How WhatsApp makes money: The ad-free app powering Meta’s next big bet

WhatsApp accounts for less than 1% of Meta’s total revenue, yet connects over 3 billion people (as of the first quarter in 2025) and handles over 100 billion messages a day. It’s an astonishing imbalance for one of the world’s most essential communication platforms.

In this deep dive, we’ll unpack how WhatsApp’s business model actually works, why it remains ad-free for users, and how it fits into Meta’s broader growth ambitions. We’ll also cover its impressive user growth and modest revenue engine ($1.8 billion annually), highlighting the strategic value beyond its direct income.

Founded in 2009 by Jan Koum and Brian Acton as a privacy-first alternative to SMS, WhatsApp’s journey from a simple messaging app to a cornerstone of Meta’s ecosystem is a master class in scaling — and monetizing — without selling out its core philosophy.

Table of Contents

• How WhatsApp works

• WhatsApp’s revenue streams

  • WhatsApp Business Platform and API 

  • Click to WhatsApp ads

  • WhatsApp Business App Premium and subscriptions

  • WhatsApp Payments

• WhatsApp’s cost centers

  • Infrastructure 

  • Staffing and overhead 

  • Research and development (R&D)

  • Marketing and growth initiatives

  • One-off costs

• WhatsApp competitors

  • Telegram

  • Signal

  • WeChat

  • iMessage

  • Viber

  • Facebook Messenger

• The future of WhatsApp

How WhatsApp works

At its heart, WhatsApp is a free, globally accessible messaging app designed to offer simple, secure, and private communication. It serves more than 180 countries and supports over 60 languages.

New users simply register using their phone number, bypassing the need for usernames, passwords, or complex onboarding. WhatsApp taps into the user’s existing contact list, instantly connecting them with friends and family who already use the service.

Key features that set WhatsApp apart include:

• End-to-end encryption: All personal chats and calls are encrypted by default.

• Ad-free experience: WhatsApp remains free of disruptive ads.

• WhatsApp status: Ephemeral updates similar to “stories” on other platforms.

• Cross-platform syncing: Access to chats on Web, Mac, and PC alongside mobile devices.

• Performance on low-bandwidth networks: Optimized for reliability even with poor connectivity.

WhatsApp offers its core messaging service free to consumers while monetizing through business-focused products. The WhatsApp Business App serves small businesses, while the WhatsApp Business Platform (Application Programming Interface or API) supports medium and large enterprises that engage customers at scale.

WhatsApp runs on Meta’s global network of data centers and AI systems. It works with local payment partners — like National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) using the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in India; Cielo in Brazil; and Stripe in Singapore — to power WhatsApp Pay. It also partners with certified service providers that help businesses use WhatsApp to communicate with their customers.

WhatsApp’s revenue streams

WhatsApp’s revenue has grown steadily over time. While it still constitutes a small share of Meta’s total income, WhatsApp is trying to make money without giving up its focus on simplicity and privacy.

Key annual revenue milestones include:

• 2018: ∼$443 million

• 2019: ∼$507 million

• 2020: ∼$632 million

• 2021: ∼$790 million

• 2022: ∼$906 million

• 2023: ∼$1.3 billion

• 2024: ∼$1.8 billion

This steady growth likely indicates that WhatsApp is generating increasing revenue from business messaging, new payment tools, and its premium features. What are the primary ways that WhatsApp earns revenue and how is its strategy changing?

WhatsApp Business Platform and API 

A major driver of WhatsApp’s revenue is its Business Platform API. It enables medium and large companies to manage customer communications at scale. Businesses pay WhatsApp for sending and receiving customer messages, integrating the service into their CRM systems, and maximizing customer support workflows.

In 2023, the Business API generated an estimated $382.6 million, making it WhatsApp’s largest direct revenue stream. By late 2024, paid messaging was on track to reach a $1 billion annual run rate, reflecting strong enterprise adoption.

