Data March 17, 2026 • Updated: 6 November 2026

WhatsApp business
statistics 2026

Ruud ten Have

Ruud ten Have

Marketing & AI Strategy

Verified WhatsApp Business statistics: users, business adoption, cost per message, customer expectations and commerce data. Every figure links to its source, from Meta and WhatsApp to Pew Research Center, DataReportal, Eurostat and Kantar.

3B+

monthly WhatsApp users worldwide

Source: Meta Q1 2025 earnings call, 2025

$2B

annual run-rate of WhatsApp paid messaging (Q4 2025)

Source: Meta, 2026

73.3%

of consumers prefer messaging a business

Source: Kantar for Meta, 2025

1.5B

people use the Updates tab every day

Source: Meta, 2025

Statistics overview

WhatsApp is the world's most widely used messaging app: more than 3 billion people in over 180 countries use it. With the WhatsApp Business app and the WhatsApp Business Platform, Meta gives businesses a channel for customer service, marketing and commerce.

On this page you'll find verified WhatsApp Business statistics, each with a link to its source: Meta's own results and pricing, Pew Research Center, DataReportal, Eurostat and a Kantar study commissioned by Meta. Whether you're building a business case for WhatsApp marketing with an online marketing agency, or looking to modernize your customer service, you'll find the data you need here.

In the 6 November 2026 update we checked every figure. Popular claims such as a 98% open rate or $24 billion in WhatsApp Commerce could not be traced to a primary source, so they are gone. What remains: who uses WhatsApp, what businesses pay per message, what customers expect and how fast business messaging is growing.

Section 1

WhatsApp users worldwide

3B+

monthly users of WhatsApp

Meta Q1 2025 earnings call, 2025

180+

countries where people use WhatsApp

WhatsApp, 2026

54%

of internet users aged 16+ used WhatsApp in the past month

DataReportal Digital 2026, 2025

20+

times a day the typical Android user opens WhatsApp

DataReportal Digital 2026, 2025

Reach and growth

  • More than 3 billion people in over 180 countries use WhatsApp, according to the company (WhatsApp, 2026)
  • WhatsApp passed 3 billion monthly actives in early 2025, Mark Zuckerberg said on Meta's Q1 2025 earnings call (Meta Q1 2025 earnings call, 2025)
  • Five years earlier, in February 2020, WhatsApp had just passed 2 billion users (WhatsApp, 2020)
  • Across all Meta apps together, an average of 3.64 billion people were active daily in September 2026, up 3% year over year. Meta does not publish a separate daily figure for WhatsApp (Meta Q3 2026 results, 2026)
  • 17.4% of social media users aged 16+ worldwide name WhatsApp as their favourite platform, the highest share of any platform, ahead of Instagram (16.4%) and Facebook (13%) (DataReportal Digital 2026, 2025)
  • WhatsApp ranks second on active app users worldwide, with an index of 86.5 against YouTube at 100 (Similarweb Android data) (DataReportal Digital 2026, 2025)
  • WhatsApp users spend an average of 59 minutes per day in the Android app, and open it almost 70% more often than Instagram users open theirs (DataReportal Digital 2026, 2025)
  • In the United States, more than 100 million people use WhatsApp, although Meta acknowledges that iMessage is still the primary messaging app there (Meta Q1 2025 earnings call, 2025)
Section 2

WhatsApp business adoption

200M

monthly users of the WhatsApp Business app (June 2023), up from 50M in 2020

TechCrunch, 2023

$2B

annual run-rate of paid messaging on WhatsApp, crossed in Q4 2025

Meta, 2026

1M+

businesses use a Meta Business Agent on WhatsApp and Messenger (June 2026)

Meta, 2026

Revenue from business messaging

AI and conversations with businesses

  • There are more than 1 billion active threads between people and businesses every day across WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram (Meta, 2026)
  • Business AIs were already handling over 1 million conversations a week in Mexico and the Philippines at the end of 2025 (Meta, 2026)
Section 3

