The annual subscription fee charged to use WhatsApp beyond the first year has been scrapped thus making the chat app completely free to use, WhatsApp has announced.
“For many years, we’ve asked some people to pay a fee for using WhatsApp after their first year. As we’ve grown, we’ve found that this approach hasn’t worked well,” explains the WhatsApp Blog. “Many WhatsApp users don’t have a debit or credit card number and they worried they’d lose access to their friends and family after their first year. So over the next several weeks, we’ll remove fees from the different versions of our app and WhatsApp will no longer charge you for our service.”
With nearly a billion people worldwide using WhatsApp, many will now be wondering how the service intends to make money. The obvious thought is in-app advertising, but the app makers have said this won’t be happening.
“Naturally, people might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today’s announcement means we’re introducing third-party ads. The answer is no,” reads the blog. “Starting this year, we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from. That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight. We all get these messages elsewhere today – through text messages and phone calls – so we want to test new tools to make this easier to do on WhatsApp, while still giving you an experience without third-party ads and spam.”
The WhatsApp subscription fee had cost users only $0.99 a year.
Source: WhatsApp Blog
