How WhatsApp Business API pricing works
Meta charges for each message a business delivers to a customer on the WhatsApp Business Platform. The price depends on two things: the category of the message and the country of the customer's phone number. Messages customers send to you are never charged.
Meta publishes one rate card with 47 markets: 39 named countries and 8 regions such as "Rest of Western Europe". The United States and Canada share the North America rate.
The four message categories
Every message you send falls into one category, and each has its own price:
- Marketing: templates that promote, such as offers, new products or a reminder about a cart. Usually the most expensive.
- Utility: templates about something the customer already did, such as an order confirmation or a delivery update.
- Authentication: one-time passcodes for login or checkout.
- Service: normal replies inside the 24-hour window that opens when the customer writes to you. From 1 October 2026 each business phone number gets 1,000 of these free every month.
What is free
Two things cost nothing: the first 1,000 service messages each month for each business phone number, and every message in a chat that started from a click-to-WhatsApp ad while Meta's free entry point window is open. Unused free service messages do not roll over to the next month.
How to keep the bill low
A few habits make the biggest difference:
- Answer quickly, so most conversations stay inside the 24-hour window and use service messages.
- Keep utility templates to real order updates, such as confirmations and delivery news, without offers mixed in.
- Send marketing templates to customers who asked to hear from you, and measure what each campaign brings in.
- Use click-to-WhatsApp ads when you advertise, so the first conversation is free.
Answer WhatsApp, Instagram and TikTok in one place
Karobar brings your WhatsApp Business number into one inbox with Instagram, Messenger and TikTok, shows the time left in each 24-hour window and turns chats into orders. See Karobar for WhatsApp.