Your Guide to WeChat Features and Functions

WeChat features go far beyond messaging. Tencent’s super app combines chats and calls, Moments, Channels videos, WeChat Pay, Mini Programs, Official Accounts and search, so people use it to talk, pay, shop and book services. With more than 1.4 billion monthly active users, it is also a key marketing channel for any company doing business in China.

Key takeaways

• WeChat, called Weixin in mainland China, is a messaging app, a social network, a wallet and a platform for services in a single app.
• Tencent reported 1,439 million monthly active users for Weixin and WeChat combined at the end of June 2026.
• Businesses start with an Official Account, then add a store or a Mini Program, WeChat Pay and Channels videos.
• Individual users rely on chats, Moments, translation, search and WeChat Pay services in their daily life.
• The updates listed near the end of this guide date from 2022: check the current app before you plan a campaign around a feature.

What Is WeChat and How Does It Work?

WeChat is a multipurpose messaging, social media and payment app released by Tencent more than a decade ago. In the Western world it is less common than WhatsApp. But if you live in China or do business in this market, you need WeChat.

You open an account by linking a mobile number. The WeChat Terms of Service make one distinction: an account linked to a mainland China number (+86) is a Weixin (微信) account, and an account linked to any other number is a WeChat account. The two work together, so their users can chat and see each other’s Moments. You then add contacts, often by scanning their WeChat QR code, and chat, call, pay or open services without leaving the app.

WeChat is the largest social network in China. Tencent counted 1,439 million monthly active users for Weixin and WeChat combined on June 30, 2026, according to its second quarter 2026 results. Since other popular social networks, like Facebook, are blocked in China, WeChat is a critical marketing channel for companies there.

What Is WeChat Used For?

Chinese users often call WeChat the “app for everything” or the “super app”, and the names fit. Besides messaging, people use WeChat every day to buy goods and services, transfer money, plan trips, contact customer support and follow brands.

After the launch of WeChat Pay in 2013 and the e-commerce features that followed, the most important additions were WeChat Mini Programs in 2017 and WeChat Channels in 2020. Many of these features were designed for individual users, but brands have the most to gain from them.

The features below show how to use WeChat to reach more customers in China, promote your products and services, and grow your business. They are the daily work of a WeChat agency in Shanghai like QPSoftware.

WeChat Features for Businesses

WeChat’s ecosystem and its place in everyday life make it essential for businesses in China. These are the WeChat features that help companies grow there.

WeChat Official Accounts

If you want to use WeChat to promote your business, you need a WeChat Official Account. It lets a company publish articles, talk to its customers and promote its brand on the platform. Accounts are opened on the WeChat Official Accounts Platform, which offers Service Accounts, for business services and customer management, and Subscription Accounts, for publishing content. The former Enterprise Account is now WeCom.

QPSoftware’s own Official Account publishes the agency’s case studies to its followers.

Opening an Official Account can seem daunting, but it is well worth the effort. Our guide to Subscription and Service Accounts explains how to choose between them and register. You can also contact us, and our team will assist you with the procedure.

Articles posted by Official Accounts come with features built for businesses.

Article paywalls

Content publishers can monetize their articles with WeChat paywalls. This feature, available to Official Accounts, makes it possible to run paid blogs, offer tiered content to readers and customers, and create value from original content.

The paywall blocks non-paying users from selected content of the Official Account, and payment goes through WeChat Pay. Apple users may still have to pay through the iOS payment service, while the full feature is available on Android.

Article hashtags

To reach a wider audience with your WeChat articles, you can add hashtags. Click the hashtag button while writing an article and create tags related to it, so readers can discover it under trending topics.

WeChat Stores

A WeChat store is the equivalent of an e-commerce website, built for the social network. It gives your customers a fast way to find your products and buy them without leaving WeChat.

A WeChat store has another advantage: you can use it for customer care. For instance, you can answer questions and send notifications and promotions to improve customer retention.

WeChat Mini Programs

A Mini Program is an app that runs inside WeChat, without a separate download. It differs from a WeChat store, which offers an e-commerce experience optimized for WeChat, and from a web app, as our comparison of WeChat web apps and Mini Programs explains.

Mini Programs launched in 2017, and users now open them for everything from food delivery to government services, as the screenshot above shows. Every company operating in the Chinese market should consider a Mini Program, and our article on the development trends of WeChat Mini Programs shows where the format is heading.

For example, QPSoftware designed and developed the Huttopia WeChat Mini Program, with a booking interface, WeChat Pay and WeChat Login connected to the brand’s systems in France.

WeChat Marketing: Ads and Promotions

WeChat offers many ways to market your products and build brand awareness.

Through WeChat, you can create targeted content for your audience and reach it with promotions, flash sales and giveaway campaigns. You can also partner with local influencers, run pay-per-click ads and more. Our guide explains how to promote your WeChat Official Account.

Scan to Identify Products

WeChat adds a new dimension to shopping. Its image recognition lets you scan a physical product, then matches it with products of the same or a similar appearance that you can buy online. The function works as an add-on to the existing Scan & Translate service.

