Firm tackles rising WhatsApp costs for businesses

Nigerian technology firm 3650HQ is addressing the rising costs of managing customer conversations on WhatsApp for businesses. Meta recently altered its WhatsApp Business Platform pricing, introducing charges for service messages beyond a monthly allowance of 1,000 and utility messages sent within a 24-hour customer-service window.

These changes impact businesses using the platform, with costs depending on message volume, category, and recipient market. For Nigerian businesses heavily relying on WhatsApp, the development underscores the need for more efficient customer communication management.

3650HQ aims to tackle this challenge through a conversational-commerce platform that consolidates customer communication and sales processes into one workspace. This platform allows businesses to manage conversations from various channels through a shared inbox, while also offering tools for invoicing, payment collection, and delivery.

Utilizing artificial intelligence, the platform identifies conversations with strong buying intent and transcribes voice notes into text. It also enables the creation of dedicated virtual bank accounts for transactions, generating invoices within customer conversations, and streamlining delivery arrangements.

Co-founder Ibrahim Abdulazeez, a software engineer, highlighted the sales process's fragmentation and manual dependence as the primary issue. His company's solution aims to make interactions more purposeful, helping businesses collect information, identify serious buyers, minimize repetitive exchanges, and move customers from conversation to payment and fulfillment with fewer disconnected steps.

The startup's pricing model is based on prepaid credits, with new users receiving 50 free credits to be topped up according to usage.