SAN FRANCISCO, August 3, 2018 (News Wires) - After years of providing free service to messaging-starved users and not annoying them with ads, WhatsApp hopes to be a money-spinner from business subscribers. The Facebook-owned service announced that it will be charging a fee for users of the platform - and the key here is speed. Basically, businesses will be able to respond to messages from users for free for up to 24 hours. Beyond that, a fixed rate per message will be charged, based on which country the service is located - anywhere between 0.5 cents to 9 cents, a Reuters report said. "Since we launched the WhatsApp Business app people have told us that it's quicker and easier to chat with a business than making a call or sending an e-mail," the Facebook-owned platform said in a blog post. "Today, we are expanding our support for businesses that need more powerful tools to communicate with their customers." The strategy WhatsApp is using is interesting: businesses could be compelled to respond at the earliest to customers to avoid the fees, which could make WhatsApp the platform of choice for them, drawing in more users. It's also speculated that the 24-hour window may be reduced in the future, depending on how the initial plan pans out. The news isn't new though. When WhatsApp announced in January that it would be starting to allow small business accounts to use WhatsApp Business to communicate, chief operating officer Matt Idema at that time also said the platform was planning to charge businesses in the future.
