WhatsApp has officially announced that it will begin displaying ads within its app — but only in the Updates tab. This move marks a major shift for the messaging platform as parent company Meta seeks new ways to generate revenue from WhatsApp’s massive global user base.
In a blog post published Monday, WhatsApp emphasized that the core messaging experience will remain untouched. “The personal messaging experience on WhatsApp isn’t changing, and personal messages, calls and statuses are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be used to show ads,” the company clarified.
Ads will appear in specific sections of the Updates tab, which currently hosts Status updates and Channels. The Updates tab is visited by as many as 1.5 billion users daily, offering a large audience for advertisers without disrupting private conversations.
To maintain user privacy, WhatsApp stated that ads will be shown based on limited information such as general location (like city or country), age, language preferences, and user interactions with channels and ads. The company reassured users that it “will never sell or share your phone number to advertisers” and that “personal messages, calls and groups you are in will not be used to determine the ads you may see.”
Alongside the introduction of ads, WhatsApp also unveiled two additional monetization features:
- Channel Subscriptions – Users will be able to pay a monthly fee for exclusive updates from their favorite Channels.
- Promoted Channels – Admins and businesses can now pay to have their channels promoted to users in the app’s directory.
These changes are part of Meta’s broader effort to diversify income sources beyond Facebook and Instagram. In 2025 alone, Meta earned $160.6 billion of its $164.5 billion revenue from advertising.
The company insists that these features are built “with privacy in mind,” using Meta’s ad technology in a way that respects WhatsApp’s long-standing encryption standards. Users who link their WhatsApp to the Meta Accounts Center will also see ads influenced by preferences across their Meta-owned services.
WhatsApp says its approach ensures a balance between helping businesses grow and preserving the private nature of the messaging platform. As the blog explains, “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.”
This marks a new chapter for WhatsApp, which was originally launched in 2009 with a strong anti-advertising stance by its founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton. Both left the company a few years after Facebook’s acquisition in 2014.
With these changes, WhatsApp is positioning itself not just as a private messaging tool, but as a broader platform for discovery, updates, and business engagement — all while claiming to uphold its privacy-first foundation.