WhatsApp’s Status Tab Set to Feature Ads as Meta Monetizes Platform

WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging app, is entering a new era as Meta officially begins rolling out advertisements within its Updates tab—a move that marks the platform’s most significant shift in monetization since its inception.

The announcement, made on June 16, signals WhatsApp’s intent to leverage its vast user base of over two billion monthly active users and the 1.5 billion people who visit the Updates tab daily.

A New Home for Ads: The Updates Tab

The Updates tab, which houses both Status (WhatsApp’s version of Stories) and Channels, will be the exclusive venue for these new advertising features.

Ads will appear in the Status section, allowing businesses and organizations to promote products and services through ephemeral stories that disappear after 24 hours—mirroring the ad experience on Instagram and Facebook. 

Users scrolling through friends’ statuses or exploring new channels will now encounter these sponsored segments.

Meta emphasizes that personal messaging remains untouched: ads will not appear in private chats, group conversations, or calls.

“We’ve been talking about our plans to build a business that does not interrupt your chats for years and we believe the Updates tab is the right place for these new features to work,” WhatsApp stated. 

Users who only use WhatsApp for direct messaging will see no change to their experience.

Three-Pronged Monetization Approach

Alongside Status ads, WhatsApp is introducing two other monetization tools:

• Channel Subscriptions: Creators and organizations can now charge a monthly fee for exclusive content, giving users the option to support their favorite channels and access premium updates.
• Promoted Channels: Channel admins can pay to boost their visibility in the app’s Explore section, helping organizations and creators reach wider audiences.

All three features are confined to the Updates tab, ensuring the core chat experience remains ad-free and private.

Meta has repeatedly stressed that these changes are “built with privacy in mind.” Personal messages, calls, and statuses remain end-to-end encrypted, and WhatsApp assures users that neither message content nor contact information will be used for ad targeting. 

Ad targeting will instead rely on limited data such as users’ country or city, device language, the channels they follow, and their interactions with ads.

For those who have linked WhatsApp with Meta’s Accounts Center, broader ad preferences from Facebook and Instagram may also be utilized.

Meta further promises it will never sell or share users’ phone numbers with advertisers, and group memberships or private chats will not influence the ads users see.

The rollout of these features will be gradual, reaching different regions over the coming months. Industry analysts note that this move aligns WhatsApp with Meta’s broader ecosystem, bringing it closer to the advertising-driven models of Facebook and Instagram.

As WhatsApp embarks on this new chapter, the company faces the challenge of balancing monetization with its longstanding commitment to privacy—a principle that has been central to its appeal since its founding.

Whether users embrace this evolution remains to be seen, but the era of an ad-free WhatsApp is officially coming to a close.

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