6 ms·

Conversation-Based Pricing

48 points by vincent_s 5y ago

sschueller 5y ago
No wonder people rather use Telegram. Anyone can make a bot without needing to go through some ridiculous approval process just for access. This walled garden needs to die or I am hoping for some law changes requiring all messenger apps to open up their protocols. It is my data.
- VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
  what stops telegram from doing this at some point
  - commoner 5y ago
    Telegram's popularity depends on a vibrant ecosystem of third-party clients and bots that run on their API, and they wouldn't want to risk losing that. On the other hand, WhatsApp has prohibited third-party clients since 2015 and restricts their API to businesses that they are now charging these new rates. Telegram is the more consumer-friendly choice, partly because they have not entrenched their market position in the same way that WhatsApp has.
    - noobermin 5y ago
      Until they will? At the end of the day, how else will chat apps make money? Fundamentally, as long as it's one central service run by one company they'll have to make money by eventually milking their users once they have the marketshare. Whatsapp said they'd do it forever and now they are.
      - commoner 5y ago
        The CEO and co-founder of Telegram made a statement on monetization last year:* https://t.me/durov/142 https://t.me/durov/142 These parts highlight the strategy: > 4. All the features that are currently free will stay free. We will add some new features for business teams or power users. Some of these features will require more resources and will be paid for by these premium users. Regular users will be able to keep enjoying Telegram – for free, forever. > 5. All parts of Telegram devoted to messaging will remain ad-free. We think that displaying ads in private 1-to-1 chats or group chats is a bad idea. Communication between people should be free of advertising of any sort. > 6. In addition to its messaging component, Telegram has a social networking dimension. Our massive public one-to-many channels can have millions of subscribers each and are more like Twitter feeds. In many markets the owners of such channels display ads to earn money, sometimes using third-party ad platforms. The ads they post look like regular messages, and are often intrusive. We will fix this by introducing our own Ad Platform for public one-to-many channels – one that is user-friendly, respects privacy and allows us to cover the costs of servers and traffic. If you accept the co-founder's statement, Telegram is only going to monetize one-to-many communications, and not charge fees for one-to-one conversations (in contrast to WhatsApp). Telegram is privately held, not publicly traded, and has no obligation to prioritize profit maximization over their mission. * The statement is linked from their FAQ: https://telegram.org/faq#q-how-are-you-going-to-make-money-out-of-this https://telegram.org/faq#q-how-are-you-going-to-make-money-o...
        noobermin 5y ago
        Look, I use telegram ever since whatsapp went down this road and I'm generally supportive of them. I will just say private vs public is better as long as the guy (it's almost always a guy) is a "good guy" and not a "bad guy." Relying on One Person is not always a safe bet because One Person can die or want to move on and then we're back to the coin flip as to whether it's "good guy" or "bad guy." Generally, my preference is an open protocol because protocols can't be controlled by one person and they can't (eventually) be bought. For now, I support Telegram but the future has to be protocols for the sake of free and open communication. Of course, the downside is no one makes money off of that, or at least they don't as much just selling a server running a protocol everyone else can run. Or even worse for them, they can't exert as much control.
        commoner 5y ago
        I agree 100%. I hope that Matrix will eventually succeed both WhatsApp and Telegram, since it is decentralized and fully free and open source on both the client and server sides.
    - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
      > [Twitter's] popularity depends on a vibrant ecosystem of third-party clients and bots that run on their API, and they wouldn't want to risk losing that. The reality is that nobody is paying a subscription to use a chat app. So they have to monetize the same way as always: ads and company bots. And that's at odds with the third-party ecosystem where they'll just block the ads and the company bots. This is just the same thing as always. It just hasn't been ruined yet.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - IceWreck 5y ago
    If they do people will just move to matrix. A lot of groups I'm in are already bridged to matrix so the move will be simple and chat history will be preserved.
    - noobermin 5y ago
      I really wish so but I don't see it as being an option for the general public until we see actual networking effects around it.
    - sschueller 5y ago
      Biggest issue is how hard it is to maintain bridges, specifically bridges to closed systems like WhatsApp. Also list time I ran it synapse was a monster to operate requiring lots and lots of resources.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >No wonder people rather use Telegram. There's currently 2 billion WhatsApp users, it's about four times as large as Telegram.
- gabybot 5y ago
  Is it currently possible to proactively talk to users (without waiting for their explicit approval on the app) using a telegram bot?
wiradikusuma 5y ago
Do you still need to go through a "partner" instead of just DIY SaaS model?
barbazoo 5y ago
How come there is such a big cost difference between e.g. NA (1.5 cent) and Europe (~14 cent)?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hetspookjee 5y ago
  I think as one of the prime funnels of information and barometer of public opininon, this is what they calculated to be the optimum fee per seperate country. Surely there are plenty of parameters going into this price calculation, but I think the basis is the country GDP, competitors in the space, provided value, amount of SME's with dispensable income, and some others. Surely they could make it even higher given the already widespread adoption of WhatsApp, but that might poke the bear and initiate anti-trust'ish. So, I think this is exactly the sweet spot to break everyone's balls, but just not enough.
- dannyw 5y ago
  The alternative is text messages, and US SMSes are cheaper than EU.
  - tobylane 5y ago
    I only know one person on WhatsApp without a contract (which all have hundreds of free texts), and the Pay As You Go options I see in the UK go as low as a penny per text.
    - commoner 5y ago
      Most phone plans in the U.S. include unlimited SMS/MMS messages, including prepaid MVNO plans that are very affordable (with entry-level plans under $20/month). Pay-as-you-go plans are an exception, but they are becoming less cost-effective as monthly plans become more competitive. I think the consumer mindset changes as soon as something is advertised as "unlimited", because you no longer have to think about conserving resources.
  - 5y ago
awestroke 5y ago
People pay to use the WhatsApp API? Why are they still on the sinking ship?
- philliphaydon 5y ago
  Businesses apparently do. Not regular users.
- aaronbrethorst 5y ago
  It has two billion MAU.
  - antupis 5y ago
    yup and it is still growing fast pace, I would not be surprised if it would be biggest social network by 2025.
    - namdnay 5y ago
      I wouldn’t call it a social network.. just a messaging app
- changoplatanero 5y ago
  WhatsApp is sinking?
  - busymom0 5y ago
    Not sure about others but I have successfully been able move many people over to signal from WhatsApp and fb messenger. And many friends have done the same too. WhatsApp is still pretty big in India though.
    - shric 5y ago
      WhatsApp is huge in many countries. You and I may have the tech skill and privacy concerns to move to something like signal but 99% of users either don't care or aren't aware of the difference.
charcircuit 5y ago
