In this article
WhatsApp has more than 3 billion monthly users (Meta, April 2025). Meta's paid WhatsApp messaging passed a $2 billion annual run rate in Q4 2025. Since 1 October 2026, replies you send inside the 24-hour window are billable again after the first 1,000 per business number each month. Every figure on this page links to the call transcript, SEC filing, rate card or survey it came from, with its date, and anything we could not trace to a primary source has been removed.
We rebuilt this page on 13 October 2026. Earlier versions carried round-number benchmarks (open rates, click rates, "ROI") with no citation. They are gone. If a figure here is wrong or has been superseded, tell us and we will fix it.
How many people use WhatsApp?
- More than 3 billion monthly users. Mark Zuckerberg said WhatsApp passed 3 billion monthly users on Meta's Q1 2025 earnings call, reported by TechCrunch on 1 May 2025. Meta has not published a newer headline count that we could find.
- About 54% of online adults use it in a month. GWI's Q2 2025 survey, reported in DataReportal's Digital 2026 Global Overview (published October 2025), found roughly 54% of internet users aged 16+ had used WhatsApp in the past 30 days. That ranked it fourth among the platforms GWI measures.
- First by "favourite platform". In the same report, 17.4% of social media users named WhatsApp their favourite platform, ahead of Instagram at 16.4%.
Survey reach and Meta's monthly-user count measure different things, which is why 54% of online adults and 3 billion users can both be true. Quote the one that matches the claim you are making.
How many WhatsApp users are there in India, Brazil, Indonesia and other countries?
Meta does not publish WhatsApp user counts by country, so any country table you see online is an estimate. We only list a country figure when Meta or a reporter quoting Meta gave one.
- India: about 500 million users. TechCrunch, 31 July 2024, wrote that WhatsApp's "500 million users in India" had supercharged Meta's AI efforts. The article is two years old, so treat it as a floor, not a current count.
- India is Meta AI's largest market. On the Q2 2024 call, CFO Susan Li said India was the largest market for Meta AI usage (same TechCrunch article).
- India and Indonesia lead Meta AI use inside WhatsApp. On the Q4 2025 call, Li said Meta AI engagement is "primarily WhatsApp driven" in places such as India and Indonesia (Motley Fool transcript, 28 January 2026).
For Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Mexico we found no Meta-published user count, so none is shown. What Meta does publish for every one of them is the price of a message, which is covered below.
How many businesses use WhatsApp?
- 200 million monthly users of the WhatsApp Business app. Meta announced the milestone in June 2023, up from 50 million in 2020 (TechCrunch, 27 June 2023). This counts the free app small businesses use, not the API. It is also the latest official figure we found, so always quote it with the year.
- No current count of API businesses. We could not find a Meta-published, dated number of businesses on the WhatsApp Business Platform, so we do not give one. Some sites quote "200 million businesses" on the API without a dated source; the only matching Meta figure we found is the Business app user count above.
How much money does Meta make from WhatsApp business messaging?
Meta does not break WhatsApp out as a revenue line. Paid messaging sits inside "Family of Apps other revenue", alongside Meta Verified subscriptions. These are the dated disclosures:
| Period | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Q4 2025 | Paid messaging on WhatsApp "crossing a $2 billion annual run rate"; Family of Apps other revenue $801 million, up 54% | Q4 2025 call transcript |
| Q1 2026 | Other revenue up $375 million (74%), "mostly driven by paid messaging from WhatsApp and Meta Verified subscriptions" | Meta 10-Q, quarter ended 31 Mar 2026 |
| Q2 2026 | Other revenue $1,007 million vs $583 million a year earlier (about +73%, our calculation) | Meta 10-Q, quarter ended 30 Jun 2026 |
Read the Q2 line carefully: the 10-Q table gives the segment total, not a WhatsApp-only number. The $2 billion run rate is the only WhatsApp-specific revenue figure Meta has given in this period.
What does the WhatsApp Business API cost per message in 2026?
Since 1 July 2025 Meta charges per delivered message, by category and recipient country, instead of per 24-hour conversation (Meta pricing documentation). The rate card has 47 markets: 39 named countries and 8 regions. These are the list rates for seven large markets, from Meta's USD rate card effective 1 October 2026:
| Market | Marketing | Utility | Authentication |
|---|---|---|---|
| India | $0.0118 | $0.0014 | $0.0014 |
| Brazil | $0.0625 | $0.0068 | $0.0068 |
| Indonesia | $0.0411 | $0.0250 | $0.0250 |
| Mexico | $0.0397 | $0.0085 | $0.0085 |
| Pakistan | $0.0473 | $0.0150 | $0.0150 |
| Saudi Arabia | $0.0576 | $0.0107 | $0.0107 |
| United Arab Emirates | $0.0576 | $0.0157 | $0.0157 |
Per-message rates, list prices before volume tiers. Source: Meta's USD rate card (CSV), linked from Meta's pricing page. The service-message rate equals the utility rate in every row above.
