Why are messaging services free, and is it better to pay?
Every messaging service has costs. Who covers them shapes who the service answers to.
Short answer
Running a messaging service costs money: servers, storage, staff and security work. When you don't pay, someone else does: advertisers, a parent company that earns from data about its users, donors or investors, or the sales of another product. None of these is automatically bad, and many free services protect message content well. Paying changes one thing: the service's income comes from the people using it, so keeping them satisfied is the business.
Island.chat works this way: no app to install, no push notifications, no phone number required to register.
Start a private conversationHow free messaging is paid for
- Advertising. The service belongs to a company that earns mainly from ads. Message content can be end-to-end encrypted, but the company can still see other information about your account and how you use the service, and its privacy policy decides how that is used.
- Part of a bigger product. The messenger comes with a phone or operating system and is paid for by those sales.
- Donations and grants. A nonprofit runs the service on money from individual donors and foundations. This can work very well for privacy; it depends on donations continuing.
- Investors, revenue later. The service is free while it grows, funded by investors, and plans to earn money from paid extras later.
How well-known messengers are paid for
- WhatsApp belongs to Meta, which earns mainly from advertising. Messages are end-to-end encrypted and the account is tied to your phone number. WhatsApp shows ads in its Updates tab, outside your chats, and earns from businesses that message their customers.
- Facebook Messenger is also Meta's. Personal chats are end-to-end encrypted by default.
- iMessage is Apple's, paid for by the sale of Apple devices and services. Messages are end-to-end encrypted; copies backed up to iCloud are end-to-end encrypted only if you turn on Advanced Data Protection.
- Google Messages is Google's, which earns mainly from advertising. RCS chats are end-to-end encrypted when both phones and carriers support it; plain SMS is not.
- Signal is run by the nonprofit Signal Foundation, funded by donations. Messages are end-to-end encrypted by default and it keeps very little data. Registering needs a phone number; an optional username lets you avoid sharing it.
- Telegram earns from Telegram Premium subscriptions and ads in public channels. Ordinary chats are not end-to-end encrypted; only “Secret Chats”, between two people, are.
- SimpleX Chat has no user identifiers at all: no phone number, username or account number. Messages pass through relay servers that see only encrypted data, and you can run your own. It is free and funded by investors and user donations, and plans to earn from paid extras.
- Threema is a Swiss app you buy once. It needs no phone number or email.
Who each model answers to
| Model | Who pays | What the service needs |
|---|---|---|
| Advertising | Advertisers | Your attention, and information to target ads |
| Part of a bigger product | Buyers of that product | That you keep using the product |
| Donations | Donors and foundations | That donors keep giving |
| Investors | Investors, for now | Growth, then a way to earn |
| Paid | The people using it | That you find it worth paying for |
What paying does not change
Paying does not make a service secure by itself. Encryption, the code and how the company works do that, so check them whatever the price. Paying also leaves a record of some kind, and how much it says about you depends on how you pay.
How Island.chat is paid for
- $20 for 30 days after a free trial. Only one person in a conversation pays; both can message.
- No advertising, no analytics or tracking scripts, and no data sold or shared for marketing.
- No donors, and no investors whose interests come before yours.
- Messages are end-to-end encrypted on your device; the server stores only encrypted copies.
What each way of paying reveals
There is more than one way to pay, and each leaves a different record. Whichever you use, we keep only the payment provider's reference with your account, and we never send the provider your handle.
| How you pay | Who can tell who paid | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Credit or debit card | Stripe, which processes the payment, and your bank | The charge appears on your card statement under your name. |
| Prepaid card | Stripe, and the card issuer if the card is registered to you | Some prepaid cards are sold for cash without ID, usually with low limits, and work much like cash. Others are registered in your name. Some prepaid cards are declined for online payments. |
| Crypto | NOWPayments, which processes the payment; the transfer itself is public on the blockchain | If you bought the coins on an exchange that checked your identity, the payment can be traced back to you. Coins from other sources, and some currencies, are harder to trace. |
| Not paying | Nobody | Only one person in a conversation pays. The other leaves no payment record at all. |
See Pricing for the price and how renewal works.
Which should you choose?
For everyday chat with many people, a well-known free messenger with end-to-end encryption is a reasonable choice. A paid service makes sense when one conversation matters more than convenience, and you want a service whose only customers are the people in it.
About Island.chat
Island.chat is private, invite-only one-to-one messaging in your browser. There is no app to install and no phone number required to register, and messages are end-to-end encrypted on your device before they are uploaded. $20 for 30 days after a free trial. One person pays, both message. Card, prepaid card, or crypto.