Open rates & engagement

35.63%

average email open rate at Mailchimp, for comparison

Mailchimp, 2023

2.62%

average email click rate at Mailchimp

Mailchimp, 2023

10.3%

average click rate of an abandoned-cart SMS (Klaviyo)

Klaviyo, 2026

What can and cannot be measured

There is no independent, public benchmark for the open rate of WhatsApp Business messages. The widely repeated 98% has no traceable primary source, so we no longer cite it. What is measurable:

  • Email at Mailchimp averages a 35.63% open rate, a 2.62% click rate and a 0.22% unsubscribe rate (data last updated December 2023) (Mailchimp, 2023)
  • Abandoned-cart texts average a 10.3% click rate and $4.48 revenue per recipient; abandoned-cart emails 6% and $6.77 (110,000+ Klaviyo customers) (Klaviyo, 2026)
  • WhatsApp gets by far the most daily sessions of the top social apps: the typical Android user opens it more than 20 times a day (DataReportal Digital 2026, 2025)
Section 4

Customer service statistics

73.3%

of consumers prefer messaging when contacting a business

Kantar for Meta, 2025

69%

say waiting on hold is a waste of time

Kantar for Meta, 2025

67.7%

find a reply from an AI chatbot helpful

Kantar for Meta, 2025

What consumers expect

Kantar surveyed 11,056 adults aged 18 to 64 in 22 markets between April and September 2025, commissioned by Meta. The Netherlands was not one of the markets.

Automated service

  • More than 1 million businesses already use a Meta Business Agent on WhatsApp and Messenger to respond to customers around the clock; in June 2026 Meta announced it is expanding the agent to businesses of all sizes globally (Meta, 2026)
  • Service messages (free-form replies inside the 24-hour customer service window) have been free since 1 November 2024; from 1 October 2026 each business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages per month (Meta for Developers, 2026)
Section 5

Marketing & conversions

+60%

year-over-year revenue growth of click-to-WhatsApp ads in Q3 2025

Meta Q3 2025 earnings call, 2025

72.4%

of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that offers messaging

Kantar for Meta, 2025

7 days

maximum free messaging window after a click-to-WhatsApp ad

Meta for Developers, 2026

Click-to-WhatsApp ads

  • Click-to-WhatsApp ads grew revenue 60% year over year in Q3 2025 (Meta Q3 2025 earnings call, 2025)
  • In the US, revenue from click-to-message ads grew more than 50% year over year in Q4 2025 (Meta, 2026)
  • In Q3 2022, click-to-WhatsApp ads passed a $1.5 billion annual revenue run rate with 80% year-on-year growth, as Meta reported at the time (TechCrunch, 2023)
  • When someone messages a business from a click-to-WhatsApp ad, a free entry point window opens that can stay open for up to 7 days; marketing, utility, authentication and service messages in it are not charged (Meta for Developers, 2026)
  • Meta is gradually introducing ads in WhatsApp Status and said in October 2025 it expected to complete the rollout in 2026 (Meta Q3 2025 earnings call, 2025)
Section 6

WhatsApp vs SMS vs email

$0.1597

per marketing message to a Dutch (+31) number, from 1 October 2026

Meta for Developers, 2026

$0.025

per marketing message in North America

Meta for Developers, 2026

2.62%

average email click rate at Mailchimp

Mailchimp, 2023

Cost per WhatsApp marketing message by market (USD, from 1 October 2026)

Email and SMS benchmarks for context

  • Email: average open rate 35.63%, click rate 2.62%, unsubscribe rate 0.22% (Mailchimp, 2023)
  • SMS in abandoned-cart flows: 10.3% click rate (top 10% of brands: 18.5%) and $4.48 revenue per recipient (Klaviyo, 2026)

Per message, WhatsApp is not a cheap channel, certainly not to Dutch numbers. Its strength lies in replies inside an open conversation and in traffic from click-to-WhatsApp ads, so the ideal strategy combines channels. For Dutch companies, how to use these figures when automating follow-up: more on automating marketing (in Dutch).

For ecommerce and service brands, a smart WhatsApp funnel usually sits inside a broader conversion optimisation programme: the channel does the outreach, the landing experience closes the deal. For Dutch companies, how these figures shape a social media strategy: read more about outsourcing social media (in Dutch).