At a price of over $0.13 per message in some regions it seems more cost effective to just automate the app yourself / use a third party binding then their business API.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- busymom0 5y ago
  Fb would most likely block your account if they detect it.
  - hetspookjee 5y ago
    I wonder what happens if people en masse started doing it, and they block a large share. Forcing talks about open standards, or pushing people to Telegram / Signal. No, I'm no fan of Telegram, but the plethora of bot options make it extremely interesting for all kinds of usecases. Much more interesting than WhatsApp currently is. Hopefully Signal would embrace such tooling, too.
- nnx 5y ago
  This isn't per message... this is per "conversation" (which is any number of messages within 24 hours of initiating)
  - boramalper 5y ago
    What does the pricing look like after the first 24 hours?
    - commoner 5y ago
      If a conversation exceeds 24 hours, WhatsApp charges the rate of another conversation for every additional 24 hours. > All conversations are measured in 24-hour increments, or "sessions", that start whenever the first message from a business is delivered.
- 5y ago
hit8run 5y ago
Intense pricing. I dislike FB and everything Mark Zuckerberg does. I don't even use React because it is their toy.
- Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
  Someone at board level in there has made some nefarious decision around pricing to screw some particular business segment, while in parallel polishing some "truth-speak" around making the world wonderful with this pricing model. I trust them less than most politicians, including some of those obviously nutjob politicians.
- mdoms 5y ago
  No one who had spent a single minute on Android's Facebook app or Messenger would put a single thought into using Facebook technologies for their front end. The fact that it's a popular choice is truly a mystery to me.
  - ipsum2 5y ago
    Facebook has ~3 billion users, you think not a single one of them uses React for web development because of FB's android apps? That sounds absurd, even for hyperbole. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
blackoil 5y ago
India is cheapest at 0.0066$ or ₹0.4843 /day/user. Considering the penetration and size in Indian market. This seems to be a good number. Next they should work on app/widget model inside of the WhatsApp. That should cover 90% of use-cases for adhoc communication with companies.
stadium 5y ago
Nowhere on the page could I find a definition of conversion. What is a conversion? How does Facebook know about it? What about me do they share with other advertisers? How is my conversion used to target future ads? This is just the regular Facebook ad pricing playbook being pushed out to all "meta" properties. Instead of ad placements though, it's for bot messages.
- namdnay 5y ago
  Conversation, not conversion The definition seems to be at the start of the page - it’s every “chat session” with a bot I don’t see the link with advertising or targeting?
  - stadium 5y ago
    Oh my, yes I see that now. Sorry and thanks.
ipsum2 5y ago
The title could have +"for businesses" to be more accurate.
Debug_Overload 5y ago
For Business-Initiated Rates, Rest of Africa is higher than North America, Rest of Latin America, Rest of Central & Eastern Europe, Rest of Asia Pacific and Rest of Middle East (basically any region other than Western Europe). Any specific reason for this? "Being poor is expensive" kinda thing?
austurist 5y ago
Wow. Whatsapp for Business is more than 8 times more expensive in Africa (with the exception of South Africa) than in the USA. What kind of price discrimination it is?
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  Things regularly cost different amounts in different parts of the world depending on demand, availability of competition, costs of operating etc.
ralfn 5y ago
Wonder why they made the Netherlands more expensive than other western European countries, like UK, Germany or Belgium. Neither taxes or GDP can explain this well.

