Snap on Tuesday reported slower that expected user growth as the company's Snapchat platform is competing wih rivals such as Facebook's Instagram.

Snap's daily active users in the last three months rose to 178 million from 173 million in the second quarter.

Chief Executive Evan Spiegel said the company, known for messages that disappear within seconds or hours, was launching a redesign after hearing for years that Snapchat was difficult to understand or hard to use.

In its third earnings report since the company went public in March with a $3.4 billion valuation, Snap posted a net loss of $443.2 million, compared with a loss of $124.2 million a year earlier.

Snapchat allows users to chat through a series of disappearing photos and videos. Users can also post images and videos as "stories" - posts that can be viewed in chronological order and that disappear after 24 hours.

Facebook's Instagram said in September that it had 500 million daily active users.

As of June, Instagram Stories - a feature similar to Snapchat's stories - had 250 million daily users, up from 200 million in April, according to the company.

Snap's revenue mainly comes from advertisements and rose to $207.9 million from $128.2 million during the last quarter. In the near future, he company plans to pay top creators, similarly to how YouTube incentivizes people to create videos in exchange for ad revenue. CEO Evan Spiegel said the company had "neglected the creator community on Snapchat that creates and distributes public Stories for the broader Snapchat audience."

Over the next year, he said the service would build out more distribution and monetization options. He said the company might make professional tools available, and generally, would facilitate sharing beyond friend groups.

YouTube currently allows anyone with over 10,000 channel views to make money off ads. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter have no formal system in place for creators to make money. Instead, they rely on sponsored posts.