Section 7

WhatsApp commerce & payments

167.89M

WhatsApp Pay UPI transactions in India in July 2026

Business Today, 2026

1B+

active threads between people and businesses per day (WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram)

Meta, 2026

72.4%

of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that offers messaging

Kantar for Meta, 2025

Payments and selling in chat

  • WhatsApp Pay processed 167.89 million UPI transactions worth ₹12,957 crore in India in July 2026, up from 74.6 million in July 2025, making it the eighth-largest UPI app by volume (Business Today, 2026)
  • Meta Business Agent connects to hundreds of systems such as Shopify, Zendesk and Shopee (Meta, 2026)
  • Meta Business Agent messages are billed at $2.00 per million tokens (Meta for Developers, 2026)
Section 8

WhatsApp channels & API usage

1.5B

people use the Updates tab (Status and Channels) every day

Meta, 2025

1,000

free service messages per business number per month from 1 October 2026

Meta for Developers, 2026

1B+

monthly users of Meta AI across Meta's apps

Meta Q3 2025 earnings call, 2025

Updates tab, Status and Channels

  • The Updates tab, home to Status and Channels, is used by 1.5 billion people per day; in June 2025 Meta announced channel subscriptions, promoted channels and ads in Status there (Meta, 2025)
  • Status posts on WhatsApp get tens of billions of views each day (Meta Q1 2025 earnings call, 2025)

Business Platform pricing

  • In North America a marketing message costs about $0.025 and a utility, authentication or service message $0.0034 (Meta for Developers, 2026)
  • Utility messages sent inside an open customer service window were free from 1 July 2025; from 1 October 2026 they are charged at the utility rate (Meta for Developers, 2026)

AI on WhatsApp

Section 9

Regional market insights

33%

of US adults use WhatsApp (2026)

Pew Research Center, 2026

56%

of Hispanic adults in the US use WhatsApp

Pew Research Center, 2026

97.7%

of Dutch people aged 16-74 use instant messaging

Eurostat, 2025

United States

Europe and the Netherlands

Eurostat measures instant messaging (WhatsApp, Messenger, Viber and similar apps together), not WhatsApp alone.

  • 97.7% of Dutch people aged 16-74 used instant messaging in 2025, against an EU average of 82.3% (Eurostat, 2025)
  • In the Netherlands, WhatsApp is the largest platform with 13.7 million users aged 15+ (first half of 2025) (Newcom via NOS, 2025)
  • Meta's family-wide daily users dipped slightly in Q1 2026, which Meta attributed to internet disruptions in Iran and a restriction on access to WhatsApp in Russia (Meta Q1 2026 results, 2026)

Instant messaging use by country (share of people aged 16-74, 2025)

Netherlands 97.7%
Spain 94.8%
Italy 84.3%
Germany 82.8%
EU average 82.3%
France 75.4%

Source: Eurostat, 2025

Local retailers that add WhatsApp to the mix usually see the biggest lift when combined with strong Google Business Profile optimisation: same-intent customers, two touchpoints.

Summary

Key takeaways

1

3 billion+ users

More than 3 billion people in over 180 countries use WhatsApp. In the US it is still a second app: 33% of adults use it.

2

No proven 98% open rate

There is no independent benchmark for WhatsApp open rates. Judge the channel on replies and conversions in your own account.

3

Customers want to message

In Kantar's 2025 study for Meta, 73.3% of consumers prefer messaging a business and 69% see waiting on hold as a waste of time.

4

Expensive in the Netherlands

A marketing message to a Dutch number costs $0.1597 (€0.1323) from 1 October 2026, the highest rate on Meta's rate card.

5

AI agents are mainstream

More than 1 million businesses use a Meta Business Agent, and Meta AI has more than 1 billion monthly users across Meta's apps.

6

Business messaging is a revenue engine

Paid messaging passed a $2 billion run-rate in Q4 2025 and click-to-WhatsApp ad revenue grew 60% in Q3 2025.

