NEW YORK: WhatsApp will start charging business customers for some of its services the application, Facebook-owned messaging giant informed in a blog post.
The announcement comes as the company focuses on further investment in shopping, customer communication for businesses and sales features on WhatsApp.
According to the statement, on their blog, WhatsApp said, “The global pandemic has made clear that businesses need fast and efficient ways to service their customers and make sales.”
“More than 175 million people everyday message a WhatsApp Business account. Our research shows people prefer to message a business to get help and they’re more likely to make a purchase when they can do so,” it added.
The statement further stated, “Though there is much more we need to build. For the last two years, we’ve provided the WhatsApp Business app and WhatsApp Business API to help businesses of all sizes manage their chats.”
“We will charge business customers for some of the services we offer, which will help WhatsApp continue building a business of our own while we provide and expand free end-to-end encrypted text, video and voice calling for more than two billion people,” it informed.
However, the messaging giant did not disclose the pricing details for the business services. WhatsApp currently charges some businesses a small fee – a few cents per message – to send users things like receipts and confirmation reminders via the app instead of email.
On the other hand, WhatsApp said, “We will expand ways for people to check out available products and make purchases right from a chat. We also want to make it easier for businesses to integrate these features into their existing commerce and customer solutions.”
