News

WhatsApp drops subscription fee

by IBNS 18 Jan 2016, 06:59 pm

California, Jan 19 (IBNS) Messaging app WhatsApp has announced that it will no more charge the subscription fee.

Announcing that the app will be free for its users, a blogpost by the creators of the app said: "That's why we're happy to announce that WhatsApp will no longer charge subscription fees. For many years, we've asked some people to pay a fee for using WhatsApp after their first year."

"As we've grown, we've found that this approach hasn't worked well. Many WhatsApp users don't have a debit or credit card number and they worried they'd lose access to their friends and family after their first year. So over the next several weeks, we'll remove fees from the different versions of our app and WhatsApp will no longer charge you for our service," it said.

Speaking further on the issue, the blog read: "Naturally, people might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today's announcement means we're introducing third-party ads. The answer is no. Starting this year, we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you wantto hear from." 

It said: "That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight. We all get these messages elsewhere today – through text messages and phone calls – so we want to test new tools to make this easier to do on WhatsApp, while still giving you an experience without third-party ads and spam."

The blog said nearly a billion people use the app today.