Bubble vs Weverse DM: which idols are on which app

A fourth name still floats around old threads: Universe, NCSoft's platform. It shut down in January 2023 and its roster — including MONSTA X, IVE, Cravity, Kep1er, (G)I-DLE, VIVIZ, ATEEZ and ASTRO at the time — was transferred to Dear U Bubble. If a guide you found mentions Universe, it predates 2023 and everything in it is stale.

• Dear U Bubble — the original. Dear U is majority-owned by SM Entertainment, and Bubble hosts artists from SM, JYP, Starship, Cube and many more. Standard international price is $3.99 per artist per month.
• Weverse DM — HYBE's answer, launched 24 April 2023 inside the Weverse app. Priced in Weverse's in-app currency, Jelly; the DM subscription moved from 15 to 17 Jelly per month on 20 January 2026.
• Fromm — the third option, used by WM Entertainment artists and joined by ATEEZ (KQ Entertainment) in September 2023.

One caveat worth stating plainly: agencies do leave. DSP Media ended MIRAE's Bubble service in July 2024. Before you subscribe, check the artist's own storefront rather than a fan wiki.

• SM Entertainment artists — SM owns the majority of Dear U, and Bubble is its native home.
• JYP Entertainment — Stray Kids run on Bubble, sold per member at $3.99 each.
• Starship Entertainment — MONSTA X, also per member at $3.99.
• Cube Entertainment — BTOB, (G)I-DLE, LIGHTSUM, Seunghee and Eunbin joined Bubble in April 2023.
• The former Universe roster, transferred in January 2023.

Weverse DM is the HYBE-label answer, and the rollout has been slow and staggered rather than a single launch. ENHYPEN (BELIFT LAB) only got Weverse DM on 8 May 2026 — three years after the feature itself launched. That is the pattern: HYBE adds artists sequentially, so an artist not having DM today does not mean they never will.

If your bias is under a HYBE label, Weverse DM is where to look first. If they are not listed yet, the answer is usually 'not yet' rather than 'somewhere else'.

This is the messiest corner and the one fans argue about most. SM announced in April 2023 that it would integrate its artists into Weverse, which immediately raised the question of whether SM artists would migrate off Bubble — a platform SM itself part-owns. HYBE addressed it at the time, but it has remained an evolving business question rather than a settled one.

We are not going to state a current answer we cannot source. Check the artist's Bubble storefront and their Weverse profile directly; both are authoritative in a way that secondhand posts are not.

• Bubble is billed per individual member, not per group. An eight-member group subscribed in full is eight times $3.99 a month. No group bundle discount appears on the storefronts we checked.
• A Bubble ticket runs one month from purchase rather than on a calendar month.
• Weverse DM is also sold per member, priced in Jelly — 17 Jelly per month since January 2026.
• Bubble is no longer K-pop-only: J Balvin and Peso Pluma launched Dear U's Western expansion in 2024.

You pay, the messages start, and they are all in Korean — short, casual, slang-dense, and arriving at 3am your time. Screenshotting each one into a separate translation app is the workflow most fans end up with, and it is miserable.

This is exactly what Echo's Screen mode is for: it reads the thread on your display in place, so you scroll the conversation and read it translated as you go. And because Bubble messages are wall-to-wall member names, fandom names and slang, the K-pop glossary matters more here than anywhere else — a generic translator will happily turn your bias's name into a household noun.