Founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, WhatsApp now has more than two billion users in 180 countries around the world. Of these, only 390 million users come from India, 108 million from Brazil, and 75 million from the United States.
Moreover, such a popular app has no subscription fees or any ads. WhatsApp, which had revenue models such as small subscription fees before it was bought by Meta, no longer has such a feature. That being the case, it’s hard not to think about how the company makes money.
WhatsApp’s first revenue model was subscription based.
When WhatsApp was first installed, users paid 1 dollar for 1 year. In some countries this could range from free for the first year and $1 for the second year renewal.
Later, the company abandoned this business model and stayed away from in-app advertisements and continued to exist as one of the most popular applications.
WhatsApp was acquired by Meta, formerly Facebook, for $19 billion in 2014.
At its peak during the subscription-based model, WhatsApp had around 700 million users worldwide. When purchased by META; It has grown into its largest subsidiaries after Instagram and Facebook Messenger.
In 2018, Jan Koum, co-founder of WhatsApp and director of Facebook Inc. at the time, left the company due to disagreements over the proposed advertising model and security of user data.
Let’s come to our main topic; How does the company make money?
In fact, advertising on the app has occasionally become the company’s agenda, but they have abandoned this plan. In addition, there have been speculations that they are making money by selling our personal information and conversations on WhatsApp.
The “end-to-end encryption” in WhatsApp means that no one but us and the other person can access our conversations. However, WhatsApp’s privacy policy states that even if our messages are not read by third parties, they can automatically target data and display appropriate advertisements. This could mean that they indirectly make money from advertisements.
WhatsApp has a service called “WhatsApp for Business”.
Businesses that use the app for sales and support can sign up for WhatsApp for Business. Thus, users can have a verified business profile by creating a business profile.
Verified businesses; It can create business profiles with certain important links to websites or Facebook pages, set up autoresponders, or even connect landline numbers with WhatsApp.
The WhatsApp Business app is currently free to download and available to all businesses, but the company monetizes it through the WhatsApp for Business API.
WhatsApp Business API; It’s used by big brands like Netflix, Uber, and Wish. It encourages businesses to use the platform and provide quick responses.
It charges businesses for delayed responses, so the business can respond within 24 hours for free, while being charged for later responses.
As a second monetization method: WhatsApp Pay
WhatsApp Pay is a payment feature similar to PayPal. With this feature, users can send money for free. The receiving party is charged 3.99% per transaction.
Like other money sending services, this app connects to a linked bank account where money is received or deposited. This service; currently only available on select devices in India and Brazil.
Still, for such a large company, it doesn’t seem like very satisfactory revenue streams.
It seems that Meta, which holds the most important of the social media networks, does not have big steps to monetize WhatsApp for now. In the future, we will see together whether it will abandon its policies such as no ads or free usage.
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