The most surprising number on the call was not the user count. It was this: over a quarter of Muse's engaged shopping users had an average purchase size of over $200. Six weeks after launch, people are not asking the agent to order paper towels. They are handing it considered purchases, through connected bank accounts, at a scale that made Plaid tell Meta it "hadn't seen activity like they're seeing with their connector on any other service before."
The second surprise was the forecast. Zuckerberg said he expects Muse to eventually bring in more revenue per user than Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger do, a figure he put at "several hundreds of dollars annually" per American user. That is the moment Muse stopped being a launch story and became a billing story. Here is the whole call, translated for the people who actually use the thing.
The scoreboard Meta finally published
More than 10 million people in the US and Canada have set up Muse since its early September launch, about six weeks ago. About 25 percent of them use it on any given day. Until this call, Meta had published no Muse user number at all; every figure in circulation came from outside estimators. This one is the company's own, given to investors, on the record.
There is a second 10 million number going around, and it is not the same one. Sensor Tower estimates Muse was downloaded 10.9 million times worldwide in its first 40 days (10.2 million in the US), with 2.5 million daily users on October 16. Downloads are installs; Meta's figure is completed setups in two countries. Different rulers, similar reading: the scale is real.
Shopping is the beachhead
Shopping is the most common use case, per Zuckerberg, with the $200 average among engaged shoppers as the proof point. The runner-up is the one this site expected to win: personal productivity, people connecting Muse to their email and calendars. He read that as a trust signal and pointed to Muse Secure VM, the sandbox your agent works in, and name-checked the forthcoming Muse Confidential VM, which is designed to keep even Meta from seeing your content. No date was given on the call.
That ordering matters for what gets built next. Expect the investment (new commerce tools, more merchant doors opened, more payment connectors) to follow the shopping behavior, with productivity as the second lane.
How Meta plans to charge
"Now that Muse has clear product market fit, we are entering a new phase and a more operational phase that is focused on scaling it," Zuckerberg said. The charging plan he laid out, in order:
- Merchants pay first. Meta is building commerce tools that charge businesses transaction fees on purchases the agent facilitates. If you buy through Muse, the seller is the one Meta plans to bill.
- Heavy users pay second. Subscriptions (Power at $20 a month, Maximum at $100 a month) are the lane for people and businesses who lean on the agent hard.
His exact ambition: "The average revenue per American user for our existing family of apps users is several hundreds of dollars annually, and we expect that Muse will reach an even higher level over time due to the amount of commerce that we already see taking place." The honest counterweight also came up on the call: Muse is significantly more expensive to run than Meta's other services, and cutting the cost of serving each user is now an explicit goal next to growth. A product that costs a lot and is expected to earn even more is a product whose free allowances get managed carefully. Remember that sentence when your usage meter moves.
"Product-market fit" is management's phrase, not an audited metric. Meta published no Muse revenue, no paid-subscriber count, and no retention curve. The 10 million is setups, not daily users; the daily habit, about 25 percent of setups, is the more sober measure, and it is early.
What changes for you
Nothing, today. Prices did not move with the earnings: free, $20 Power, $100 Maximum, same as last week. No user fee was announced. What changed is the risk profile of the product you are building habits on:
- The shutdown risk is gone. A service with 10 million users, a monetization mandate, and a public forecast to out-earn Facebook per user is not an experiment Meta is about to shelve.
- The pricing risk is now the live one. A monetization phase that starts with merchants does not have to stay there. The levers Meta already has are the free allowance and the paid tiers, and this call gave it every reason to pull them eventually. Nothing says soon; everything says someday.
- One loose end stayed loose. Shared links remain paused after this week's security story, and the call gave no date for bringing them back.
The fine print on the quarter
For readers who came here from the earnings headlines: Meta's release reported revenue of $64.601 billion, up 26 percent and ahead of the roughly $63.3 billion analysts expected. Reported earnings per share were $3.83, and the gap to the $7.40 Meta says it would have earned without one item is a $9.89 billion charge taken in the quarter under its August agreement with 52 state attorneys general resolving teen mental health and social media litigation (payments of up to about $18.59 billion in total). Operating income was $12.99 billion, a 20 percent margin against 40 percent a year earlier. The spending behind Muse continues: $34.91 billion of capital expenditures in the quarter, negative free cash flow of $2.12 billion, and full-year 2026 capex guidance narrowed to $135 billion to $145 billion.
Quick answers
How many people use Muse?
More than 10 million have set it up in the US and Canada (Meta's first official figure, October 21), and about 25 percent use it on any given day.
Did Muse prices change with the earnings?
No. Free, Power at $20 a month, and Maximum at $100 a month are unchanged, and no user fee was announced.
How will Meta make money from Muse?
Merchant transaction fees first, through commerce tools for businesses; subscriptions for heavy users second. Zuckerberg forecast Muse revenue per user eventually passing the family of apps, which he put at several hundred dollars a year per American user.
What is the $9.89 billion charge?
A charge Meta recorded in the quarter under its agreement with 52 state attorneys general over teen mental health and social media litigation, which provides for payments of up to about $18.59 billion in total. Excluding it, earnings per share would have been $7.40 instead of $3.83.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is Meta's 10 million the same as Sensor Tower's 10.9 million downloads?
A: No. Sensor Tower counts installs worldwide; Meta counts people who set up Muse in the US and Canada. Different measures that happen to land close, which makes each more believable, not redundant.
Q: Does the monetization phase mean the free tier is going away?
A: Meta announced nothing like that, and the call's growth talk (an ambition to serve billions of people) runs the other way. The realistic first squeeze, when it comes, is the size of the free usage allowance, not the existence of the tier. Watch your meter.
Q: What are people buying through Muse?
A: Meta gave no category breakdown. It said shopping is the most common use case and that over a quarter of engaged shopping users averaged over $200 per purchase, which points to considered purchases, and the Plaid volume it cited suggests much of it runs through connected bank accounts.
Q: Muse out-earning Facebook per user: is that plausible?
A: It is a forecast, not a result, and it rests on commerce volume Meta has not yet published. The ingredients named on the call are transaction fees on agent-run purchases plus subscriptions, against a family-of-apps bar of several hundred dollars per American user per year. Judge it when Meta prints a Muse revenue line, which it has not done yet.
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