From a unit economics perspective, the average annual revenue per user (ARPU) for WhatsApp Business users is estimated to be approximately $0.26 in 2025. Although modest at the individual level, the scale of WhatsApp’s business adoption drives meaningful contribution to overall revenue.

The Business Platform API exemplifies WhatsApp’s strategy of monetizing business-to-consumer (B2C) communication, allowing companies to proactively message customers while preserving an ad-free user experience for individuals.

Click to WhatsApp ads

Another important pillar of WhatsApp’s ecosystem is the “Click to WhatsApp” ad format. These ads run across Facebook and Instagram and feature a call-to-action (CTA) button that opens a conversation with a business directly within WhatsApp.

In 2024, Click-to-WhatsApp ads were estimated to generate around $10 billion in revenue. However, this figure is attributed to Meta’s overall advertising business rather than WhatsApp’s own revenue.

Click-to-WhatsApp ads play a critical role in monetizing WhatsApp’s massive user engagement. By positioning WhatsApp as a preferred channel for business-customer interactions, this ad format strengthens WhatsApp’s importance within Meta’s broader advertising strategy.

WhatsApp Business App Premium and subscriptions

To tap into the small- and medium-sized business (SMB) segment, WhatsApp offers a paid “Premium” tier through its WhatsApp Business App. This subscription unlocks features including multi-device support for up to 10 devices, a customizable business URL, and enhanced business profile capabilities.

Introduced at the end of 2022, Premium subscriptions are gradually expanding across global markets. SMBs typically pay $5-15 per month for access to these enhanced tools.

If scaled widely, this segment could yield a great revenue opportunity for WhatsApp. Premium subscriptions make up a small but growing part of WhatsApp’s revenue, indicating significant potential to serve more small businesses.

WhatsApp Payments

WhatsApp Payments is another emerging revenue stream, enabling users to send money to friends, family, and businesses directly within chats. The service is currently live on a large scale in markets in India, Brazil, and Singapore.

Peer-to-peer payments between individuals are free, preserving accessibility for everyday users. However, WhatsApp charges merchants a transaction fee, such as a 3.99% fee in Brazil, when they accept payments through the app.

Payments hold high strategic value despite currently contributing minimally to overall revenue. By embedding financial transactions into its messaging ecosystem, WhatsApp is widening user engagement and laying the foundation for broader commerce initiatives in the future.

WhatsApp’s cost centers

Running a platform that serves three billion users comes with significant operating costs. WhatsApp’s major cost drivers include investments in infrastructure, a growing workforce, ongoing research and development (R&D), and targeted marketing initiatives. 

Infrastructure 

WhatsApp relies on Meta’s extensive global data center network to operate on a massive scale. The platform handles over 100 billion daily messages and 2 billion daily calls, requiring a robust and resilient backend infrastructure.

Meta’s capital expenditures are projected to reach between $64-72 billion in 2025. This is driven largely by investments in AI, custom silicon chips, and over 30 data center expansions, all of which directly benefit WhatsApp.

While WhatsApp maintains relatively lean application-side engineering, the fixed costs of server maintenance, data storage, and network delivery form a significant part of its operational backbone.

Staffing and overhead 

WhatsApp’s famously lean early team, a mere 55 employees managing 400 million users pre-2014, has expanded dramatically under Meta’s ownership. Today, staffing spans engineering, security, legal compliance, customer support, and business development roles. Estimates suggest over 2,700 employees across six continents.

Major personnel expenses include salaries, stock-based compensation, and operational overhead. Security engineering teams play a critical role in WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption (E2EE) commitments, while compliance and moderation staff address regulatory requirements across different markets.

Research and development (R&D)

Ongoing research and development are vital to WhatsApp’s evolution. R&D initiatives include: 

• developing new features like multi-device support and WhatsApp Channels (a one-way broadcast messaging to followers)

• enhancing security with encrypted backups

• integrating AI tools

• ensuring compliance with emerging regulations such as the EU’s Digital Markets Act

While WhatsApp doesn’t report standalone R&D figures, it benefits from Meta’s substantial research investment. In 2024 alone, Meta’s R&D spending reached approximately $43.8 billion, covering infrastructure, AI, privacy protocols, and product innovations.

