The short version: the planets on Snapchat are part of a Snapchat+ feature called the Friend Solar System, and they rank your top friends by how much you interact with them, with Mercury as your closest friend and the planets further out representing weaker connections. It is not a scientific friendship meter, it is a paid engagement feature built to keep you opening the app, and it updates based on recent snapping patterns rather than years of history.
What the planets on Snapchat are
If you have paid for Snapchat+, you will have seen a little row of planets on your profile, orbiting a sun. The sun is you. The planets are your best friends, placed in order of closeness based on how Snapchat's algorithm reads your chat and snap activity.
The order follows our real solar system, closest to furthest from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Mercury is the planet closest to the sun in actual astronomy, so on Snapchat, Mercury is your number one friend. Whoever lands in Neptune is still in your top eight, just the weakest connection of that group.
This sits inside the Friend Solar System feature, which is one of the paid extras Snapchat added to make its £3.99 to £4.99 a month subscription (the exact price moves around depending on region and currency, it is a similar figure in dollars in the US) feel worth paying for. Free users don't get it. That is the whole point of it existing.
How the ranking is calculated
Snapchat has never published the full formula, but based on how the Best Friends list has worked for years and how people watch their own planets shift, it comes down to a few clear factors:
- How often you send snaps and chats back and forth, not just how many you've sent in total
- How recent that activity is, with the last few days weighted far more heavily than last month
- Whether contact goes both ways, one person snapping constantly at someone who rarely replies does not build a strong ranking
- Streaks play a part, but a streak alone will not hold someone at Mercury if daily conversation has dried up
That recency weighting is the bit most explainers skip, and it is the most useful thing to understand. This is not a lifetime leaderboard of your closest friends. It is a rolling snapshot of the last week or two.
A worked example to make this concrete
Say you have eight regular Snapchat contacts: your partner, two close mates from school, a cousin, a workmate, and three people from a group chat you joined for a hobby. For the past three months, your partner has sat at Mercury and your school mate Priya has sat at Venus.
Then one week, you and your workmate Dan end up messaging back and forth forty or fifty times a day because you are both stuck on a project together and chatting about it constantly on Snapchat instead of Slack. Within 48 to 72 hours, Dan can jump from somewhere near Neptune straight up to Mercury or Venus, bumping your partner down a spot, even though your partner is obviously still your closest actual relationship in real life.
That is the uncomfortable bit nobody selling this feature as "fun" wants to spell out: the planets measure app behaviour, not emotional closeness. They reward whoever you happen to be messaging most on Snapchat specifically, that week. Someone you call every night but never snap could sit outside the whole solar system, while someone you barely know but exchange constant memes with sits at Mercury. Treating the order as a verdict on who matters most to you is a mistake, and it is one that causes a surprising amount of real upset, especially among teenagers checking whether their best friend has "demoted" them.
How often the planets update
There is no fixed public schedule, but in practice people report changes within a few days of a genuine shift in messaging frequency, and the order can refresh every time you open your profile if activity has moved enough. It is not instant and it is not hourly. If you send one extra snap to someone, do not expect them to leap three planets by the next refresh. It is the pattern over several days that moves the ranking, not a single message.
Can you manipulate or hide your planets?
Yes, to a point. If you want someone to rank higher, snap them consistently over several days rather than in one burst. If you want to stop someone seeing where they sit, you can turn the Friend Solar System display off in your Snapchat+ settings entirely, which hides the whole feature from your profile rather than letting you cherry-pick who appears. There is no setting to exclude one specific person while keeping the feature on for everyone else.
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Why this matters beyond the novelty
If you work in marketing or you are trying to understand how Gen Z and younger Gen Alpha users relate to social apps, features like this tell you something useful about retention design. Snapchat is not charging £4 a month for storage or filters alone. It is charging for status and visibility among friends, dressed up as a fun astronomy gimmick. The planets create a small, recurring reason to check the app and a small, recurring reason to keep messaging specific people to protect your position, which is exactly the kind of habit loop subscription products are built around.
For parents, the practical point is simpler: if your teenager is upset about "losing Mercury" to someone else, that is a real feeling about a ranking that has very little to do with actual friendship and a lot to do with who texted who most in the last five days. Worth saying out loud, because the panic it causes is real even when the mechanism behind it is shallow.
For anyone building a brand presence on Snapchat, this is also a reminder that organic reach on the platform rewards frequency and recency over history, the same pattern that shows up in almost every algorithm-driven app. If you want help working out where a platform like this fits into a wider marketing plan rather than guessing, that is the kind of question an AI consultant for small business conversation is useful for, rather than just chasing every new feature as it lands.
Common questions people have once they see their own solar system
A few things trip people up repeatedly once they look at their own planets rather than reading about the feature in the abstract.
- Not everyone gets eight planets. If you don't have eight people you interact with enough, you will see fewer planets, not empty slots.
- Group chats count toward the ranking in some cases, which is why a hobby group chat member can outrank a close friend you message one to one.
- The feature only exists on Snapchat+. If a friend without the subscription asks to see yours, they cannot replicate it on their own account without paying too.
- Being removed from someone's solar system is not a notification event. You will not get told if you drop off. You have to check.
Frequently asked questions
What does it mean if I'm Mercury on someone's Snapchat?
It means that, based on your recent snapping and chatting activity, you are currently their closest ranked friend on the platform, usually because of frequent, two-way, recent messages rather than one person snapping constantly without a reply.
Why did my position change on someone's Friend Solar System?
Because the ranking weighs recent activity heavily. If you have messaged less in the last few days while someone else has messaged more, they can move ahead of you even if your overall history together is stronger.
Do I need Snapchat+ to see planets?
Yes. The Friend Solar System is exclusive to paying Snapchat+ subscribers, which costs roughly £3.99 to £4.99 a month in the UK and a similar figure in dollars in the US. Free account holders cannot see or use this feature at all.
Can I turn off the planets feature so no one sees mine?
Yes, you can switch off the Friend Solar System display in your Snapchat+ settings, which removes it from your profile completely. There is currently no way to keep it on for most friends while hiding one specific person from the ranking.
