After years of insisting it would remain ad-free, WhatsApp has finally buckled. On Monday, the Meta-owned platform announced it will start rolling out ads in the app’s Updates tab, which is used by as many as 1.5 billion people daily.
While ads won’t appear in personal chats, this marks a major shift for a service once fiercely opposed to monetisation through advertising.
“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 said in a blog post.
That’s cold comfort to some longtime users who remember WhatsApp’s founding philosophy. Back in 2014, investor Jim Goetz from Sequoia Capital shared a photo of a handwritten note taped to CEO Jan Koum’s desk. It read: “No ads! No games! No gimmicks!”
WhatsApp confirmed that the ads will be targeted based on factors such as age, country or city, language, the channels users follow in-app, and how they interact with ads. Crucially, Meta says it will not use private messages, calls or group memberships to personalise advertising.
“To show ads in Status or Channels, we’re going to use basic information like your country or city, your device language and your activity in the Updates tab,” said Nikila Srinivasan, Meta’s vice president of product management. “I want to be really clear about one thing: Your personal messages, calls and statuses will remain end-to-end encrypted. This means no one, not even us, can see or hear them, and they cannot be used for ads”.
Alongside the advertising announcement, WhatsApp unveiled two more monetisation features: channels can now charge monthly subscription fees for exclusive updates, and business owners can pay to promote their channels in the app’s Discovery directory.
The backlash was swift.
“Everyone knew it was coming! Waiting to see the sea of anger incoming … Are you going to switch messenger?” one user tweeted.
“Today Meta finally put ads into WhatsApp. Jan’s 2012 blog post about why we don’t sell ads is still live which is kinda funny. This is exactly why I am an Apple fanboi. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s the last major company where there is roughly one clear customer,” said another.
Meta acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion, and ever since, speculation has swirled about how and when it would capitalise on its user base. In 2025, Meta reported $US164.5 billion in revenue, $US160.6 billion of which came from advertising.
The company emphasised that users of WhatsApp solely for personal messaging will experience no changes, and that the Updates tab, where the three new features will reside, can be disabled in the settings.
“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,” the company said.
No timeline was given for the full rollout, though Srinivasan noted: “They’re going to be rolling out slowly over the next few months, so it might be a while until you see them in your countries.”
Still, for many, the damage is done.
“WhatsApp: ‘No ads, no gimmicks, just chat.’ Also WhatsApp: ‘How about ads and subscriptions now?’” one critic quipped in a post to X.
Well, at least they held out for 11 years.
