Facebook has announced that it will start charging companies for using Whatsapp Business. The company will be adding hosting, shopping features and pricing tiers to WhatsApp Business.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses now require faster and more efficient ways to communicate with their customers and make sales. Whatsapp has been a convenient resource during this time with around 50 million businesses and 175 million people interacting with a WhatsApp Business account every day.
Facebook announced the news in a short blog post, describing the three major additions to WhatsApp.
In-chat Shopping
Facebook plans to expand the ways in which people can check out available products or make a purchase right from their WhatsApp chat. It hopes to make it easier for businesses to integrate these features into their existing commerce and customer solutions. The aim is to support small businesses who have been affected the most during this pandemic.
One recent development was the addition of QR codes and the ability to share catalog links in chats.
Facebook Hosting Services
Facebook plans on expanding partnerships with business solution providers to improve business communications, especially during the pandemic when remote work requirements have increased. It plans on providing a new option for businesses to manage their WhatsApp messages via hosting services that Facebook plans to offer.
According to the WhatsApp blog post, “providing this option will make it easier for small and medium size businesses to get started, sell products, keep their inventory up to date, and quickly respond to messages they receive - wherever their employees are.”
Business Sales
The company plans on charging business customers for some of the services, as it will allow WhatsApp to continue providing free end-to-end encrypted text, video and voice calling for more than two billion people.
These prices may vary and a list of them is published here.
Facebook has also made a video to help demonstrate how it sees these WhatsApp Business in action.