Now that Threads has more than 300 million active users per month, the first advertising measures are starting. Initially in the USA and Japan.

Meta’s Threads, a direct rival to X, announced on Friday that it is now testing ads with select brands in the U.S. and Japan. Instagram head Adam Mosseri emphasized that the company would be gathering feedback before deciding to expand this experiment to other markets.

This marks the first step in Meta’s efforts to monetise Threads, which launched in July 2023 as a competitor to X (formerly Twitter). Although the platform initially stood apart from Meta’s other services by avoiding ads, the company now seeks to leverage its large user base to generate revenue.

Meta’s X rival Threads said Friday that it is now testing ads with select brands in the U.S. and Japan. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said that the company

Your Threads feed will soon have ads. On Friday, Meta announced that it’s rolling out a “limited, early test of ads in Threads,” and the test will happen with a “handful of brands in the US and Japan,” according to Instagram boss Adam Mosseri.

Threads, Meta's Twitter/X clone has started introducing ads with a "small test" affecting users in the US and Japan.

In its year-and-a-half of existence, one of the things that’s set Threads apart from Meta’s other apps is that the service has been entirely free of the advertising that fills up just about every corner of Facebook and Instagram.