Bot creators now have a new way to make money with Poe, Quora's own AI chatbot platform. The company on Monday introduced a revenue model that allows creators to set a per-message price for their bots, allowing them to earn money every time a user sends a message. This addition follows his October 2023 release of a revenue sharing program that gives bot creators a cut of the revenue if users subscribe to Poe's premium products.
First released by Quora in February 2023, Poe gives users the ability to sample various AI chatbots from ChatGPT makers OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and more. The idea is to give consumers an easy way to try out new AI technologies in one place, while providing Quora with a potential source of new content.
The company's revenue model brings a new twist to the creator economy by rewarding AI enthusiasts who generate “prompt bots” and developer-built server bots that integrate with Poe's AI.
Last fall, Quora announced it was starting a revenue-sharing program with bot creators, saying it would “soon” open up the option for creators to set per-message prices for their bots. It's been almost five months since its announcement, and the latter is now up and running, although we can't say “soon”.
Quora CEO Adam DiAngelo explained on monday Poe users only see message points for each bot. This includes the same points that a free user or Poe subscriber has. However, he said creators will be paid in dollars.
Today we're introducing a new way for model developers and bot authors to generate revenue. @poe_platform: Price per message! Creators can now set a price per message for their bot and generate revenue every time a user sends a message to the bot. Thread 👇 pic.twitter.com/yx5mKgGoSQ
— Adam D'Angelo (@adamdangelo) April 8, 2024
“This pricing mechanism is important for developers with significant model inference and API costs,” D'Angelo said in a post on X. “Our goal is to have a thriving ecosystem of model developers and bot creators who build on top of our models, and covering their operating costs is a key part of that,” he added.
D'Angelo believes new revenue models could encourage the development of new types of bots, including areas such as tutors, knowledge assistants, analytics, storytelling, and image generation.
The service is currently only available to bot creators in the United States, but will be expanded worldwide in the future. Thanks to Creator Bots, you'll participate in the Creator Monetization Program, which pays out up to $20 per user who subscribes to Poe.
In addition to the per-message revenue model, Poe also launched an enhanced analytics dashboard that shows creators' bot average revenue across paywalls, subscriptions, and messages. Its insights are updated daily to help creators better understand how pricing affects bot usage and revenue.