Meta has confirmed it is testing WhatsApp Plus, a premium subscription tier for WhatsApp Messenger, priced at €2.49 per month in Europe, according to WABetaInfo. The features it offers, from custom themes, app icons, and ringtones, exclusive stickers, to the ability to pin up to 20 chats instead of the standard three, are largely cosmetic. WhatsApp Plus does not remove ads from the status feature, and it is not available on WhatsApp Business.
The subscription, in its current form, targets individual users. But the fact that Meta is building a paid layer on top of WhatsApp at all is the more significant development.
The revenue context before WhatsApp Plus
WhatsApp’s paid messaging business, primarily the Business API used by brands and enterprises to reach customers, crossed a $2 billion annualized revenue run rate in Q4 2025. Meta’s family of apps grew revenue 54% year-on-year in the same period, with WhatsApp a meaningful contributor. WhatsApp Plus is being tested by a company that has already proved it can monetize WhatsApp and is now extending that logic to individual users.
WhatsApp charged a $1 annual fee in some markets before Facebook acquired it and dropped the fee in 2016. The platform has been free for a decade. That is ending incrementally.
What do these signals mean for creators
The features in WhatsApp Plus will not change how most creators work. Indian creators have built significant community infrastructure on WhatsApp. Channels for one-way broadcasts to followers, broadcast lists for direct outreach, group chats for paid communities and fan clubs, and all of it is currently free.
WhatsApp Channels, launched in 2023, gave creators a broadcast tool with no follower cap and no algorithm throttling their reach. It became, for many, a cleaner alternative to Telegram for community management. The question now is how long that infrastructure stays free as Meta moves WhatsApp toward a freemium model.
WhatsApp Plus: The next shift
WhatsApp Plus subscription is the first step. Advanced creator tools like higher broadcast limits, analytics for channels, priority delivery for paid community messages might be the logical next ones. Meta has not announced any of this. But the freemium model it is building has an obvious direction, and creators who have built their community pipelines on WhatsApp should be watching it.
India pricing for WhatsApp Plus has not been confirmed. Given that WhatsApp has over 500 million users in the country, how Meta prices this market will determine how quickly the freemium shift becomes a real cost for creators operating here.
