WhatsApp Business users will face higher costs later this year as the platform increases the price of marketing messages, though users will see a drop in the cost of utility messages.
First reported by TechCrunch, a spokesperson for WhatsApp confirmed the price hike in a statement given to ITPro. These changes, the spokesperson noted, aim to "better reflect" the way the service is used.
“WhatsApp is a great way for people and businesses to get things done – everything from booking a flight, getting a back-in-stock alert or receiving a timely delivery update,” they said.
“We occasionally make adjustments to our offerings to better reflect the ways in which the service is used and the types of information people are choosing to receive.”
WhatsApp’s parent company Meta charges WhatsApp Business accounts based on four different categories. These include the marketing, authentication, customer service, and utility categories.
The marketing category, through which users can send customers offers and product announcements, is set for an increase. However, the utility category, which allows businesses to inform customers of updates to orders or account balances, will drop in price, the company confirmed.
Meta is rolling out the price changes at different speeds, with the new utility rate prices set to come into effect from August 4 while the marketing rate changes will be introduced in early October.
The extent of these rate changes will differ based on location. In India, for example, marketing rates will increase by 8% while utility rates will decrease by 67%.
The rates specifically refer to the amount paid by a business user per conversation, which is deemed as any 24-hour thread between a WhatsApp Business user and a customer of that business.
This move to increase marketing message rates comes on the back of long-running complaints from customers about spam messaging, with many reporting overloaded WhatsApp inboxes filled with messages from business users.
WhatsApp Business has changed customer relationships
WhatsApp first began charging businesses to send messages to customers back in 2018. This was the first major revenue stream the platform was looking to capitalize on.
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Since then, WhatsApp has continued to focus on its business platform and many commercial users now take advantage of the app to send their customers promotional messages or keep in contact with them from a customer service perspective.
Salesforce, for example, is partnered with WhatsApp to help its own clients connect with customers more effectively through a more bespoke, customized messaging service.
WhatsApp is also often used by businesses internally to support communication functions. In late 2022, Meta announced the platform's new ‘communities’ feature as a way of bringing smaller group chats into larger ones, helping organize chats by department or office location.
