Losing your snapchat streaks can be disappointing, especially if you’ve worked hard to build up long streaks with your friends. Many snapchat users get frustrated when they accidentally break a streak and then find out they have to pay to get it back. Snapchat’s streak restore feature isn’t cheap – it costs 100 coins per streak restored. This leaves many users wondering: why should I have to pay to get my streaks back? Can’t snapchat just restore them for free?
What are snapchat streaks?
For those unfamiliar, here’s a quick overview of how snapchat streaks work. A snapchat streak starts when you send snaps back and forth with a friend for 3 consecutive days. You’ll see a little flame emoji next to friends you have streaks with. To maintain a streak, you need to keep snapping that person at least once every 24 hours. If you go more than 24 hours without sending a snap, you’ll lose the streak.
Many snapchat users enjoy keeping streaks going for weeks or months to see how long they can maintain them. They’ve become a way to keep up frequent communication with your closest snapchat friends. Some people don’t care about streaks at all, but for those who do care, they can create a sense of obligation to snap daily.
Why do streaks get broken?
Streaks usually get broken accidentally – someone forgets to snap for a day, their phone dies, they go on vacation, etc. It’s easy to lose track of time and break a streak unintentionally. Some reasons streaks get broken include:
Forgetting to snap
In the busyness of daily life, it’s easy to forget to send that streak snap. You go to bed, realize you forgot, and the streak is now broken.
Phone died
If your phone dies and you don’t have a charger, you can’t send snaps. No snap for 24 hours = broken streak.
No internet access
If you go somewhere without internet like camping or on a remote beach, you can’t send snaps to maintain streaks.
Something came up
Emergencies, family obligations, work responsibilities – life happens! If something distracts you from snapping for a day, streaks can be accidentally broken.
Vacation
Especially on long vacations without cell service, it’s easy to lose track of your streaks and return home to find them broken.
Forgot to open snaps
Not opening a snap for 24 hours also breaks a streak, even if you sent a snap yourself.
Why does snapchat charge to restore streaks?
Now we get to the heart of the question – why does it cost 100 coins to restore a broken streak? Here are some potential reasons snapchat charges for this:
Incentivize daily engagement
Streaks motivate users to open the app every day. Restoring streaks for free would diminish this incentive to use snapchat daily. The coin cost ensures you really care about a streak before restoring it.
Generate revenue
With over 180 million daily active snapchat users, even a small cost to restore streaks likely generates significant revenue for the company. Snapchat has to balance keeping the app engaging without being exploitative. A small restoration cost seems fair.
Limit streak inflation
If streak restoration was free, people could amass crazy-long streaks by constantly restoring them. The coin cost prevents streaks from spiraling out of control.
Cover costs of feature
Maintaining the infrastructure for the streak restore feature isn’t free for snapchat. The cost may help cover their expenses.
People will pay
At the end of the day, the cost comes down to basic economics. Snapchat charges because people are willing to pay. If users stopped restoring streaks, snapchat would likely lower the cost.
How much does it cost to restore streaks?
Okay, we’ve established snapchat charges for restoring streaks. So how much does it actually cost?
Restoring a streak costs 100 snapchat coins per streak. Here are the amounts it costs to purchase coins:
| Coins | Cost (USD) |
|---|---|
| 80 coins | $0.99 |
| 150 coins | $1.99 |
| 460 coins | $4.99 |
| 1,200 coins | $9.99 |
| 3,000 coins | $24.99 |
So to restore a single streak, you’d need to buy at least 150 coins for $1.99. Here’s how many streaks that amount of coins can restore:
| Coins | Streaks Restored |
|---|---|
| 150 coins | 1 streak |
| 460 coins | 4 streaks |
| 1200 coins | 12 streaks |
As you can see, just one restored streak costs nearly $2. For avid streak-keepers, these costs add up quickly.
Strategies to avoid losing streaks
Now that we’ve explored why snapchat charges for restoring streaks and how much it costs, let’s discuss some ways you can be proactive and avoid losing streaks in the first place.
Send streak snaps early in the day
Get your streak snaps handled first thing when you wake up. You’re less likely to forget if you get them out of the way early.
Send duplicates to important streaks
For your very closest friends or longest streaks, send duplicate snaps to give yourself a 24 hour grace period if you forget to snap one day.
Use snapchat time-saving features
Set snaps you want to send to multiple people to send automatically later. Program streaks snaps in advance if you’ll be busy.
Set reminders to snap
Use your phone’s reminder app to set daily alarms reminding you to send streak snaps.
Check the streaks tab before bed
Give your streaks list a quick scan at night to make sure you didn’t miss anyone important.
Communicate with streak friends
If you’re going on vacation or may miss snaps for a few days, give your streak friends a heads up so they don’t think you’ve forgotten about them.
Buy snapchat Plus
For $3.99/month, snapchat Plus lets you see your longest streaks and who you snap with most – helpful for keeping track of streaks.
Is it worth it to pay?
Whether or not it’s worth paying to restore a streak comes down to personal preference. For many loyal snapchat users, a long streak symbolizes an important friendship, so restoring it has sentimental value. Others see streaks as meaningless and wouldn’t bother restoring them.
Here are some factors to consider when deciding if restoring a streak is worth the cost:
Length of streak
The longer the streak, the more you may want to pay to restore it. Losing a 1000+ day streak can be devastating.
Closeness of friend
You’ll probably be more inclined to pay for very close best friends than casual acquaintances.
Effort put in
If you put lots of effort into maintaining a streak, you may not want that effort to go to waste.
Disposable income
For some people, $2-$5 isn’t a big deal. For others on a tight budget, it’s harder to rationalize.
Principles
Some avoid in-app purchases on principle and would never pay for streaks. Others have no objection.
In the end, it comes down to deciding if your streaks are meaningful enough connections that they’re worth investing some cash into. There’s no right or wrong answer – it depends on your priorities.
Will snapchat ever offer free streak restoration?
Is it possible snapchat would ever eliminate the cost and allow free streak restoration? While unlikely, there are a few scenarios where they potentially could:
If streaks started declining in popularity
If snapchat usage and engagement with streaks began trending downward, they may offer free restoration as a promotional incentive to revive interest.
For a limited time promotion
Occasionally apps will run special deals like “restore 3 streaks for free!” This could get people hooked on the feature.
If a close competitor offered it
Snapchat may re-evaluate their costs if a rival platform allowed free streak restoration and they felt threatened.
If restoration costs got bad PR
Widespread complaints about the restore costs in the media could push snapchat to eliminate the cost.
If costs were prohibitive for growth in certain markets
In poorer countries, snapchat may test eliminating streak costs if it was limiting adoption of the app.
However, their streak strategy has worked very successfully so far, so it seems unlikely they will change an approach that has served them well unless compelled by external factors. For now, paying remains the only way to restore a broken streak.
Conclusion
Losing a long snapchat streak can be annoying and disheartening. While snapchat’s decision to charge coins for restoring streaks is unpopular with some users, they have business incentives to maintain the costs. Before starting streaks, be aware that you may have to pay to restore them if broken. Set reminders, communicate with streak friends, and utilize snapchat’s tools to proactively avoid losing your streaks in the first place. If you do lose a meaningful streak, you’ll have to decide if the friendship it represents makes it worthwhile to shell out a couple bucks to get it back. At the end of the day, streaks are meant to be fun – don’t stress too much if you lose one! Consistent communication is more important than any streak number.