Founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, WhatsApp is now global in 180 countriesIt has more than two billion users. Of these, only 390 million users are from India, 108 million from Brazil and 75 million from the United States.

Moreover, such a popular app has no subscription fees or ads. Before they were bought by Meta small subscription fee WhatsApp, for example, which has revenue models, no longer has such a function. When that’s the case, it’s hard not to think about how the company makes money.

WhatsApp’s first revenue model was based on subscriptions.

When WhatsApp was first installed, users paid $1 for 1 year. This is free for the first year and is extended for the second year in some countries. 1 dollar change could show.

Later, the company abandoned this business model and avoided in-app advertising. as one of the most popular apps continued to exist.

WhatsApp was acquired by Meta, formerly Facebook, in 2014 for $19 billion.

At its peak during the subscription-based model, WhatsApp had about 700 million users worldwide. When purchased by META; After Instagram and Facebook Messenger largest subsidiaries became.

In 2018, Jan Koum, co-founder of WhatsApp and then director of Facebook Inc. recommended advertising model and security of user data He left the company due to disagreements

Let’s go 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’ve moved away from this plan. In addition, personally on WhatsApp by selling our information and conversations about making money There has also been speculation.

The “end-to-end encryption” in WhatsApp means that no one but us and the other person can access our conversations. But whatsapp privacy policy lists our messages By a third party Even if it is not read, it is included that they can automatically target data and create appropriate advertisements for us. This could mean that they earn money indirectly from advertising.

WhatsApp has a service called “WhatsApp for Business”.

Companies that use the app for sales and support can sign up for WhatsApp for Business. For example, users can create a company profile. to a verified company profile they may have.

Verified companies; certain websites or Facebook pages. with important links It can create business profiles, set up autoresponders or even connect landline numbers to 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 is used by major brands such as Netflix, Uber and Wish. companies, to use the platform and provide quick responses. encourages.

It charges companies for delayed responses, so the company free within 24 hours While you can reply, you will be charged for subsequent replies.

As a second method of generating income: WhatsApp Pay

WhatsApp Pay is a payment feature similar to PayPal. This feature allows users free can send money. The receiving party pays 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; straight away only on certain devices, Available in India and Brazil.

Still, for such a large company, they don’t seem like very satisfying revenue streams.

It seems that Meta, which owns the major social media networks, has not made any major moves to monetize WhatsApp for now. In the future, no ads or free use We will see together if he will give up such policies.