What the table shows, from the same numbers:
- A UAE or Saudi marketing message costs about 4.9 times an Indian one ($0.0576 vs $0.0118).
- A Brazilian marketing message costs about 5.3 times an Indian one ($0.0625 vs $0.0118).
- Indonesia's utility rate is about 18 times India's ($0.0250 vs $0.0014).
- India's rupee rates on the INR card are ₹0.8631 (marketing) and ₹0.115 (utility, authentication). Our India pricing breakdown works through monthly bills with them, and the pricing calculator lets you try your own volumes.
How have WhatsApp API prices changed since 2025?
Meta changes rates only on the first day of a quarter. The changes that moved the markets above, all from Meta's pricing page:
| Effective | Change |
|---|---|
| 1 Jul 2025 | Per-message billing replaces conversation billing; utility templates sent inside the customer service window become free |
| 1 Oct 2025 | UAE marketing rate up; Mexico marketing rate down |
| 1 Jan 2026 | India marketing rate up; India billing in INR begins |
| 1 Apr 2026 | Saudi Arabia marketing rate up; India authentication-international rate up; Pakistan utility and authentication rates up |
| 1 Jul 2026 | Marketing rates up in Italy, Spain and the UK; Meta Business Agent introduced as a fifth message category |
| 1 Oct 2026 | Service messages charged again (1,000 free per number per month); utility templates inside the window charged again; Mexico marketing rate up; nine markets such as Kuwait and Morocco move onto their own rate lines |
Meta's page also says eligible Indian customers must move all their WhatsApp accounts to INR billing by 31 December 2026, and that from 1 January 2027 Meta will stop delivering messages from non-INR accounts of those customers.
Which WhatsApp messages are free in 2026?
Two situations, per Meta's page ("Free messages: two instances"):
- Replies to a customer: the first 1,000 service messages per business phone number each month. Service messages are non-template replies inside the 24-hour window. From the 1,001st delivered one, Meta charges the market's service rate. The free allowance resets monthly and does not roll over. Meta notes that service messages it counts include replies written by people or by a third-party AI.
- Messages inside a free entry point window. When someone messages you from a Click-to-WhatsApp ad on the Android or iOS app and you reply within 24 hours, that reply is free and opens a window of up to 7 days in which Meta does not charge for marketing, utility, authentication or service messages.
Messages from a user to a business are never charged. Everything else, including utility templates sent inside an open window since 1 October 2026, is billed at the category rate. New to the API? Start with how to set it up.
What do we know about click-to-WhatsApp ad volume?
- $1.5 billion run rate, up 80% year on year, for click-to-WhatsApp ads, per Zuckerberg on the Q3 2022 call. $10 billion for click-to-message ads across Meta's messaging apps by the Q1 2023 call (TechCrunch, June 2023). Both are old; use them for history, not for current size.
- US click-to-message revenue grew more than 50% year on year in Q4 2025, per Susan Li on the Q4 2025 call. The transcript does not name WhatsApp separately for this figure.
- Meta has not published a current click-to-WhatsApp-only revenue number that we could find.
If you run these ads, the practical statistic is Meta's rule above: reply within 24 hours and the follow-up window is free. See how WhatsApp campaigns and click-to-WhatsApp leads fit together, and put your own volumes into the ROI calculator.
Which popular WhatsApp statistics did we remove?
Previous versions of this page, like many others, listed figures such as a 98% open rate, 45-60% click-through rates, "5-10x" email conversion and cart-recovery percentages. Meta does not publish open-rate or click-rate benchmarks for the Business Platform that we could find, and none of those figures traced back to a dated study. They are not here. When you need a benchmark, measure your own: delivered, read and reply rates by template category are in your WhatsApp Manager and in your inbox reports.
Also removed: country user tables (no Meta source), "businesses using the API" counts (no dated source) and every vendor-supplied customer result.
How to cite this page
"WhatsApp Statistics 2026", WhatsGrow AI, updated 13 October 2026, https://whatsgrowai.com/blog/whatsapp-marketing-statistics-2026. Please cite the original source linked beside each figure as well; links to the primary source are the point of this page. Rates change on the first day of each quarter, so re-check Meta's rate card before you quote a price.
Sources (checked 13 Oct 2026)
- Meta: Pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform (rate cards, free-message rules, price-change calendar; USD and INR rate card files linked there, effective 1 October 2026)
- TechCrunch: WhatsApp now has more than 3 billion users a month, 1 May 2025
- DataReportal: Digital 2026 Global Overview Report (GWI Q2 2025 survey)
- TechCrunch: India is the largest market for Meta AI usage, 31 July 2024
- TechCrunch: WhatsApp Business crosses 200M MAUs, 27 June 2023
- Meta Q4 2025 earnings call transcript (Motley Fool)
- Meta Form 10-Q, quarter ended 31 March 2026 (SEC)
- Meta Form 10-Q, quarter ended 30 June 2026 (SEC)