Twitter may be gauging user interest in paying for premium features including analytics and news alerts on TweetDeck, a popular dashboard app it acquired in 2011 for $40 million, as the company deals with slow user growth and net losses.

In a statement, Twitter said it is conducting a survey to assess interest in a “new, more enhanced version” of TweetDeck.

“We regularly conduct user research to gather feedback about people’s Twitter experience and to better inform our product investment decisions, and we’re exploring several ways to make TweetDeck even more valuable for professionals,” it added.

While it made no mention of asking users to pay for the new service, media reports say Twitter is looking into a subscription fee based version of TweetDeck.

TweetDeck is currently free and lets users add columns to its interface so they can view notifications, other timelines, and tweets with specific hashtags or keywords in one place. This is particularly useful for marketers, journalists, and analysts tracking conversations from around the world.

The core Twitter service will continue to be free.

In a report, Forbes noted Twitter would need to set any paid-for dashboard apart from several alternatives currently available. The newspaper added Twitter also risked effectively splitting its user base into a two-tier system where those who pay are assisted in terms of spreading their messages.

Twitter has been struggling to attract advertising dollars and its Q4 2016 results were disappointing, as quarterly user growth slowed and its net loss of $167.1 million was almost double the $90.24 million loss registered in the same period of 2015. Indeed, the company is yet to post a profit since going public in November 2013.

Monthly active users grew to 319 million in Q4 2016, up 4 per cent from 305 million in the comparable 2015 period, and 83 per cent were using Twitter on mobile at end-2016.