Marketing and growth initiatives

Historically, WhatsApp relied primarily on word of mouth for growth, spending very little on marketing. In recent years, however, it has ramped up its marketing efforts in various markets. 

Notable initiatives include major privacy-focused ad campaigns — such as the “Message Privately” campaign launched in 2022 — business adoption promotions, and cashback incentives tied to WhatsApp Pay rollouts in India and Brazil. 

Exact marketing spend figures aren’t disclosed for WhatsApp. But Meta’s overall marketing and sales expenses exceeded $11 billion in 2024, with WhatsApp’s share steadily increasing as Meta continued to prioritize growth in new markets.

One-off costs

WhatsApp has incurred substantial expenses with its expansion of global payment integrations, such as partnerships with UPI in India and PIX in Brazil. These integrations required extensive technical development, regulatory approvals, and financial service partnerships across multiple countries.

One-off legal costs also weigh heavily. WhatsApp has faced fines and regulatory scrutiny worldwide, including GDPR-related penalties in Europe, antitrust investigations by the Indian Competition Commission, and compliance investments to meet new rules like the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Although not recurring, these legal battles and policy adjustments have demanded sizable investments of time, money, and technical resources.

WhatsApp competitors

WhatsApp faces fierce competition from a range of platforms. Key challengers include Telegram, Signal, WeChat, iMessage, Viber, and even Meta’s own Facebook Messenger. Below is a breakdown of each platform, including its strengths, weaknesses, and market position, in comparison to its competitor WhatsApp.

Telegram

Strengths: Telegram boasts a rich feature set, including massive group chats (up to hundreds of thousands of users), public channels for broadcasting, powerful bots, and extensive UI customization. Its rapid pace of feature development often outpaces rivals, helping it stay attractive to tech-savvy audiences.

Weaknesses: End-to-end encryption is only available for one-on-one “secret chats,” leaving regular chats encrypted only in transit. Telegram also has a smaller global reach compared to WhatsApp.

Market position: As of early 2025, Telegram surpassed 1 billion monthly active users (MAUs), with particularly strong adoption in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and among global tech communities.

Recent moves: Telegram has launched a paid Premium tier, offering additional features such as faster downloads and larger file limits. It is also experimenting with decentralized identity systems and integrating crypto wallets, signaling a strategic push into Web3 ecosystems.

Signal

Strengths: Signal is renowned for its industry-leading privacy practices, offering full end-to-end encryption by default for all messages and calls. It is open-source, allowing independent audits and collecting virtually no user data.

Weaknesses: Signal has a smaller user base, with around 70 million users as of 2024. Its feature set is more limited compared to WhatsApp, lacking broader functionality like large groups, business tools, and media-rich channels.

Market position: Signal remains the platform of choice for privacy-conscious users who prioritize data security over convenience and extra features.

Recent moves: Signal has expanded its multi-device support, allowing users to link multiple devices without sacrificing security. It is also exploring grants and fundraising models to ensure it remains independent and free from commercial pressures. 

WeChat

Strengths: WeChat functions as a super-app that combines messaging with mobile payments, e-commerce, social feeds, and access to thousands of mini-programs. Its integration into daily life in China makes it effectively indispensable for everything, ranging from social chatting to shopping to paying utility bills.

Weaknesses: Its dominance is largely confined to mainland China. Additionally, the app is subject to strict government surveillance and censorship, raising privacy and transparency concerns for global users.

Market position: As of 2025, WeChat has roughly 1.34 billion monthly active users, almost entirely concentrated in China, where it is deeply embedded in both personal and professional life.

