If you pop onto a friend’s Snapchat profile, you may see a tiny planet icon hovering next to their name. That’s not just a random ornament. It’s part of a feature called the Friend Solar System, and it’s quietly turned “who’s your best friend on Snapchat” into something people screenshot and debate about. If you’ve been gazing at a Saturn badge and wondering what it says about your friendship, here’s everything you need to know about Snap Planets.
What Snap Planets Actually Are
Snap Planets are the equivalent of Bitmoji on Snapchat, but specifically tailored to your top eight friends or closest contacts according to your interaction. Rather than a simple numbered list, Snapchat presents the ranking as a mini solar system: you’re the sun at the center, and your closest friends rotate around you as planets. The More You Two Talk Devotees of the More You Two Talk theory of love will want to note: the closer the planets, the more you two are talking, snapping, and keeping streaks alive.
It is a Snapchat Plus perk, which means that free users won’t be able to experience this specific visualization although the Best Friends ranking system has been a part of Snapchat in easier-to-understand formats for years.
The Planet Order, From Closest to Farthest
Snap Planets stay true to the actual order of our solar system, so that makes the ranking simple to remember even if you don’t know your space stuff:
Mercury
Your number one. This is the friend you interact with more than anyone else on the app.
Venus
Second place. Still a heavy hitter in your daily snap activity.
Earth
Third spot, home turf for a very close friend.
Mars
Fourth position, someone you’re clearly chatting with often.
Jupiter
Fifth ranked, a solid regular in your snap rotation.
Saturn
Sixth place, the rings make it memorable, but the ranking is slipping a bit.
Uranus
Seventh spot, still in your top eight but noticeably less frequent contact.
Neptune
Eighth and last, the outer edge of your closest circle.
If interaction slows down enough, a friend can fall out of the system entirely rather than getting stuck at Neptune forever.
How the Ranking Gets Calculated
There’s no human hand in assigning who gets which planet. Snapchat’s robot observes what you actually do: how frequently you snap each other, chat, and maintain streaks, and then it ranks your top eight friends. The exact formula or how much weight each factor carries is not published by Snapchat, so we can’t say definitively if a streak is worth more than a chat or vice versa, but the idea behind it is pretty straight forward: more consistent interaction means a closer planet. are because the games industry is apparently such a predictable business that the planets are easier to say than they are to change.”
Since it’s influenced by live data, the list is not immutable. A person occupying your Mercury position today could slide to Mars next month if you two go quiet, while a companion you barely talked to last year could suddenly rocket toward the center if your conversations pick up again.
How to See Your Planet on Someone Else’s Profile
Want to know where you are in a friend’s solar system?Here’s how it works:
- Make sure you have an active Snapchat Plus subscription. Without it, this feature is invisible to you.
- Open the profile of a friend who’s also on Snapchat.
- Look for a small ring badge near their name, often labeled Best Friends or Friends.
- Tap the badge to reveal which planet you’ve been assigned in their personal ranking.
There have been a few reports from users that the Friend Solar System does not appear without a forced refresh after subscribing, and must be enabled manually in the app’s Setting menu first.
Why You Can’t See Both Sides at Once
Here’s the catch that makes Snap Planets feel a slightly more private experience than a normal leaderboard: visibility is one-directional. You’re able to view your rank in another user’s solar system, but they are not privy to their rank in yours. They’d have to look it up themselves on their own Snapchat Plus account. That prevents the feature from becoming an uncomfortable public ranking battle and instead feels more like a personal, low stakes look at your own friendships.
Does It Work on Desktop?
Snap Planets exist within the Snapchat mobile app, on iOS and Android. Snapchat doesn’t really have a web version for the platform as a whole, and since Friend Solar System isn’t a desktop feature. It’s meant to be a fast, casual look you take on your phone, not something you’d sit back and browse through on a laptop.
Why People Are So Into This Feature
Best friend rankings aren’t new on Snapchat, but making them into a visual solar system changed the way people talked about them. A number beside a handle doesn’t drive a lot of conversation. A planet does. Saying “you’re my Mercury” resonates differently than filing a “you’re ranked number one,” and everyone needs something to joke about (or really stress about) as they nosedive from Venus to Saturn after a slow week.
That sort of gamified social data certainly isn’t unique to Snapchat—lots of apps repurpose usage statistics into more emotionally engaging metrics—but it feels particularly at home here, because Snapchat’s core audience has always put a lot of stock in friendship status and daily streaks.
Can You Manipulate Your Planet Position?
In short: no, not through any setting or hack. The only real way you can get closer to Mercury is to just interact more: more snaps, more chats, keeping streaks going. There is no switch that allows you to manually move a friend up or down the list, the whole point of the list is that it reflects actual activity not a hand-picked order.
If you don’t interact with a friend for a long enough period of time then they can be removed from your top eight completely (instead of being frozen at Neptune forever).
Quick Answers to Common Questions
Does everyone see the same planet order? Yes, the Mercury-to-Neptune sequence is fixed and based on real planetary order, only the friends assigned to each spot change.
Is this feature free? No, it’s locked behind a Snapchat Plus subscription.
Can a friend fall off the list completely? Yes, if they drop out of your top eight most-interacted-with friends.
Does the ranking update in real time? It reflects your ongoing activity, so it can shift as your interaction patterns change, though Snapchat hasn’t detailed exactly how often it recalculates.
The Bottom Line
Snap Planets Take what Snapchat already tracked silently behind the scenes — your closest friends by activity — and turned it into a visual, slightly addictive small system worth checking in on. Whether you’re proud of holding someone’s Mercury spot or cringing at your slow slide toward Neptune, the feature has made a simple ranking feel a lot more personal, and a lot more fun to talk about.