48 points by vincent_s 5y ago

No wonder people rather use Telegram. Anyone can make a bot without needing to go through some ridiculous approval process just for access. This walled garden needs to die or I am hoping for some law changes requiring all messenger apps to open up their protocols. It is my data.

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
what stops telegram from doing this at some point
- commoner 5y ago
  Telegram's popularity depends on a vibrant ecosystem of third-party clients and bots that run on their API, and they wouldn't want to risk losing that. On the other hand, WhatsApp has prohibited third-party clients since 2015 and restricts their API to businesses that they are now charging these new rates. Telegram is the more consumer-friendly choice, partly because they have not entrenched their market position in the same way that WhatsApp has.
  - noobermin 5y ago
    Until they will? At the end of the day, how else will chat apps make money? Fundamentally, as long as it's one central service run by one company they'll have to make money by eventually milking their users once they have the marketshare. Whatsapp said they'd do it forever and now they are.
    - commoner 5y ago
      The CEO and co-founder of Telegram made a statement on monetization last year:* https://t.me/durov/142 https://t.me/durov/142 These parts highlight the strategy: > 4. All the features that are currently free will stay free. We will add some new features for business teams or power users. Some of these features will require more resources and will be paid for by these premium users. Regular users will be able to keep enjoying Telegram – for free, forever. > 5. All parts of Telegram devoted to messaging will remain ad-free. We think that displaying ads in private 1-to-1 chats or group chats is a bad idea. Communication between people should be free of advertising of any sort. > 6. In addition to its messaging component, Telegram has a social networking dimension. Our massive public one-to-many channels can have millions of subscribers each and are more like Twitter feeds. In many markets the owners of such channels display ads to earn money, sometimes using third-party ad platforms. The ads they post look like regular messages, and are often intrusive. We will fix this by introducing our own Ad Platform for public one-to-many channels – one that is user-friendly, respects privacy and allows us to cover the costs of servers and traffic. If you accept the co-founder's statement, Telegram is only going to monetize one-to-many communications, and not charge fees for one-to-one conversations (in contrast to WhatsApp). Telegram is privately held, not publicly traded, and has no obligation to prioritize profit maximization over their mission. * The statement is linked from their FAQ: https://telegram.org/faq#q-how-are-you-going-to-make-money-out-of-this https://telegram.org/faq#q-how-are-you-going-to-make-money-o...
      - noobermin 5y ago
        Look, I use telegram ever since whatsapp went down this road and I'm generally supportive of them. I will just say private vs public is better as long as the guy (it's almost always a guy) is a "good guy" and not a "bad guy." Relying on One Person is not always a safe bet because One Person can die or want to move on and then we're back to the coin flip as to whether it's "good guy" or "bad guy." Generally, my preference is an open protocol because protocols can't be controlled by one person and they can't (eventually) be bought. For now, I support Telegram but the future has to be protocols for the sake of free and open communication. Of course, the downside is no one makes money off of that, or at least they don't as much just selling a server running a protocol everyone else can run. Or even worse for them, they can't exert as much control.
        commoner 5y ago
        I agree 100%. I hope that Matrix will eventually succeed both WhatsApp and Telegram, since it is decentralized and fully free and open source on both the client and server sides.
  - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
    > [Twitter's] popularity depends on a vibrant ecosystem of third-party clients and bots that run on their API, and they wouldn't want to risk losing that. The reality is that nobody is paying a subscription to use a chat app. So they have to monetize the same way as always: ads and company bots. And that's at odds with the third-party ecosystem where they'll just block the ads and the company bots. This is just the same thing as always. It just hasn't been ruined yet.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- IceWreck 5y ago
  If they do people will just move to matrix. A lot of groups I'm in are already bridged to matrix so the move will be simple and chat history will be preserved.
  - noobermin 5y ago
    I really wish so but I don't see it as being an option for the general public until we see actual networking effects around it.
  - sschueller 5y ago
    Biggest issue is how hard it is to maintain bridges, specifically bridges to closed systems like WhatsApp. Also list time I ran it synapse was a monster to operate requiring lots and lots of resources.
Barrin92 5y ago
>No wonder people rather use Telegram. There's currently 2 billion WhatsApp users, it's about four times as large as Telegram.
gabybot 5y ago
Is it currently possible to proactively talk to users (without waiting for their explicit approval on the app) using a telegram bot?

wiradikusuma 5y ago

Do you still need to go through a "partner" instead of just DIY SaaS model?

barbazoo 5y ago

How come there is such a big cost difference between e.g. NA (1.5 cent) and Europe (~14 cent)?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hetspookjee 5y ago
I think as one of the prime funnels of information and barometer of public opininon, this is what they calculated to be the optimum fee per seperate country. Surely there are plenty of parameters going into this price calculation, but I think the basis is the country GDP, competitors in the space, provided value, amount of SME's with dispensable income, and some others. Surely they could make it even higher given the already widespread adoption of WhatsApp, but that might poke the bear and initiate anti-trust'ish. So, I think this is exactly the sweet spot to break everyone's balls, but just not enough.
dannyw 5y ago
The alternative is text messages, and US SMSes are cheaper than EU.
- tobylane 5y ago
  I only know one person on WhatsApp without a contract (which all have hundreds of free texts), and the Pay As You Go options I see in the UK go as low as a penny per text.
  - commoner 5y ago
    Most phone plans in the U.S. include unlimited SMS/MMS messages, including prepaid MVNO plans that are very affordable (with entry-level plans under $20/month). Pay-as-you-go plans are an exception, but they are becoming less cost-effective as monthly plans become more competitive. I think the consumer mindset changes as soon as something is advertised as "unlimited", because you no longer have to think about conserving resources.
- 5y ago

awestroke 5y ago

People pay to use the WhatsApp API? Why are they still on the sinking ship?