Recent moves: WeChat’s parent company Tencent has continued to invest in expanding WeChat’s mini-program ecosystem and financial services. At the same time, it has increased internal content moderation and compliance efforts in response to tightening regulatory scrutiny by Chinese authorities.

iMessage

Strengths: iMessage benefits from deep operating system integration on Apple devices, and seamless syncs across iPhones, iPads, and Macs. It enjoys high user loyalty in the U.S., where it is tightly woven into the iPhone operating system (iOS) experience.

Weaknesses: iMessage is exclusive to Apple devices, limiting its reach in mixed-device households and international markets. While Apple has added support for rich communication services (RCS), messages between iOS and Android users still lack end-to-end encryption and feature parity.

Market position: iMessage is the dominant messaging platform among U.S. iPhone users and particularly popular among younger demographics. It poses a challenge to WhatsApp’s growth in the U.S. market.

Recent moves: In 2024, Apple began supporting RCS messaging in iOS 18, improving interoperability with Android devices. New features include better media sharing, typing indicators, and read receipts. However, these RCS messages are not end-to-end encrypted —unlike iMessages — and Apple continues to maintain a closed ecosystem approach while signaling plans for future encryption support. 

Viber

Strengths: Viber offers end-to-end encryption by default for all private messages and calls. It also offers group chats, voice and video calls, public communities, built-in stickers, and other options. 

Weaknesses: Viber has a smaller development footprint compared to WhatsApp and lacks the same level of business messaging infrastructure or integration with payment services. It also trails in feature development and third-party ecosystem support.

Market position: As of 2024, Viber claims over 1 billion users, with strongholds in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. It maintains a loyal base, particularly in countries like Ukraine and the Philippines.

Recent moves: Viber has focused on expanding its Community feature (similar to public channels), rolled out disappearing messages, and introduced AI-powered message suggestions and chatbot integrations. The platform has also emphasized digital security and data privacy as its core positioning to differentiate from larger rivals. 

Facebook Messenger

Strengths: Messenger is tightly integrated with Facebook, giving it strong brand recognition and immediate access to a massive user base. Its integration with Meta’s advertising and business tools makes it an attractive platform for marketers and small businesses.

Weaknesses: Engagement has declined among younger users, many of whom have migrated to other platforms. Messenger has also faced criticism over its delayed rollout of end-to-end encryption, which is not yet enabled by default for all conversations.

Market position: Messenger maintains over 1 billion monthly active users, with users in various countries. 

Recent moves: Meta is actively working toward rolling out full end-to-end encryption across Messenger by default. This move aims to better align Messenger with WhatsApp’s privacy standards and improve user trust amid growing global scrutiny of data privacy.

The future of WhatsApp

WhatsApp stands at a critical inflection point as it works to scale monetization initiatives without compromising the privacy-first brand it was built on. Several strategic moves and broader industry trends will shape how the platform evolves over the next decade.

Strategic pivots: WhatsApp is moving beyond pure messaging to position itself as a private super-app. It is gradually building out offerings across business messaging, payments, and lightweight commerce, especially in regions where digital infrastructure is still maturing and privacy is a market differentiator.

Financial outlook: Analysts project that WhatsApp’s business messaging revenue could grow to over $7 billion annually by 2030. If realized, this would make WhatsApp one of Meta’s top three revenue drivers.

Long-term vision: WhatsApp aims to become the global backbone of private communication and commerce. This includes integrating secure payments, customer service, and AI-driven commerce features within a unified, encrypted interface.

There are several key milestones worth monitoring:

• expansion of WhatsApp Pay into new international markets

• monetization of Channels through promoted posts and subscriptions

• rollout of AI-powered business tools, including auto-replies, lead capture, and virtual agents

• ongoing compliance with global regulations, including the EU’s Digital Markets Act

If executed successfully, WhatsApp could move far beyond its origins as a simple chat app. It could well emerge as one of the most important digital utilities in the world by combining scale, security, and monetization into a uniquely trusted platform.