer user numbers. With this new feature, the smaller company might just have a fighting chance.

Now, it’s worth noting that the customizable lenses are going to cost money, starting at $9.99 for the basic format. One of the determining factors as to how much users will need to pay is the size of the background to be covered. According to The Verge, it can apparently cover up to five million square feet.

For now, users can choose from 150 templates that they can then customize once they’ve made their choice. The lenses respond to the background and can then be decorated with texts and images, as users like.

As Forbes notes, Snap is marketing this particular service to private users. The company is promoting the idea of using it for big events such as concerts or huge birthday parties. Considering that users could also decide how long the pictures will stay up by basically paying for that time, Snap is encouraging some kind of planning before using the service.

This makes the new feature quite different compared to what users can usually expect from the app. After all, its target demographic is more prone to impulse selfies rather than pre-planned ones.