Meta to monetise WhatsApp with ads in status and channels tabs

New Delhi: WhatsApp, the messaging app owned by Meta Platforms Inc., will begin displaying advertisements for the first time, the company announced Monday. 

The move aims to tap into the app’s massive user base of over 2 billion monthly active users to create a new revenue stream, while Meta assures users that personal chats will remain unaffected.

The advertisements will appear exclusively in the app’s “Updates” tab, which houses the “Status” feature—similar to Instagram Stories, where users share photos, videos, or text that disappear after 24 hours—and “Channels,” a broadcast feature for businesses and organisations. 

Meta emphasised that private messages, calls, and group chats will remain ad-free, preserving the core messaging experience. “If you only use WhatsApp to chat with friends and loved ones, there will be no change to your experience at all,” the company stated in a press release.

The introduction of ads includes three new formats: status ads, which allow businesses to promote products or services directly in the Status feed, prompting users to initiate conversations via messaging; promoted Channels, designed to boost visibility for businesses and creators in the Channels directory; and subscription-based Channels, where users can pay for exclusive content from select channel operators. Meta noted that it will not charge a fee on these subscriptions initially, though this may change in the future.

Meta’s decision reverses the vision of WhatsApp’s co-founders, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, who in a 2012 blog post described ads as “insults to your intelligence” and vowed to keep the platform free of them. After Meta acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, both founders left the company amid reported tensions over monetisation strategies and data privacy concerns. The rollout of ads fulfills Meta’s long-standing goal to monetise WhatsApp, a platform that has lagged behind Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in generating ad revenue despite its global reach.

To address privacy concerns, Meta stated that ads will be targeted using “limited information,” such as a user’s city, country, language, followed Channels, and interactions with ads, rather than personal message content. All messages, calls, and statuses remain end-to-end encrypted, ensuring that neither WhatsApp nor third parties can access them. For users who have linked WhatsApp to Meta’s Accounts Center, ad preferences from Facebook and Instagram may also inform targeting, though phone numbers and messages will not be shared with advertisers.