We have seen this playbook before, where a tech company buys a product from a competitor or introduces a new one that offered it for free and then slowly starts to introduce fees and charges for it. Remember when Google Photos used to be free? Or when Google for Domains (now Google Workspace) was introduced and it was free? Or when getting verified on social media (Facebook, X/Twitter et al) used to be free? Well, that all changed when the service started getting stapled with fees and premium package names and a hit to your wallet. This is exactly what we are seeing with WhatsApp, the ever-popular messaging app that took over the world almost a decade ago.

Before WhatsApp was purchased by Facebook (Meta), it used to be a free app with no payments of any kind whatsoever. The original owners made a pledge and said they will never introduce advertising within the app and for sure they kept that promise. Until Zuckerberg came knocking with a 19 billion cheque. In United States dollars. Obviously this investment needed to pay off and with Facebook being an advertising company, it was a matter of time before they came up with inventive ways of monetising messaging and communication. It started with Click-to-WhatsApp campaigns where paid ads running on Facebook or Instagram, when clicked, open up a chat window with the business on WhatsApp. Nowadays, you will see ads promoted via channels and WhatsApp statuses. Scroll through multiple statuses and you will see ads in between your friends’ and family’s statuses. This is in addition to WhatsApp Business where businesses are actually charged to send messages.

Anyway, I digress.

WhatsApp Plus, what is it?
OK, sometimes as a writer you have to force yourself to be open-minded and impartial about a technology or something new. I’ll give my views later in the conclusion. WhatsApp subscriptions are a new offering from Meta (WhatsApp’s parent company) called WhatsApp Plus where a user pays for a subscription to get access to extra personalisation and organisational features. Please take note that the standard WhatsApp remains free of charge. This is how they describe it themselves:

“WhatsApp Plus is an optional subscription that offers exclusive features to help you stay organized and express your personality.”

What do you get with WhatsApp Plus?

• Pin More Chats: Pin up to 20 important chats to the top of your screen instead of the standard limit of 3.
• Custom Themes and Icons: Change the app’s colour theme and choose custom app icons for your home screen.
• Exclusive Ringtones: Set unique ringtones for specific contacts.
• Special-Effect Stickers:  Access premium animated and full-screen stickers.
• Advanced List Organization: Customize alerts, themes, and ringtones for specific chat lists.

How much will it cost?
The costing is not clearly labelled on the WhatsApp website. Understandably so, as they have different pricing for different regions. It will cost an equivalent of $2.50 to $3.00 USD per month depending on where you are in the world. In Australia, the cost will be $3.99 per month

My thoughts
WhatsApp Plus was launched sometime back in April (2026), but it looks like they decided to be quiet about it. It wasn’t the usual noise and fanfare. A notification did appear on my phone asking me to sign up for WhatsApp Plus. My initial reaction was excitement, thinking this would be a good experience addition to WhatsApp. It’s, after all, one of my most used apps, right after YouTube Music. But alas, the disappointment hit me pretty quickly. The benefits of signing up for WhatsApp Plus sounded like someone was truly scratching from the bottom of the barrel to add to a marketing flyer. There’s literally no benefit for me here worth paying $4 AUD for here. All the benefits listed are things I can blissfully live without. Funny enough, most of those features already exist in WhatsApp, albeit in a basic or limited fashion. For example, pinning contacts. I’m really trying to think why one would want to pay to pin 20 chats. No judgement, but how many people exactly are you chatting with that you require to pin 20 contacts and are willing to pay for that service? Anyway, we use WhatsApp differently.

As for custom themes, well, WhatsApp already has personalisation and customisation options available, and I think these are adequate. Of course, some might say they need more themes or customisation abilities. One already has the ability to set custom ringing tones per contact. I know this because my wife has her own ringing tone. So this one confused me on its explanation. Stickers—you really have to laugh at this one. But let me continue to be serious. Apparently, by paying you get to create animated and full-screen stickers. Animated stickers are already available, but the new thing might be full-screen stickers. But it’s not something users are crying out for or truly excited about. And certainly not worth paying for.

So why would WhatsApp do something like this? They clearly know this subscription is meaningless. That got me really thinking: are they planning something bigger? In an effort to increase revenue from their baby? Are they doing this in preparation for something massive, such that they need to have people set up payment methods in their app in preparation for future payments? Maybe some micropayments architecture that allows people to get used to the idea of continuously paying for extra features, but for very small amounts that people won’t mind paying, but Facebook then benefits due to the large number of WhatsApp users? I truly do not know; only time will tell. All I know is, watch this space—this is not a random decision.

So tell me, are you going to sign up for WhatsApp Plus?

Send your responses here: [https://wa.me/+61467513992](https://wa.me/+61467513992)