全球擁逾10億用戶的通訊應用程式WhatsApp，即將免收所有費用。用戶以往下載及使用WhatsApp，首年費用全免，其後每年需繳付0.99美元（約7.79港元）的年費。官方網站在當地時間公佈取消收費，並完全免費開放予用家使用。WhatsApp指未來不會引入任何廣告，冀用家放心；惟有專家表示，日後或會在語音通話等功能「收番你錢」。
WhatsApp發言人在官網解釋原因，雖然收取的費用很少，但很多用戶表示因沒有信用卡，害怕用了一年後便要停用，變相與家人、朋友失去聯絡，此情況亦一直影響用戶增長率，故有此決定。發言人稱，新措施並非即時實行，未來數周會逐步在iOS 及Android系統作更新。至截稿前，Google Play Store仍顯示需收費。
香港互動市務商會會長方保僑指，今次是facebook收購WhatsApp後另一具指標作用的變更，亦反映WhatsApp舊有的營運模式大有漏洞。他認為，香港用戶未必會有大增長，但在其他市佔率遠比WeChat或LINE低的國家及地區，特別是內地，今次或能扳回一城。但估計免費未必會維持長時間，日後或會在受歡迎的功能收費，「好似講電話（數據通話）咁，我自己都因為佢，唔用IDD好耐」。
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Making WhatsApp free and more useful
（來源：WhatsApp Blog January 18, 2016）
Nearly a billion people around the world today rely on WhatsApp to stay in touch with their friends and family. From a new dad in Indonesia sharing photos with his family, to a student in Spain checking in with her friends back home, to a doctor in Brazil keeping in touch with her patients, people rely on WhatsApp to be fast, simple and reliable.
That's why we're happy to announce that WhatsApp will no longer charge subscription fees. For many years, we've asked some people to pay a fee for using WhatsApp after their first year. As we've grown, we've found that this approach hasn't worked well. Many WhatsApp users don't have a debit or credit card number and they worried they'd lose access to their friends and family after their first year. So over the next several weeks, we'll remove fees from the different versions of our app and WhatsApp will no longer charge you for our service.
Naturally, people might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today's announcement means we're introducing third-party ads. The answer is no. Starting this year, we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from. That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight. We all get these messages elsewhere today – through text messages and phone calls – so we want to test new tools to make this easier to do on WhatsApp, while still giving you an experience without third-party ads and spam.
We hope you enjoy what's coming to WhatsApp, and we look forward to your feedback.