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.
Planets are a Snapchat+ feature called Best Friends Solar System. If someone is in your top eight friends, their badge shows a planet, and the planet says what position they hold: Mercury is first, then Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in eighth.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.