Pricing Updates on the WhatsApp Business Platform

We are updating pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform to be simpler and more consistent with industry practices, encourage higher-quality messaging experiences for people, and better align with value delivered for people and businesses.

• Effective November 1, 2024 — We are making service conversations free.
• Effective February 1, 2025 — We will expand authentication-international rates to 7 additional markets across APAC and EMEA.
• Effective April 1, 2025 — We are making utility templates free within the 24-hour customer service window.
• Starting April 1, 2025 — We will charge per message for template messages instead of per conversation.

Per-Message Pricing

With per-message pricing, businesses on our platform will be charged:

• Per message for each marketing template
• Per message for each authentication template
• Per message for each utility template sent outside of a customer service window

For example, if you send a marketing template and then two utility templates to a WhatsApp user, that will incur 3 charges (1 marketing, 2 utility). If the 2 utility templates are sent while a customer service window is open between you and the user, however, it would only incur a single charge (1 marketing).

Phased Rollout

We are rolling out per-message pricing in two phases. Per-message pricing will apply to businesses in the Phase 1 group on April 1, 2025, and to all other businesses (Phase 2 group) on July 1, 2025. The email sent to you on October 10, 2024, indicates your group.

Utility templates sent inside of a customer service window will also be free starting April 1, 2025, to anyone in the Phase 2 group.

Per-Message Pricing Analytics

A new pricing_analytics analytics field will be released April 1, 2025, that allows you to get per-message pricing breakdowns for any messages you have sent.

Webhooks

Once per-message pricing applies to you, messages webhooks containing pricing information will have the following changes to reflect the new pricing model:

• conversation is no longer an event type so will not be included
• the pricing.pricing_model property value can be PMP, which indicates per-message pricing
• a new pricing.type property will be included with the following possible values:
  • regular — Indicates message is billable.
  • free_customer_service — Indicate the message is not billable because it was a utility template message, sent within a customer service window.
  • free_entry_point — Indicates the message is not billable, as it was sent within 24 hours of the user messaging you via a Click to WhatsApp Ad or Facebook Page Call-to-Action button.

Under the conversation-based pricing model, the pricing.category values indicated which conversation rate was applied. Under the new model, these values will not change, but can be used as follows:

• authentication — indicates an authentication template message.
• authentication-international – indicates an authentication template message sent to a WhatsApp user in a country or region that has authentication-international rates.
• marketing — indicates a marketing template message.
• utility — indicates a utility template message.
• service — indicates a non-template message.
• referral_conversion — indicates a WhatsApp user, using a device running Android or iOS, messaged you via a Click to WhatsApp Ad or Facebook Page Call-to-Action button and you responded with a message (of any type) within 24 hours.

The pricing.type value can be used in conjunction with the pricing.category value to determine if the webhook describes a message that was billable, and if so, which rate was applied. For example:

Note that the pricing.billable property will be deprecated in a future versioned release, so we recommend that after per-message pricing applies to you, you start using pricing.type to determine if a given webhook is associated with a billable message.

Structure of messages webhook with pricing information after per-message pricing applies to you:

{
  "object": "whatsapp_business_account",
  "entry": [
    {
      "id": "<WHATSAPP_BUSINESS_ACCOUNT_ID>",
      "changes": [
        {
          "value": {
            "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
            "metadata": {
              "display_phone_number": "<BUSINESS_DISPLAY_PHONE_NUMBER>",
              "phone_number_id": "<BUSINESS_PHONE_NUMBER_ID>"
            },
            "statuses": [
              {
                "id": "<WHATSAPP_MESSAGE_ID>",
                "status": "sent",
                "timestamp": "<WEBHOOK_SENT_TIMESTAMP>",
                "recipient_id": "<WHATSAPP_USER_ID>",
                "pricing": {
                  "billable": <IS_BILLABLE?>, // to be deprecated in future release
                  "type": "<PRICING_TYPE>",   // new property
                  "pricing_model": "PMP",     // new `PMP` value
                  "category": "<PRICING_CATEGORY>"
                }
              }
            ]
          },
          "field": "messages"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Free Entry Point Conversations

With the launch of per-message pricing, free entry point conversations will behave the same but reflect messages instead of conversations. If a WhatsApp user messages you via a free entry point surface, you can respond with any type of message for free within 24 hours; this opens a free entry point customer service window that lasts 72 hours. You can continue to message the user using any type of message while this window is open, at no charge.