WeChat Pay for Businesses

WeChat has an integrated payment gateway, WeChat Pay, run by Tenpay, Tencent’s payment platform.

Because it is built into the app, WeChat Pay has become, with Alipay, one of the two mobile wallets most people in China use. This is good news for companies: customers can pay directly from their phone in an Official Account, a Mini Program or a WeChat store.

WeChat CRM

A CRM (customer relationship management system) connected to WeChat keeps your company close to its customers. It collects information about your customers and tracks their behavior on the platform. You can also use it to offer instant support and to see when people talk about your brand or leave feedback.

All this information helps you organize your marketing strategy, meet your customers’ needs and plan effective WeChat advertising campaigns.

WeCom, Formerly WeChat Work

WeCom, formerly WeChat Work, is Tencent’s communication tool for companies. It supports private and group chats, voice calls and video conferences, along with task assignment, schedules and document sharing with Tencent Docs. It also connects to WeChat messages, Mini Programs and WeChat Pay, so employees can talk to customers from a verified company account. Our guide to WeCom registration and verification explains how a foreign company opens one.

WeChat Channels and Livestreams

In 2020, WeChat added more video to its ecosystem with the rollout of Channels and livestreams.

Channels is WeChat’s answer to short video platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou. Users and Official Accounts can open a Channels account and broadcast short videos to a wide audience. Before Channels, videos could only be shared in Moments, visible to friends, or embedded in Official Account articles. For businesses, Channels is a place for branded content and influencer marketing, and its audience keeps growing: Tencent reported that total time spent on Video Accounts, its name for Channels, grew more than 20% year on year in the second quarter of 2026 (Tencent results).

WeChat livestreams answer the boom of e-commerce livestream sales in China, seen on Taobao Live and Douyin. Businesses can sell live without leaving WeChat, and viewers can send gifts to the livestream account, which can later be redeemed as cash.

WeChat Features for Individual Users

Besides core features such as text and voice messages, voice and video calls, group calls and Moments, WeChat offers tools that simplify many daily tasks.

Translation, Transcription and Image to Text

WeChat has built several language features. Long press a message in a chat to translate it into the language set for your WeChat.

WeChat also turns images and speech into text. For image to text, use the Scan function to capture text from the physical world on your phone. For voice messages, a long press transcribes the message in the language it is spoken in. The transcription can be less accurate for languages other than Chinese, and for short messages language detection defaults to Chinese.

Location Services

Once you turn on location services, WeChat lets you share your location with friends in real time. The app also uses your location to show you geo-targeted ads, which makes this feature important for local marketing.

WeChat Search

WeChat Search is the function Tencent built to explore content within the app. It only searches the WeChat ecosystem, but you can use it to find Moments from your contacts, articles on specific topics or other Official Accounts.

WeChat Pay Services and Wallet

In the app, the menu once named WeChat Pay is now called Services. It groups everything connected to the user’s WeChat wallet, which links the app to a bank account or credit card. Our page on WeChat Pay details how it works.

Payments are made by scanning a QR code, with Quick Pay, or with native in-app or web-based payment. In 2022, WeChat Pay also let users link their wallet to their digital RMB (e-CNY) wallet.

WeChat Pay services also let users repay credit cards, take out loans, top up their mobile plan, pay utility bills and other public services, book train and flight tickets, hail taxis, book hotels, buy movie tickets and much more.

WeChat Updates Rolled Out in 2022

WeChat keeps adding features. The updates below were rolled out in 2022, and some may have changed since: check the current version of the app.

Pausing Voice Messages

Voice messages used to be impossible to pause: if you were interrupted, you had to listen again from the beginning. In January 2022, WeChat added a “continue playing” button when users long pressed a long voice message.

Listening to Text Messages

WeChat added an accessibility feature that reads text messages aloud when users tap them. It was available in Easy Mode, in the settings.

Group Management Features

Group chats are among the core WeChat features, for individual users and organizations alike. With the 2022 updates, group admins could share files, images, location tags and voice messages in the group notice. This built on earlier group chat functions such as group notes, the list tool “接龙”, group tools, coupons and livestreams.

Youth Mode

Parents could set daily spending and single payment limits on WeChat Pay for accounts in youth mode.

Second Account (小号)

WeChat was internally testing a second account registered to the same phone number.

4K Video and 99 Pictures at Once

WeChat added support for sending and posting 4K video, and raised the limit for sending pictures to 99 at once.

What Should You Do Next?

WeChat keeps evolving, with features designed for users and brands alike. If you live in China, you can hardly do without it. If you sell there, its marketing opportunities are hard to match.

Start with the features that fit your goal: an Official Account to publish and talk to customers, a Mini Program or a store to sell, WeChat Pay to collect payments, and Channels to reach new audiences. QPSoftware, a digital agency based in Shanghai, founded in 2009, with more than 200 projects delivered, has used WeChat extensively to support its clients in China. Our WeChat agency can help you open a WeChat Official Account as a foreign company, plan an effective campaign, or have your WeChat Mini Program developed. Contact us today and discover how to use WeChat to promote your business in China.

Frequently Asked Questions