philliphaydon 5y ago
Businesses apparently do. Not regular users.
aaronbrethorst 5y ago
It has two billion MAU.
- antupis 5y ago
  yup and it is still growing fast pace, I would not be surprised if it would be biggest social network by 2025.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    I wouldn’t call it a social network.. just a messaging app
changoplatanero 5y ago
WhatsApp is sinking?
- busymom0 5y ago
  Not sure about others but I have successfully been able move many people over to signal from WhatsApp and fb messenger. And many friends have done the same too. WhatsApp is still pretty big in India though.
  - shric 5y ago
    WhatsApp is huge in many countries. You and I may have the tech skill and privacy concerns to move to something like signal but 99% of users either don't care or aren't aware of the difference.

charcircuit 5y ago

At a price of over $0.13 per message in some regions it seems more cost effective to just automate the app yourself / use a third party binding then their business API.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
busymom0 5y ago
Fb would most likely block your account if they detect it.
- hetspookjee 5y ago
  I wonder what happens if people en masse started doing it, and they block a large share. Forcing talks about open standards, or pushing people to Telegram / Signal. No, I'm no fan of Telegram, but the plethora of bot options make it extremely interesting for all kinds of usecases. Much more interesting than WhatsApp currently is. Hopefully Signal would embrace such tooling, too.
nnx 5y ago
This isn't per message... this is per "conversation" (which is any number of messages within 24 hours of initiating)
- boramalper 5y ago
  What does the pricing look like after the first 24 hours?
  - commoner 5y ago
    If a conversation exceeds 24 hours, WhatsApp charges the rate of another conversation for every additional 24 hours. > All conversations are measured in 24-hour increments, or "sessions", that start whenever the first message from a business is delivered.
5y ago

hit8run 5y ago

Intense pricing. I dislike FB and everything Mark Zuckerberg does. I don't even use React because it is their toy.

Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
Someone at board level in there has made some nefarious decision around pricing to screw some particular business segment, while in parallel polishing some "truth-speak" around making the world wonderful with this pricing model. I trust them less than most politicians, including some of those obviously nutjob politicians.
mdoms 5y ago
No one who had spent a single minute on Android's Facebook app or Messenger would put a single thought into using Facebook technologies for their front end. The fact that it's a popular choice is truly a mystery to me.
- ipsum2 5y ago
  Facebook has ~3 billion users, you think not a single one of them uses React for web development because of FB's android apps? That sounds absurd, even for hyperbole. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

blackoil 5y ago

India is cheapest at 0.0066$ or ₹0.4843 /day/user. Considering the penetration and size in Indian market. This seems to be a good number. Next they should work on app/widget model inside of the WhatsApp. That should cover 90% of use-cases for adhoc communication with companies.

stadium 5y ago

Nowhere on the page could I find a definition of conversion. What is a conversion? How does Facebook know about it? What about me do they share with other advertisers? How is my conversion used to target future ads? This is just the regular Facebook ad pricing playbook being pushed out to all "meta" properties. Instead of ad placements though, it's for bot messages.

namdnay 5y ago
Conversation, not conversion The definition seems to be at the start of the page - it’s every “chat session” with a bot I don’t see the link with advertising or targeting?
- stadium 5y ago
  Oh my, yes I see that now. Sorry and thanks.

ipsum2 5y ago

The title could have +"for businesses" to be more accurate.

Debug_Overload 5y ago

For Business-Initiated Rates, Rest of Africa is higher than North America, Rest of Latin America, Rest of Central & Eastern Europe, Rest of Asia Pacific and Rest of Middle East (basically any region other than Western Europe). Any specific reason for this? "Being poor is expensive" kinda thing?

austurist 5y ago

Wow. Whatsapp for Business is more than 8 times more expensive in Africa (with the exception of South Africa) than in the USA. What kind of price discrimination it is?

hiptobecubic 5y ago
Things regularly cost different amounts in different parts of the world depending on demand, availability of competition, costs of operating etc.

ralfn 5y ago

Wonder why they made the Netherlands more expensive than other western European countries, like UK, Germany or Belgium. Neither taxes or GDP can explain this well.