No Subscription, No Ads- How Whatsapp earn money? Ranking before Instagram and Facebook, with an average customer base of more than 1.5 billion people, Whatsapp has been the leading messaging App. The app has provided several services like instant messaging with end-to-end encryption, payment facilities, video with voice calls and endless other features. Whatsapp has proved to be useful, for teenagers to adults and oldies which has been one of the reasons for Whatsapp to be second acquisition of Mark Zuckerberg followed by Instagram and Facebook ranking third and forth. Whatsapp is free of cost like other social medias but one uncommon occurrence is every social media has ads to earn revenue, Whatsapp doesn’t!
So the question is “How WhatsApp Earn Money” and ” What is their revenue model for generating financial income?”
Well, Their revenue model has been truly insane but don’t worry, We are here to help, Let’s look at the story of WhatsApp from scratch to making money and earning brand image.
The Story Of Whatsapp
Jan Kaoum and Brian Acton founded WhatsApp. Earlier they used to work at Yahoo. With the sudden stroke of starting an app for instant SMS messages all across the globe, connecting people online, Whatsapp came into their minds. In the year of leaving Yahoo, both mates applied for the job on Facebook although luckily their applications were rejected and Whatsapp came into existence in 2009.
Whatsapp earned its first funding from five ex-Yahoo friends amounting to 250 dollars, Second and Third rounds of funding were carried by Sequoia Capital which invested almost 60 million dollars. Some rumours say when Whatsapp got launched it was not even a messaging app, everyone used to share status in their networking circles. Later in 2014 Facebook bought WhatsApp for about 19 billion dollars and at that time the app had 450 million active users across the world. Slowly and steadily, with technology, Whatsapp grew.
Also Read: How To Read Deleted Messages In WhatsApp
How Whatsapp Earn Money?
Instagram or Facebook, these social media platforms have ads which are used to earn revenue but it’s not the same in the case of Whatsapp. Whatsapp was generated as an Ad-free platform in order to provide a better customer experience.
Ads often spoil one’s experience and founders wished to provide an instant messaging app with memorable experience therefore Whatsapp is the only add free social media platform. However WhatsApp also required revenue for its operations and waiving off heavy bills, therefore they introduced a “1 dollar per year service scheme” wherein they charged 1 dollar per year to provide facilities of instant messaging, status with all upgrades of app although the fee was less to pay it was preventing people from using the service so WhatsApp waived off the scheme.
Later Whatsapp changed plans and announced to monetize by establishing business accounts in which they create a service that allows business accounts to get in touch with customers through the app, that is where “Whatsapp Buisness API” was introduced. This app was free of cost to install but had some terms to be followed like-
- If businesses doesn’t reply within 24 hours then fee will be charged to revert.
- Fee will be charged depending upon the number of messages.
and many more. Even though WhatsApp didn’t make much revenue, it wasn’t tough for Mark Zuckerberg to execute the plan of earning revenue. As the app was taken over by Facebook, all the employees were payroll to the Facebook board including kaoum so there wasn’t any such crisis amongst members of company. Whatsapp with no constant plan, introduced another new revenue model.
The New Revenue Generating Strategy of Whatsapp
According to the latest revenue model, as Facebook and WhatsApp are tied with Mark Zuckerberg, Meta (formerly Facebook) runs a user data generation model and WhatsApp runs on it so revenue generation is done by Ads on Facebook & Instagram by collecting user data and account information.
Facebook Started Leveraging Whatsapp’s Data So Does It Sells Data?
The company earns revenue from the users when the account confirmation and other details are collected. Users can now understand that every single piece of data shared on Whatsapp is tracked by Meta. In exchange, it helps Meta to run advertisements on its platform according to the data collected. Whatapp had earlier introduced the privacy feature that the app and information of the user are entirely safe but Meta, being the parent company of Whatsapp got hold of user information, and rules and regulations got twisted.
Meta uploaded a blog that said” Whatsapp has a partnership with Meta and it is currently looking for active users. Further added, It has been user-friendly and ensured that every user remains safe with us and data is stored for primary metric. It helps Facebook understands what user is looking for and what users like. Mark Zuckerberg ensured that chats are safe, they are end-to-end encrypted. There isn’t anything to worry about nevertheless app has been a huge help to Meta and Mark Zuckerberg has optimized it at best.
In the future, Whatsapp has great potential with respect to many opportunities, ultimately free of cost. Facebook has been utilizing and exploring the potential of WhatsApp to the best and giving a 360-degree enriching experience to its users. Although there hasn’t been any precise earning amount revealed by Meta through the use of Whatsapp. Recently Facebook has introduced new plans for Whatsapp. They are soon going to partner with other E-Commerce platforms to outstand users with a wholesome experience. I hope you might got an idea on how WhatsApp earn money.
Thank you for reading the article.
