I guess we all know there was a time when WhatsApp used to charge $1 subscription fee per year. As at when WhatsApp was still under this subscription model, the popular social media app had 700 million users worldwide. Therefore, one can estimate its annual revenue at $700 million per year at that time. However, early 2016 WhatsApp ditch the annual fee and also announced it’ll be monetizing the app through a service that allows companies to communicate with their customers.
Business will now pay for using WhatsApp Business App
Despite having over 1 billion users, Facebook has not been generating revenue from the instant messaging service. With the launch of WhatsApp Business, Facebook has been able to help businesses reach their customers through WhatsApp. However, in WhatsApp latest development, the company announced it would start charging businesses for the messages they send to their customers.
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How does it work?
Businesses cannot send messages to their users except they are being contacted first. Now, when a user contacts a business, the first 24 hours of conversation is totally free, and then they have to pay between $0.005 (half a cent) and $0.09 for each message sent to each person after that time window expires.
WhatsApp is also introducing single-click chat buttons which can be added to websites or displayed via Facebook ads so that a user can directly land on the WhatsApp chat of a business.
Also, WhatsApp will enable businesses to offer real-time tech support if they want and if a user gives their number to a business after, they’ll be able to push things like shipping confirmations or boarding passes.
WhatsApp To Start Showing Ads on Status
According to Wall Street Journal, an American press company, the Facebook-owned instant messaging app will start a sort of ad area on WhatsApp Status similar to what we’ve seen on the Instagram tool called Stories, to make WhatsApp more profitable.
How does it work?
The WhatsApp Status as we all know works the same way the Instagram Stories does, it allows users to post montages of text, photos and video that appear for 24 hours. About 450 million people use WhatsApp Status, which is 50 million more than the people who use Instagram Stories, which already shows ads.
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Ads will be displayed after the end of one publication and before the next the same Instagram already does. This feature is expected to be introduced next year.
Tell us what you think about this update.
