WhatsApp Business pricing: what Meta charges and who pays

WhatsApp has two business products, and they're priced differently.

• The WhatsApp Business app is a phone app. Meta says it's available for free on Google Play and the Apple App Store.
• The WhatsApp Business Platform is what people usually call the WhatsApp Business API. Chatbots and software tools connect through it, and it's the product Meta charges for per message.

The rest of this post is about the platform. The facts about Meta's charges come from Meta's own pages, checked on 30 October 2026 and listed at the end.

Meta charges per delivered message, and only for messages from your business to a customer. In Meta's own example, five delivered messages mean five charges, even though they all happen within an hour. Each message has one category and gets at most one charge.

• Marketing: template messages for promotions, such as a cart reminder.
• Utility: template messages that are transactional or informational, such as an order confirmation.
• Authentication: template messages that verify someone's identity.
• Service: any non-template reply in an open customer service window, whether a person or a third-party AI tool wrote it.
• Meta Business Agent: non-template replies from Meta's own agent. These are charged by usage at $2.00 per million tokens, which Meta estimates at 4 to 5 US cents a message.

When a customer messages you, a 24-hour customer service window opens, and each new message from them resets it. While it's open you can send ordinary replies. Once it closes you can only send template messages. Either way, Meta says you can only message people who have opted in to hearing from you.

So a chatbot answering a question is normally sending service messages. A reminder to a customer who last wrote three days ago has to be a template, and it's charged at that template's rate.

Besides the messages customers send you, Meta lists two cases where a delivered message costs nothing.

• The first 1,000 service messages a month, per business phone number. Meta charges from the 1,001st. Unused messages don't roll over, and the count resets each month.
• Messages in a free entry point window, which can stay open for up to 7 days. It opens when someone messages you from an ad that clicks to WhatsApp, using the Android or iOS app, and you reply within the customer service window. Marketing, utility, authentication and service messages are all free while it's open. Meta Business Agent messages aren't.

The 1,000 free messages only cover service messages. Templates are charged from the first one, unless they fall inside a free entry point window.

To size the allowance, count every reply you send, from the bot or your team, not your chats. As an illustration, if a typical chat takes 8 replies, the 1,000 free service messages cover 125 chats a month on one number. Use your own numbers here.

You may see 72 hours quoted elsewhere for the free entry point window. This post follows Meta's developer pricing page, which carries the October 2026 update.

Meta started charging again for two kinds of message that had been free.

• Service messages, free since 1 November 2024, are now charged after the first 1,000 a month.
• Utility templates sent in an open customer service window, free since 1 July 2025, are now charged.

If your account has no payment method, Meta delivers service messages until the free 1,000 are used, then stops delivering them. Eligible government and non-profit organisations keep free service messages past the allowance until the end of 2027.

On the same day, Meta updated 40 rates and moved nine markets off regional pricing onto rates of their own. Earlier in 2026 it also changed rates on 1 January, 1 April and 1 July, and added Meta Business Agent as a fifth category.

Older articles may describe charges per conversation. Meta moved to per-message pricing on 1 July 2025.

Meta charges the account that sent the message. Its pricing page calls this a Messaging account, and each one has its own billing relationship, payment method and spend limits. Billing is handled in Meta Business Suite.

If you use a software provider, the route depends on how that provider works with Meta.

• Tech Providers: Meta tells them to have each customer add their own payment method, so the charges go to your business.
• Solution Partners: customers they onboard through Embedded Signup use the partner's credit line. Meta sends the partner one combined invoice, and you pay the partner.

Before you sign up with any provider, ask whose payment method Meta charges and whether anything is added to Meta's rates.

A rate depends on the message category and the customer's country calling code, so your customer's country sets the price, not yours. Meta's rate card, effective 1 October 2026, has 47 markets: 39 named countries and 8 regions, such as Rest of Latin America. It comes in 16 currencies, and you choose yours when the account is created.

Utility and authentication messages also have volume tiers, so those rates can drop as your monthly count grows. Service messages have no volume tiers. Meta may change pricing only on the first day of a quarter, and gives at least a month's notice of a rate change.

This post doesn't quote country rates because they change. Use Meta's rate card, linked at the end, and look again around 1 January 2027, the next date Meta can move them.

You pay Meerlume a flat monthly plan, and WhatsApp starts on the Starter plan. Meerlume adds no markup to Meta's charges. Meerlume is a Tech Provider, so Meta bills your own business account directly, and none of it passes through Meerlume.

Expect two kinds of charge from Meta: service messages past the free 1,000 a month, from the bot or your team, and booking reminders sent as utility templates to customers who haven't written in the last 24 hours. Add a payment method to your Meta account when you connect your number. Templates are charged from the first one, and without a payment method replies stop after the free 1,000.