If you’ve ever opened someone’s Snapchat profile and spotted a glowing gold badge shaped like a planet, you already know the curiosity it sparks. Am I their Mercury? Their Saturn? Their Neptune? The feature behind that badge Snapchat’s best friend planets system has become one of the most talked about elements of Snapchat+, and for good reason. It turns something as invisible as a friendship ranking into something you can actually see.
In this guide, we’re going to break down exactly what every planet means, how the ranking system works, why your position changes, and what it all says (and doesn’t say) about your real life relationships. Whether you’re new to Snapchat+ or just finally got around to investigating that cosmic badge, you’re in the right place.
What Are Best Friend Planets on Snapchat?
Snapchat’s best friend planets feature is part of Snapchat+, the app’s paid subscription tier. The idea is elegantly simple: you are the Sun at the center of your own social solar system, and your eight closest friends on Snapchat each get assigned a planet based on how much you interact with them.
Mercury sits closest to the Sun and represents your number one best friend. Neptune, the farthest planet out, represents your eighth closest connection. Every planet in between fills in the rest of your top eight, following the exact order of our real solar system.
It’s a visual, gamified way of seeing who you actually talk to the most. No spreadsheets, no manually curated lists just a solar system that updates itself based on your behavior in the app. For a generation that grew up thinking about social proximity in terms of emojis and streaks, it makes perfect intuitive sense.
The best friend planets concept became a cultural moment almost immediately after launch. TikTok filled up with “planet reveal” videos. Group chats erupted with questions like, “What planet am I in your solar system?” It’s part social graph, part personality test, and part conversation starter and in 2026, it’s more popular than ever.
The Complete Snapchat Planet Order All 8 Planets Explained
Understanding the best friend planets on Snapchat starts with knowing which planet represents which rank. Here’s a detailed breakdown of all eight:
1. Mercury Your #1 Best Friend
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and in Snapchat terms, it’s the most coveted spot. If someone is your Mercury, you talk to them more than anyone else on the app the most snaps, the most chats, the most back-and-forth. The Snapchat icon for Mercury shows a pinkish gray planet surrounded by red, blue, and yellow hearts, signaling a warm, close connection.
2. Venus Your Second Closest Friend
Venus takes the second spot. You interact with this person a lot, just slightly less consistently than your Mercury. The visual is a light brown or golden planet surrounded by pink, yellow, and blue hearts still warm, still close.
3. Earth Your Third Best Friend
Earth is your third ranked friend in the solar system. Snapchat represents it with the familiar blue green globe we all recognize, accompanied by a moon, stars, and red hearts. The inclusion of the moon is what makes Earth immediately identifiable.
4. Mars Your Fourth Closest Friend
Mars holds the fourth position. It’s shown as a red planet with purple and blue hearts and scattered stars around it. Being someone’s Mars still puts you firmly in their inner circle four out of eight is no small thing.
5. Jupiter Your Fifth Best Friend
Jupiter is fifth in line. It appears as a large reddish-orange planet with dark bands and stars orbiting it. As you move into Jupiter territory, hearts begin to thin out, subtly reflecting that the interaction level is lower than the top four.
6. Saturn Your Sixth Closest Friend
Saturn is instantly recognizable by its golden ring. On Snapchat, it’s depicted in orange-gold tones with stars but no hearts. It represents your sixth ranked connection someone you chat with regularly but not nearly as frequently as your inner circle.
7. Uranus Your Seventh Best Friend
Uranus sits seventh in the best friend planets lineup. It’s shown as a plain green planet with no hearts and very few decorative elements. This reflects a more casual connection someone you snap occasionally, but who doesn’t dominate your recent activity.
8. Neptune Your Eighth Closest Friend
Neptune is the farthest planet and your eighth-ranked friend. It’s a deep blue planet with no hearts and minimal decoration. Being someone’s Neptune doesn’t mean they dislike you it simply means seven other people interact with them more actively on Snapchat. It’s a reminder that the solar system is a reflection of digital behavior, not emotional depth.
How Snapchat Decides Your Planet Ranking
The algorithm behind best friend planets is built on one core principle: interaction frequency. Snapchat looks at how often you exchange snaps and chat messages with each of your friends and uses that data to assign planetary positions.
Here’s what actually influences your ranking:
- Snaps sent and received — This carries the most weight. Direct snap exchanges are the primary signal.
- Chat messages — Text conversations in the app also factor in, though slightly less than snaps.
- Recency — Recent interactions matter more than old ones. The system prioritizes your current behavior over your history.
- Story views — These have a minor effect, but they do contribute to the algorithm.
One important thing to understand: streaks do not directly control planet rankings. This surprises a lot of users. You might have a 400-day streak with someone, but if you haven’t been sending them many actual snaps recently, they could rank lower than someone you’ve been actively chatting with for only a few weeks. The system rewards present engagement, not past loyalty.
Snapchat also hasn’t publicly disclosed the exact formula behind the system, which means there’s no precise cheat code to boost someone’s ranking only genuine, consistent interaction.
Best Friends Badge vs Friends Badge What’s the Difference?
When you visit a friend’s profile on Snapchat, you might notice one of two gold outlined badges: a Best Friends badge or a Friends badge. These are directly tied to the best friend planets system, but they mean different things.
The Best Friends badge means the ranking is mutual you appear in each other’s top eight. If you see this badge, tapping it will show you which planet you represent in their solar system.
The Friends badge means the connection is one directional. You appear in their top eight friends, but they don’t appear in yours. Maybe you send them a lot of snaps, but they have other people they interact with more.
