WhatsApp for iPhone Moving to Subscription Model Later This Year

Tuesday March 19, 2013 5:47 AM PDT by Husain Sumra
whatsapp.jpgTechCrunch reports that WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum has revealed in an interview with Dutch journalist Alexander Klopping that WhatsApp Messenger for iPhone will be moving to a subscription model by the end of the year.
The new subscription model would apply to new users, Koum said, and would likely follow the same pricing structure as its other apps, which are free for the first year and then cost $1/year, compared to the single, for-life $0.99 purchase that users make on iOS today. “We’re relaxed on dates, but definitely this year. It’s on the road map,” Koum said.
When asked why the company was making the change, Koum responded that they wanted "to keep things simple," probably referring to wanting to have a standard pricing model across all platforms.

WhatsApp is an immensely popular cross-platform messaging app that sees 17 billion messages sent daily, which is over eight times as many as Apple's 2 billion messages sent daily on iMessage.

As of right now, WhatsApp for iPhone is still available for $0.99 on the App Store. [Direct Link]

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evil89
78 months ago
Waiting for the first moron with an iPhone that cannot afford to spend .79$/y on such a great app.
Rating: 18 Votes
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levitynyc
78 months ago
RIP WhatsAPP.
Rating: 17 Votes
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j_maddison
78 months ago

Waiting for the first moron with an iPhone that cannot afford to spend .79$/y on such a great app.


You didn't have to wait long, look at the post above yours :D
Rating: 15 Votes
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cmChimera
78 months ago
I'll just use iMessage.
Rating: 12 Votes
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Tankmaze
78 months ago
"To keep things simple" yeah right, the most simple things are : people pay 1 dollar and thats it, not a subscription based.
Rating: 10 Votes
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jace88
78 months ago
It's not so much people who buy iPhones can't afford to pay $1 a year but rather, there's plenty of competing apps which are free and do the same thing. I appreciate Whatsapp not including advertisements and that it's cross platform, but I feel that if it essentially becomes closed to new users due to noone wanting to pay, it'll just become less relevant in the face of competition from FB Messaging, Skype, and the multitude of other free chat-with-friend apps.

I was astonished to see this happen on my BB the other day saying I needed to update but to do so would cost me money. The solution was simple- I uninstalled Whatsapp.
Rating: 10 Votes
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Oui
78 months ago

I'll just use iMessage.


Same here. WhatsApp is irrelevant.(to me)
Rating: 9 Votes
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berehon
78 months ago
Viber is free alternative. Also Viber has voice calls.
Rating: 7 Votes
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ds2000
78 months ago
A whole $1 a year for this simply superb cross-platform app.... no brainer for me :)
Rating: 5 Votes
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WoodNUFC
78 months ago
Even if it was priced at $5/year this would be a steal for my wife and I. We use it to message our family in South Africa. It's much cheaper to pay for WhatsAPP than it is to pay international texting fees.
Rating: 5 Votes
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