WhatsApp will charge companies for certain Business services
Facebook holds out the prospect of business WhatsApp users that they will have to pay for certain WhatsApp services. The company has not yet announced what they are. It does want to expand a Shopping offer in WhatsApp.
Facebook promises to invest in Business Sales, Facebook Hosting Services and Shopping for WhatsApp Business in a news report. As far as Business Sales is concerned, it is about Facebook’s own revenue model for the app: the company will charge companies for some of the services it offers. Facebook has not yet announced which ones they are.
According to Facebook, the commercial offering of WhatsApp services will “help build our own business while providing and expanding the free end-to-end encrypted text, video and voice platform for two billion people.”
WhatsApp Business has not been completely free since 2018. When using the WhatsApp Business API, businesses must pay for template responses they send 24 hours after receiving a message from a customer. Messages they send within 24 hours are free. In the som countries, this is € 0.0715 per message for the first 250,000 messages they send after 24 hours.
At the same time, Facebook reports that making purchases via WhatsApp will become easier and that it will offer hosting services to companies that use WhatsApp. This would give companies management capabilities, keep track of their stocks and quickly answer customer inquiries.
How buying via WhatsApp can look like according to Facebook