Methodology & sources

Every figure on this page links to the source we opened when checking it (update of 6 November 2026). Figures we could not trace to a primary source have been removed. Key sources:

  • Meta: quarterly results and earnings calls (Q1 2025 to Q3 2026), Meta Newsroom, WhatsApp Business Platform pricing and rate cards
  • WhatsApp: About page and blog; State of Business Messaging (Kantar, commissioned by Meta)
  • DataReportal: Digital 2026 Global Overview Report (GWI and Similarweb data)
  • Pew Research Center: Social Media Fact Sheet (2026)
  • Eurostat: ICT usage in households and by individuals (instant messaging, 2025)
  • Newcom Research & Consultancy: National Social Media Survey (via NOS, 2025)
  • Mailchimp and Klaviyo: email and SMS benchmarks
  • TechCrunch and Business Today: reporting on Meta announcements and India's UPI data

Disclaimer: Figures come from the most recent editions we could open. Survey results commissioned by Meta (Kantar) are labelled as such. Results and costs vary by industry, audience and campaign quality. For specific advice on your situation, contact our team.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How many people use WhatsApp worldwide in 2026?

More than 3 billion people in over 180 countries use WhatsApp; Meta reported passing 3 billion monthly actives in Q1 2025. In GWI's survey, 54% of internet users aged 16+ used WhatsApp in the past month, and 17.4% of social media users name it as their favourite platform. The typical Android user opens WhatsApp more than 20 times a day and spends 59 minutes a day in the app.

What is the open rate of WhatsApp Business messages?

There is no independent, public benchmark. The often-quoted 98% open rate has no traceable primary source, so we don't cite it. For comparison: email at Mailchimp averages a 35.63% open rate and a 2.62% click rate, and abandoned-cart texts at Klaviyo average a 10.3% click rate. What Meta does publish: the Updates tab (Status and Channels) is used by 1.5 billion people a day.

How many businesses use WhatsApp Business?

The WhatsApp Business app passed 200 million monthly users in June 2023, up from 50 million in 2020; Meta has not published a newer count. In June 2026 Meta said more than 1 million businesses use a Meta Business Agent on WhatsApp and Messenger, and that there are more than 1 billion active threads between people and businesses every day across WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram.

How much does WhatsApp Business API cost?

The WhatsApp Business app is free. On the WhatsApp Business Platform, Meta has charged per delivered message since 1 July 2025, with rates by category and country. From 1 October 2026 a marketing message to a Dutch number costs $0.1597 (€0.1323), the highest rate on Meta's rate card, and a utility, authentication or service message $0.05 (€0.0414). In North America a marketing message costs $0.025 and the other categories $0.0034. Each business number gets 1,000 free service messages per month, and after a click-to-WhatsApp ad a free window of up to 7 days applies.

Is WhatsApp effective for customer service?

Customers want it. In a 2025 Kantar study commissioned by Meta (11,056 adults in 22 markets, not including the Netherlands), 73.3% of consumers prefer messaging when contacting a business, 69% say waiting on hold is a waste of time, 66.8% feel frustrated when messaging isn't offered and 67.7% find a reply from an AI chatbot helpful. More than 1 million businesses already use a Meta Business Agent to answer customers around the clock.

What is WhatsApp Commerce and how big is it?

WhatsApp Commerce lets businesses showcase products, take orders and handle payments inside WhatsApp. Meta does not publish a total transaction value, so we no longer cite one. Indicators: in India, WhatsApp Pay processed 167.89 million UPI transactions in July 2026, up from 74.6 million a year earlier; paid messaging on WhatsApp crossed a $2 billion annual run-rate in Q4 2025; and 72.4% of consumers say they are more likely to buy from a brand that offers messaging (Kantar for Meta, 2025).

Further reading

Related articles

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AI marketing statistics 2026

All the latest statistics on AI in marketing.

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Ruud ten Have

Compiled by

Ruud ten Have

Ruud is a digital marketer with 10+ years of experience in online advertising and AI implementation. At Searchlab, he combines strategic thinking with hands-on AI tooling to deliver measurable results for businesses.

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