Benzinga | Apr 6, 2021 02:59AM EDT

Clubhouse Pilots Payments Feature For Creators As Rivals Close-in, And It Will Take No Cut

Audio-based social media app Clubhouse said on Monday it is testing out Payments, a monetization feature that will enable content creators on the platform to accept payments from other listeners even as bigger social rivals such as Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and Microsoft Inc-owned (NASDAQ:MSFT) LinkedIn eye similar audio-based features to gain market share.

What Happened: The invite-only social-podcast startup, which is currently available only for iOS users, said Payments is currently being tested in a small group of users, feedback from whom will be used to further fine-tune the feature before it's made available to everyone.

Clubhouse said the feature will ensure 100% of the payments go to the content creator while the payer will be charged a small processing fee that will be diverted to its processing partner, Stripe - a fintech startup with headquarters in Ireland and North America, which boasts of a valuation of $95 billion.

The company is projecting Payments as one of the first features that allow creators to get paid directly on the app.

Why It Matters: The San Francisco- based Clubhouse is currently a free-to-use app and it does not run any advertisements. The company may however add a subscription model. It is also exploring options to make the app available on the Android platform.

LinkedIn and Twitter are also trying out Clubhouse-like audio features on their platforms.

Clubhouse was launched in April 2020 but really came to the fore this year when celebrities such as Tesla Inc's (NASDAQ:TSLA) Elon Musk and Facebook Inc's (NASDAQ:FB) Mark Zuckerburg featured on the audio-chat platform.

See Also: Elon Musk Talks Self-Driving, Batteries, Space, Neuralink, COVID-19 Vaccines, Bitcoin In Clubhouse Appearance

Clubhouse was founded by silicon valley entrepreneur Paul Davison and ex-Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) employee Rohan Seth. It was valued at over $1 billion in its latest funding round.

Price Action: Shares of Tesla closed 4.43% higher at $691.05 on Monday and those of Facebook closed 3.4% higher at $308.91.

Photo: Courtesy of Clubhouse