If you’ve ever paid for WinRAR, then you’ll love WhatsApp’s new ‘Plus’ subscription, now officially live in South Africa. Before you get yourself in a tizz — no, the Meta-owned messenger isn’t charging you for messages. Yet, anyway. This is a completely optional subscription that’ll slightly (emphasis on slightly) enhance the app. For a monthly fee, of course.
Meta’s new subscription may not sound like that bad of a deal at R29/m, but considering what you’re getting… well, let’s just say it could be more substantial. We expect that to change eventually, once WhatsApp makes good on its promise to inject ads into your ‘free’ messenger.
Not a big Plus
Stuff got hold of WhatsApp Plus on an Android device this morning, claiming a month-long free trial. If the service hasn’t turned up on your device yet (visit Settings > Subscriptions), make sure your app is up to date before trying again. The feature has experienced a gradual rollout since it launched internationally weeks ago.
Claiming the free trial will put you on the hook for R29/m thereafter, using your device’s native app store to facilitate the purchase. It can be cancelled at any time from the Subscriptions page inside WhatsApp directly. Sign up, and you’ll immediately be given access to several ‘new’ features — such as custom ringtones and icons.
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No, really. Those are some of the features WhatsApp feel worthy of raiding your bank account every month for. It’s joined by the likes of ‘exclusive’ sticker packs — of which there are currently only 25 stickers in total at the time of writing. It’s a similar story for the exclusive themes, ringtones, and app icons. While these might appeal to some users, there aren’t nearly enough of them to justify the monthly cost. What’s worse is just how basic everything looks.
The subscription also adds the ability to pin more than three chats at a time, capping out at twenty for paying members. Again, Stuff couldn’t find much of a use case here, but a more organised brain might get more mileage than we did. Finally, there are the upgraded chat lists, which allow users to better customise their personal lists with special alerts, ringtones, and special themes. Woohoo, we guess?