Neither badge is a judgment call. They simply reflect how symmetrical the interaction pattern is between two people at any given moment.
Why Your Planet Ranking Changes Over Time
If you’ve been checking your position in someone’s best friend planets solar system and noticed it shift, you’re not imagining things. Rankings update automatically, and they can change fairly quickly.
A busy week at work, a holiday trip, a new friendship that picks up speed any of these can shift the interaction balance and shuffle planetary positions. Someone who was your Mercury in January might drift to Earth by March simply because life got in the way of daily snapping.
This is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the system. A drop in ranking doesn’t mean someone stopped caring it usually just means someone else happened to be more active. The Snapchat friend planets feature is a real time snapshot, not a permanent verdict on a relationship.
It’s also worth noting that your full solar system is completely private. Only you can see your entire list of eight planets. Friends can only find out their own position if they tap the badge and even then, they see only their single rank, not the full ranking order.
What Your Planet Position Actually Says About Your Friendship
This is where things get genuinely interesting and where a lot of people get confused.
Being someone’s Mercury means you interact with them the most on Snapchat right now. It does not necessarily mean they are your closest friend in real life, your most trusted confidant, or the person you’d call in a crisis. It means your digital communication patterns with them are the strongest among your current top eight.
A childhood best friend you’ve known for fifteen years might be your Saturn on Snapchat simply because you mostly catch up over phone calls, not snaps. Meanwhile, a coworker you’ve been trading memes with every day for a month might be your Mercury. Neither ranking captures the full picture of either relationship.
Snapchat itself has acknowledged this, and that’s part of why the best friend planets feature defaults to off to give users control over whether they want to engage with a feature that ranks their social connections. The healthiest way to use it is as a fun lens, not a feelings thermometer.
How to View Your Position in a Friend’s Solar System
Curious where you land in someone else’s planetary lineup? Here’s how to check:
- Open Snapchat and go to your friend’s profile.
- Look for a gold-outlined badge labeled Best Friends or Friends.
- Tap the badge.
- Snapchat will reveal which planet you are in their solar system, along with a short description.
If no badge appears, it could mean one of three things: they don’t have Snapchat+, the Friend Solar System feature is turned off, or you’re not currently in their top eight friends list.
How to Enable the Friend Solar System Feature
The best friend planets feature is turned off by default for all Snapchat+ subscribers. To switch it on:
- Tap your profile icon in the top left corner of the app.
- Select Snapchat+ from the menu.
- Scroll to find the Friend Solar System toggle.
- Turn it on.
Once enabled, you’ll start seeing planetary badges on the profiles of friends who are in your top eight. You can disable it at any time if you’d prefer to keep your rankings out of view.
Common Myths About Best Friend Planets Debunked
A lot of misinformation floats around this feature. Let’s clear up the most common ones.
Myth: Streaks determine your planet. Not true. Streaks contribute to interaction signals, but a long streak with low recent activity won’t automatically keep someone at Mercury. Recent snaps and chats carry far more weight.
Myth: Everyone can see your solar system. False. Your complete friend solar system is private to you. Others can only see their own individual position when they tap the badge they cannot see your full list.
Myth: Being Neptune means someone dislikes you. Absolutely not. Neptune just means six other people happen to interact with that person more frequently on the app. It says nothing about how they feel about you offline.
Myth: You can manually set who gets which planet. Snapchat doesn’t allow this. The entire system is automated based on your in-app behavior, and there’s no way to manually override it.
Myth: Planet rankings are permanent. They change constantly. Rankings shift with your activity, and positions that feel stable today can look very different a few weeks from now.
Closing Thoughts
The best friend planets system on Snapchat is one of those features that feels simple on the surface but opens up a surprisingly rich conversation about how we measure closeness in a digital age. It’s fun, it’s visual, and it’s genuinely clever as a piece of product design.
But the most important thing to remember is what it doesn’t measure. It doesn’t measure loyalty, history, trust, or love. It measures snaps. Use it for what it is a playful window into your current social habits and resist the urge to read too much into where any single person lands.
Whether you’re proudly claiming the Mercury spot in your best friend’s solar system or happily orbiting someone as Saturn, what matters most is that the friendship itself exists somewhere beyond the algorithm in real life, where planets don’t rank and hearts can’t be counted.
FAQ
1. What are best friend planets on Snapchat?
Best friend planets are a visual feature within Snapchat+ that assigns one of the eight planets in our solar system to each of your top eight friends, ranked by how often you interact with them. You are the Sun at the center, and the closer a planet is to the Sun, the higher that person ranks in your interactions.
2. Do you need Snapchat+ to use the best friend planets feature?
Yes. The Friend Solar System, including the best friend planets feature, is exclusive to Snapchat+ subscribers. It is not available on the free version of the app.
3. Can my friends see my entire planet ranking list?
No. Your full solar system is visible only to you. A friend can tap the badge on your profile to see their own individual planet, but they cannot see the complete ranking of all eight friends.
4. Why did my planet ranking change?
Rankings update automatically based on your recent in app activity. If you’ve been snapping someone more frequently lately, they may move up. If your interaction slows down, they may drift further from the Sun. The system is always reflecting current behavior, not historical patterns.
5. Does being someone’s Neptune mean they don’t care about me?
Not at all. Neptune simply means seven other people are interacting with that person more on Snapchat at this point in time. It has no bearing on the quality, depth, or emotional meaning of your real friendship. Many of the most meaningful relationships in a person’s life don’t rank highly on a social media algorithm and that’s completely normal.
