How WhatsApp charges for messages
The per-message pricing model, which messages are free, and how Meta's charges relate to what a platform charges you.
On this page
Two separate bills arrive when a business uses WhatsApp through a platform, and confusing them is the usual source of a surprise:
- Meta charges for messages. This is per message, at a rate that depends on the message's category and the recipient's country.
- The platform charges for the software. Seats, features, AI usage — see plans and usage for how Juno does it.
This page is about the first one. The rates themselves are a country-by-country rate card that Meta publishes and revises, so the numbers are not repeated here — what is worth understanding is the shape, because that is what you design around and it does not change nearly as often.
What gets charged
Charging is per message, and the price comes from the message's category. Three of the four are templates; the fourth is an ordinary reply:
| Category | Charged | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing | Yes, highest rate | Offers, re-engagement, announcements |
| Utility | Yes, lower rate | Order updates, reminders, receipts |
| Authentication | Yes, own rate | One-time passcodes |
| Service | Free | Anything you send inside an open 24-hour window |
The fourth row is the important one, and it is the one that is changing. Today, replying to a customer is free: a support conversation costs nothing as long as it happens inside the 24-hour customer service window the customer opened, however long it runs.
This ends on 1 October 2026. Meta has announced that service messages — free-form replies inside the window — become billable per message from that date, at the same rate as utility templates in each country, and that utility templates sent inside an open window lose their free status with them. Country rates were due to be published on 1 September 2026. If you are reading this after those dates, treat everything below about "free" as historical and check Meta's rate card.
Two more things that are free
- Utility templates sent inside an open window. If a customer is already talking to you and you send them an order update, that is not billed — until 1 October 2026, when this exemption is removed with the one above.
- Conversations that begin from a click-to-WhatsApp ad or a Facebook page call-to-action are free for a period after the customer arrives. Meta pays for the entry point it sold you.
What this means in practice
Answer quickly and your Meta bill is small. Fast replies keep conversations inside the free window; slow replies push follow-ups outside it, where each one is a paid template.
Categorise honestly, and it costs less. Utility is cheaper than marketing — but a promotional message submitted as utility is rejected at review, and repeatedly doing it is a policy problem. Send fewer marketing messages instead.
Marketing is where the money goes. A broadcast to 5,000 people is 5,000 charged messages, before anyone replies. Budget campaigns by recipient count, not by "we have WhatsApp".
Rates differ enormously by country. The same campaign to two markets can differ several-fold. If you send internationally, price the list by destination.
Where the current numbers are
Meta publishes the rate card per country and updates it periodically, and it has changed structurally more than once — most recently moving from conversation-based to per-message pricing. Read Meta's own pricing documentation for today's figures rather than trusting a number in any third-party article, including this one.
What is safe to rely on is the shape, not the prices and not what is currently free: you are charged per message, the price depends on the category, marketing costs more than utility, and the entry-point exemption for click-to-WhatsApp ads is the one Meta has consistently kept. Everything about what is free has changed at least twice and is changing again.