It’s been a long time since WhatsApp stopped paying. In 2016, the company announced that it would stop. get paid to use the service (our Xataka Android colleagues tell us what the experience was like). This was a decision that was praised by almost everyone, but it left a strange scenario: The app would no longer be a direct source of income.

The number of users continued to grow and there were definitely server bills and other expenses to pay. However, WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook two years ago and it seems that monetization of the app was not in their immediate plans, but rather in line with the company’s strategies, among other nuances. This is changing.

WhatsApp Business is an essential part of today’s WhatsApp

In 2018, the world’s most used messaging app announced WhatsApp Business, a free app designed specifically for iPhone and Android. for small businesses. This gives store managers more tools to communicate with customers and, as expected, better sales, but this is always free.

While it’s free to start using WhatsApp Business, if you want to take advantage of additional features like sending messages to customers outside of a predetermined time frame. Thus, with the passage of time, Meta, the parent company of the application, started to earn direct income from some of the service provided and its plans are progressing steadily.

In the report for the last quarter that ended in March, those led by Mark Zuckerberg noted that WhatsApp Business saw strong growth in messaging revenue. Now, through TechCrunch, we’re learning that the enterprise app has just been released. 200 million monthly active users (MAU for its English acronym) is a remarkable growth when you take into account that it has 50 million in 2020.

The news came with two new features aimed at improving the experience for business customers by charging a fee (plus revenue for Meta). We’re talking about the ability to create, pay for and schedule WhatsApp click ads in one integrated experience directly from the app without a Facebook or Instagram account.

In addition to this, the company has announced another paid feature that will allow merchants to send personalized messages to their own accounts. customers automatically.. These are messages that may contain, for example, discount codes, links and offers. At the moment, yes, we still do not know the rates for this latest service, which will start the testing phase “very soon”.

Images: WhatsApp

On Xataka: How to reset your Google news by resetting what Discover shows?