What Does the Planets Mean on Snapchat
A paid feature that tells you where you rank in somebody's orbit, calculated from behavior neither of you chose deliberately.
What does the planets mean on Snapchat: they are the Best Friends Solar System, a Snapchat+ feature that ranks your closest friends. Mercury is first, then Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in eighth, and only a subscriber can see their own position in somebody else's list.
Only the subscriber sees their own solar system. You see your ranking of other people, not theirs of you.
The order comes from how often you exchange snaps and chats, recalculated continuously.
Planets describe private friendships, and they have nothing to do with the public side of an account. That side is measured in followers on a public profile, which is what followers on a Snapchat public profile acts on.
The one-way visibility is the part that generates the drama, and it is worth being precise about.
If you subscribe, you can open a friend's profile and see which planet you are in their solar system — that is, how highly you rank for them. Without the subscription, you see nothing. So two people looking at the same friendship can have completely different information, and the one paying knows something the other does not.
The ranking itself is computed from interaction frequency: snaps and chats exchanged, weighted toward recent activity. Nobody chooses it, and there is no way to pin somebody at a position.
It also moves. A planet can change in a day because of a conversation with somebody else, which is the mechanical explanation for a feature that people read emotionally.
Two honest caveats belong in any explanation of this. First, the exact weighting is not published, so anybody claiming a precise formula is guessing. Second, the feature exists to sell a subscription: it manufactures a reason to keep checking, and the anxiety it produces is the product working as designed.
The order, planet by planet
Mercury is the closest to the sun and marks the number one friend, then Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in eighth place.
Each planet badge has its own colors and background stars, which is decoration rather than meaning.
Only the top eight get planets. Everyone else has no badge.
The sun in the metaphor is the person whose solar system it is, not you.
The badge appears beside the friend's name in your chat list rather than on their profile, which is why people describe seeing it in different places. It is drawn where the relationship lives in the interface, not where the person does.
Who can see what
A subscriber sees which planet they are in another person's solar system, by opening that friend's profile.
A non-subscriber sees nothing at all, and the other person is not told that somebody checked.
You cannot see the full list of somebody's eight. You see only your own position in it.
There is no notification when a position changes.
Checking repeatedly is also visible in its own way. The person being checked sees nothing, but the subscription renews monthly, and the honest question before paying again is whether the answer changed anything the previous month.
How the ranking is calculated
Frequency of interaction: snaps and chats exchanged between the two of you, with recent activity weighted most.
It updates continuously rather than on a schedule, so positions move without an announcement.
The precise weighting is not published, and no reliable way to force a position exists.
Streaks are related but separate: a long streak with somebody you rarely talk to otherwise does not guarantee a high planet.
Because it is computed from recent activity, the order moves faster than friendships do. A week of heavy messaging with one person reshuffles the list, and a quiet week puts it back, which is worth remembering before reading anything into a change.
Why this feature upsets people
It is worth naming the design honestly, because the questions people ask about planets are rarely about planets.
The feature takes something private and ambiguous — how close two people are — and renders it as a public-looking ranking with a number attached. Ambiguity is load-bearing in friendships, and removing it creates a comparison nobody asked for.
It is also asymmetric by design. The person paying can see where they stand with somebody who cannot see where they stand in return, which turns a social question into a purchase.
And the inputs are not what people assume. The ranking counts message volume, so a friend you speak to daily in short bursts outranks one you see every weekend and message rarely. Reading the result as a measure of affection produces conclusions that are simply wrong.
The sane way to use it, if you are going to, is as a curiosity rather than as evidence. A planet that moved means somebody messaged somebody else more often this week, which is the entirety of what the feature knows.
And if a change in position is upsetting, the subscription can be canceled and the badges disappear, which is a reasonable response rather than a defeat.
Other friend badges that are not planets
The emoji beside a friend's name describe the relationship: a shared best-friend status, a one-sided best friend, mutual best friends, and the flame for a streak.
Those are visible to both sides without any subscription, which is why they are the ones most people actually use.
The planets sit on top of that system and are a paid interpretation of the same data.
All of them can be hidden by muting or removing a friend, which affects the inputs rather than the display.
The narrower friendship number has its own rule, explained in what streaks measure, and the third number on a profile moves for different reasons again, which what moves the snap score covers.
Is it worth subscribing for
If the question is whether somebody considers you a close friend, the answer it gives is a measure of message volume rather than of feeling.
The subscription includes other features: story rewatch counts, pinned conversations, custom icons and early access to some tools.
For a creator, none of it affects reach. Planets are a social feature, not a growth one.
And it can be canceled like any subscription, with the planets disappearing when it lapses.
For an account that publishes rather than chats, none of it affects reach. The number strangers read before following is the one on a public profile, which followers on a Snapchat public profile acts on, alongside the rest of the Snapchat services we carry.
Questions people ask about Snapchat planets
What do the Snapchat planets mean?
They rank your closest friends: Mercury is first, then Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in eighth.
Do I need Snapchat+ to see planets?
Yes. Only subscribers see their own position in somebody else's solar system. Without it, nothing is shown.
Can I see somebody's whole top eight?
No. You see only which planet you are, not the identities of the other seven.
Does the other person know I looked?
No. Checking your planet is not announced to them.
How is the order decided?
By how often you exchange snaps and chats, weighted toward recent activity. The exact formula is not published.
Can I change my planet?
Only by interacting more, and even then the position depends on what everybody else in their list is doing.
Keep reading
- followers on a Snapchat public profile — Planets describe private friendships while the public side is measured in followers, and followers on a Snapchat public profile acts on that number.
- what streaks measure — The other friendship number counts something narrower, and what streaks measure explains the rule.
- what moves the snap score — The third number on the profile has its own inputs, and what moves the snap score covers them.