Designing a revenue strategy for WhatsApp: weighing who pays and for what
Company: Meta
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager at Meta and are asked how WhatsApp should make money. Lay out the revenue options you see, recommend a strategy, and explain how you would judge whether it is working.
```hint Find the paying side first
Before listing revenue ideas, ask who could be the one paying and what each would be paying for, then test every idea against the reasons people chose WhatsApp in the first place.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Is the aim to maximize revenue soon, or to build a lasting revenue line while protecting user growth and engagement?
- Should the plan be the same everywhere, or can it differ by country, given that WhatsApp is the default messenger in some markets and a minor app in others?
- Are any commitments fixed, such as end-to-end encryption of personal chats or a free consumer app?
- Does revenue that WhatsApp generates for Meta on other surfaces, such as ads on Facebook or Instagram that open a WhatsApp chat, count toward the goal?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- An objective for monetization and the constraints it must respect, set before any ideas
- The possible paying sides mapped, with the value each would be paying for
- Revenue options compared on potential, effect on user experience and trust, and feasibility across markets
- A recommended strategy with sequencing, plus what is deliberately ruled out and why
- Success metrics with guardrails on engagement and trust, and the main risks with mitigations
### Follow-up Questions
- How would you test whether your top revenue idea hurts engagement before rolling it out globally?
- WhatsApp once charged some users a small annual fee and later dropped it. Why might a consumer fee fail, and what would have to be true for one to work?
- How would your plan differ in a country where much of everyday commerce already happens in chat?
Overview: A product strategy question asking how Meta should make money from WhatsApp. It tests whether a candidate can identify who might pay, compare revenue models against user trust and growth, recommend and sequence a strategy, and define success metrics with guardrails.