WhatsApp is transforming its Updates tab into a vibrant hub for discovery and monetisation, introducing ads, paid subscriptions, and promoted channels as of Monday. These changes aim to help businesses, creators, and organisations grow on the platform while keeping personal chats private.
Ads in status and promoted channels boost business engagement
WhatsApp allows businesses to place ads directly in the Status section, enabling users to instantly discover new products and services and start conversations. This advertising feature is confined to the Updates tab, ensuring that personal messages and calls remain end-to-end encrypted and untouched by ads.
Additionally, WhatsApp introduces promoted channels, which recommend channels to users based on their interests. This helps channel admins increase visibility and grow their audience through directory-based promotion. These tools are designed to make it easier for users to find relevant content and for creators to expand their reach.
Channel subscriptions unlock exclusive content for users
A new subscription model lets users pay a monthly fee to subscribe to their favourite channels and receive exclusive updates. Channel admins can set subscription prices within a specified range, opening a new revenue stream for creators and organisations. Despite the paid subscriptions, channels will still be free to follow, preserving accessibility for all users.
Meta’s Vice President for Product Management, Nikila Srinivasan, explained, “Channel owners will be able to share exclusive in-the-moment updates with their most engaged followers, and they’ll be able to earn money while doing so.”
Privacy remains a priority amid new features
WhatsApp emphasises that these monetisation features appear only in the Updates tab, separate from personal chats. The platform uses limited data such as location, language, and channel interactions to personalise ads, but it does not sell or share phone numbers or mine personal messages for ad targeting. End-to-end encryption protects all personal messages, calls, and group chats.
The rollout of these features will begin on Android and iOS devices globally over the next few months, marking a new chapter in WhatsApp’s evolution as a platform that balances user privacy with business growth opportunities.