WhatsApp announced on Monday that users will begin seeing advertisements in specific sections of the app, as owner Meta Platforms seeks to develop a new revenue stream by monetizing its billions of users.
Ads will appear only in the Updates tab used by up to 1.5 billion people daily. They will not show up in private chats, developers confirmed.
“We’ve been talking about our plans to build a business that does not interrupt your personal chats for years and we believe the Updates tab is the right place for these new features to work,” Meta writes in its update. The company says it “will never sell or share your phone numbers to advertisers,” adding that it won’t use your messages, calls, or groups to inform its ads.
This marks a major shift for the platform, which was launched in 2009 by founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, who initially committed to keeping WhatsApp ad-free.
WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014, and both founders eventually left the company. Since then, Meta Platforms Inc. has actively explored ways to monetize WhatsApp, which now serves billions globally.
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WhatsApp said that ads will be targeted based on non-sensitive data, such as:
- Age
- Location (country or city)
- Language
- Channels followed within the app
- User engagement with ads
Notably, private messages, calls, and group memberships will not be used to personalize ad targeting.
This is one of three new monetization tools WhatsApp launched on Monday:
- In-app ads in the Updates tab
- Channel subscriptions allowing channel owners to charge users for exclusive content
- Paid promotions for business channels to attract new followers
Meta’s revenue is heavily ad-dependent. In 2025, Meta earned $164.5 billion in revenue, with $160.6 billion coming from advertising.
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