Roblox ‘Plus’ Is Here, but Only for the Most Generous Players.
Like many parents, I know all too well what it’s like when my Roblox-addicted child asks me to exchange my real money for virtual money to buy imaginary items in a digital video game. So when Roblox announced the April 30 launch of Roblox Plus —a monthly subscription with bonuses that can give us a 20% discount on all digital items—my interest was piqued.
But is Roblox Plus really worth the money? Let’s do some math.
What do you get with Roblox Plus?
As stated in today’s announcement on the Roblox website , when it launches later this month, the main benefit of Roblox Plus will be a discount on items purchased with Robux, the platform’s in-game currency. Your monthly subscription won’t include Robux for now (more on that later), but it will ensure you spend less real money on Robux in the future.
Roblox Plus members will receive a 10% discount on Robux on all in-game purchases immediately upon registration. After three months of continuous membership, the discount will increase to 20%.
You will also receive a number of other, less tangible benefits:
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Free private servers. You’ll no longer have to interact with a crowd of Roblox players: a subscription will give you a free private server for each game. (My son says most games already have free private servers, so the benefit is questionable.)
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Transfer Robux without a fee. Apparently, there’s currently a fee for transferring Robux from your account to another player. Robux Plus waives this fee. (Robux claims to have safeguards in place requiring parental consent to send or receive Robux from other users on child accounts.)
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Trade or resell avatar items. Avatar upgrades are typically a one-time purchase, but Roblox Plus members will be able to trade or resell them (probably at a significant loss, I suspect).
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Publish and sell avatar items. Roblox Plus members will also be able to create and sell their own avatar items on the Roblox Marketplace , potentially earning commissions of up to 70%. (This was possible before, so I’m guessing the benefit is bypassing the usual 300 Robux upload fee .)
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“Distinctive profile icon.” Wow, that’s something.
How much does a Roblox Plus subscription cost?
A Roblox Plus subscription will cost you $4.99 per month, the same price as the base Roblox Premium tier, which provides 450 Robux per month, a 10% bonus when purchasing additional Robux, and some other benefits, such as item trading. The basic Roblox Plus subscription does not include Robux . However, the announcement indicates that Roblox will launch Roblox Plus packs in the future that will also include Robux—in packs of 500, 1,000, or 2,000—but prices for these have not yet been announced. This is “a convenient way to pay one time for both Roblox Plus and a monthly Robux subscription,” the platform states. Very exciting!
Is Roblox Plus worth using?
While Roblox Plus may gain new benefits in the future, for now the easiest way to evaluate its feasibility is to do some simple math: to break even on the $5 per month subscription fee, you’d need to regularly spend at least $25 per month on in-game Robux purchases to even break even—and that’s after you’ve already been a subscriber for three months, doubling your discount from 10% to 20%. (In the first two months, you’d need to spend $50 in Robux to break even.) Of course, the math gets much more complicated if you combine a Roblox Premium subscription (which gives you a 10% bonus on Robux purchases) and a Roblox Plus subscription, but that equation will likely become irrelevant with the launch of the aforementioned Roblox Plus packages. Personally, I don’t plan on signing up my child for a subscription anytime soon. He doesn’t care about free servers or avatar item exchanges, and luckily, we don’t spend even $25 a month on Robux. At least most months.