24/08/2026
BIG WAHALA STORY
"Beginning on October 1, 2026, businesses utilizing the WhatsApp Business Platform will be required to pay for a service that has previously been offered at no cost: responding to customer inquiries. Meta will discontinue the complimentary provision for service messages and will implement a charge for each delivered message. Consequently, a company that responds to 10,000 customers may face a WhatsApp bill where none existed before.
For businesses in Africa, these changes warrant careful consideration. A Nigerian business sending a chargeable utility-type message to a Nigerian number will incur a cost of approximately $0.0101 (around ₦14) per message; in Kenya, the cost is about $0.0044 (approximately KSh0.57); in South Africa, the rate stands at $0.0076 (approximately R0.12); and in Egypt, it is about $0.0054 (approximately E£0.28).
The Tinubu administration has collected $120 million from Meta in taxes, equating to approximately ₦600 billion from digital taxation. This development provides Nigerians with a glimpse into the realities of real-time charges. capitalism
Looks like they will come for regular users later...
