Free, but making money. Where does WhatsApp get money? – List of messages

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Chat platform WhatsApp had nearly three billion active users in June. The messages they send to each other are basically encrypted and use powerful computer servers located in various data centers around the world.

The operation of these servers is very expensive, but none of the common users need to pay a single penny to use this popular chat platform. But they have to get money somehow. How WhatsApp makes money and how it is possible for it to remain free for the average user, account on the BBC news server.

One important aspect is that a large parent company, Metu, is behind it. She also owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram. But personal accounts are mostly free because WhatsApp makes money from business customers who want to communicate with ordinary users.

Since last year, businesses have been able to set up channels on WhatsApp for free, using which they can send messages to anyone who accepts. But they have to pay extra to interact with individual customers. Then they will not only get a chance to talk to them, but also to do business.

For example, in Bengaluru, India, it is now possible to buy a bus ticket and select a specific seat via WhatsApp.

“Our vision is that if everything works, the business and the customer should be able to do everything right in the chat thread,” Nikila Srinivasan, vice president of business news at Meta, told the BBC.

This means that if you want to book a flight, request a refund or make a payment, you should be able to do it without leaving the chat. And then you can go back to all the other conversations in your life,” he said.

Businesses can now pay for a link to start a new conversation directly from an online ad on Facebook or Instagram. According to Srinivasan, this feature alone is worth several billion dollars to the tech giant.

Over time, individual chat platforms have found their own ways to fund their operations and how to make money from them. For example, Signal, known for its industry-standard messaging security protocols, is a non-profit organization.

He says he has never received money from investors and instead works on donations, writes the BBC. These include a financial injection of $ 50 million (116.4 million crowns), which was given to her in 2018 by Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp.

“Our goal is to be as close as possible to being fully supported by small donors and to rely on a large number of small donations from people who care about Signal ,” she wrote on her blog last year its president, Meredith Whittaker.

Another option is to charge for some of its functions. This is how Discord works, for example, through which mostly young players talk to each other. Registration is free, but access to games, for example, is already paid. It also offers a paid subscription called Nitro, the benefits of which are, for example, high-quality video streaming and custom emoticons, for a monthly subscription of $9.99 (232 crowns), the BBC writes .

Snap, the company behind Snapchat, combines several models, according to the BBC. It shows user ads, 11 million people are paying, and it also sells augmented reality glasses, called Snapchat Spectacles. And he has another trick up his sleeve. Between 2016 and 2023, she earned nearly $300 million just in interest on the money she saved. However, according to the BBC, it is clear that advertising is Snap’s main source of income, which brings in more than $4 billion a year.

The British company Element found a completely different way. It charges governments and large organizations to provide them with its encrypted messaging system. While the company’s customers use its technology, they run it themselves on their own private servers. The ten-year-old company has double-digit revenue and is approaching profitability, according to co-founder Matthew Hodgson.

But the most popular business model for messaging apps is advertising, Hodgson told the BBC.

“A lot of chat platforms sell ads by tracking what people are doing, who they’re talking to, and then targeting them with the best ads,” he said. According to Hodgson, apps don’t even need to see the content of messages to get information about their users that they can use to sell advertising.

“It’s an old story. If you, the consumer, aren’t paying anything, you might as well be the product,” Hodgson told the BBC.