How does Gmail make money?

Gmail makes money through advertising, sharing, and selling user data to advertisers. Here is a closer look at the ways Gmail makes money:

• Advertising. One major stream of revenue for Gmail is its personalized advertisements. Gmail enables companies to advertise to Gmail users by hosting ads on the platform. These ads come in the form of display ads but are mostly inbox advertisements that Gmail users receive. In other words, email marketing.

• Selling user data to advertisers. Another prime income source for Gmail is its user data sales to advertisers.

  Gmail sells its users' data to advertisers so that the advertising companies can personalize the advertisements emailed to Gmail users. This means that Gmail scans user data for contexts, issues, and other things that it can direct to the proper advertisers.