The concept is fairly simple and self-explanatory. Twitter users can now add a new ‘Tip Jar’ button that looks like a dollar bill to their profile page. To use the feature, you tap on the button on anyone’s profile (provided they have activated the feature) and you get options to tip them. Twitter is supporting many payment apps, including Venmo, Cashapp, PayPal, Patreon, and Bandcamp, so you can choose the payment method you want to use. It’s understandable that Twitter is bringing this feature to its native mobile app on iOS and Android. After all, users have been using Twitter to attract tips and donations for a long time now. You’ve probably seen links to Venmo and Cashapp, or even someone’s SoundCloud page under a viral tweet in the past. With this new feature, Twitter is simply incorporating that into its own service, natively. While we cannot set up a Tip Jar on our profile right now, we saw the feature available on certain profiles on Twitter.
It’s worth noting that the tip jar is only available on the profile page of a Twitter user. Users looking to tip a creator or someone they want to support therefore will have to head to their profile in order to tip them some money. As of right now, it doesn’t seem that Twitter has plans to make this feature available in more places on Twitter, but that could always change with time. Right now, Twitter says the feature is only available to users who use the platform in English, and it’s making Tip Jar available to only a limited group of people, including journalists, non-profits, experts, and creators. Meanwhile, anyone who uses Twitter in English can start tipping people who have Tip Jar enabled.