Free Service Conversations

Starting November 1, 2024, service conversations are free for all businesses (free tier conversations are now unlimited instead of capped at 1,000). As a reminder, a customer service window must be open between you and a WhatsApp user before you can send the user a non-template message.

Example

• Hour 0: A WhatsApp user messages you outside of your business hours. This opens a customer service window, so you are now able to send any type of message to the user for 24 hours, not just template messages ("type":"template").
• Hour 0: Your conversational AI bot automatically responds with a text message ("type":"text"), informing the user that a customer service agent will respond by 9am the next day.
• Hour 12: A customer service agent responds to the user with a text message.

Conversation Analytics

All service conversations opened on or after November 1, 2024, will be identified as FREE_TIER. If you request conversation analytics filtering for service conversations (conversation_categories includes SERVICE) and use a lookback period that straddles this date:

• Data before this date can include conversation_types with a value of either FREE_TIER (conversations opened before the 1K free tier limit was reached) or REGULAR (conversations opened after the 1K free tier limit was reached). Note that conversations opened before this date but delivered after it are charged, and thus identified as REGULAR.
• Data after this date can include conversation_types with either value as well, but REGULAR will be zero (0), since all service conversations are now free and identified as FREE_TIER.

Note that after per-message pricing applies to everyone, the conversation_analytics field will be deprecated in a future versioned release. This should give you adequate time to fetch any historical conversation analytics you might need before the field is no longer usable.

Whatsapp Manager Insights

Starting November 1, 2024, the WhatsApp Manager > Account tools > Insights panel will have the following changes:

• The Free tier count in the Free conversations tile can exceed 1,000. This indicates the number of free service conversations you have opened.
• The Service count in the Paid conversations tile will no longer increment.

Free Utility Templates in the Customer Service Window

Starting April 1, 2025, utility templates sent within a customer service window are free for all businesses. Utility templates sent outside a customer service window will continue to be charged the utility rate.

Example

If a WhatsApp user sends you a message asking when the package they ordered will be delivered, you can respond within the customer service window with a text message or utility template message, and neither incurs a charge.

Expansion of Authentication-International Rates

We are expanding authentication-international rates to 7 new markets effective February 1, 2025:

• Egypt (+20)
• Malaysia (+60)
• Nigeria (+234)
• Pakistan (+92)
• Saudi Arabia (+966)
• South Africa (+27)
• United Arab Emirates (+971)

Updates to rates are available in the rate cards below.

Starting April 1, 2025 - If you are in the per-message pricing Phase 1 group, the eligibility threshold for authentication-international rates will be based on authentication messages sent instead of authentication conversations opened across all 9 markets that have authentication-international rates.

Rate Cards

Updated rate cards reflecting the changes described on this page are below. Note these reflect future updates to rates; our current rate cards are available here.

• Rates in USD
• Rates in INR
• Rates in IDR
• Rates in EUR
• Rates in GBP
• Rates in AUD

Complete Timeline

October 10, 2024

• Emails announcing our pricing update and details about the update are sent and specify if you are in the Phase 1 or Phase 2 group of the per-message pricing roll-out.

November 1, 2024

• Service conversations are now free for all businesses on our platform.
• Utility conversation rate is now lower for the "Rest of Africa" region. See Rate Cards above for this rate.

January 1, 2025

• We count the number of authentication conversations you open with WhatsApp users across India, Indonesia and the seven additional markets when determining your eligibility for authentication-international rates.

January 7, 2025

• A new version of On-Premises API is available. If you are an On-Premises API user, we recommend that you update to this version before July 1, 2025. If you do not upgrade to this version on or before July 1, 2025, any messages webhooks that include pricing information will have a pricing_model value of PMP instead of CBP, and conversation objects will have inaccurate data.

February 1, 2025

• Lower authentication rates and new authentication-international rates now apply in seven additional markets. See Rate Cards above for these rates.

April 1, 2025

• Per-messaging pricing now applies to businesses in the Phase 1 group.
• New webhooks payloads now apply to businesses in the Phase 1 group.
• New pricing_analytics analytics field now available to businesses in the Phase 1 group.
• Utility templates sent within a customer service window are now free of charge for everyone.
• Authentication-international eligibility is now counted using messages sent instead of conversations opened for business in the Phase 1 group.
• Authentication-international rates now apply per-message (instead of per-conversation) for any eligible businesses in the Phase 1 group.

July 1, 2025

• Per-messaging pricing now applies to businesses in the Phase 2 group. All businesses on the platform are now charged per message.
• New webhooks payloads now apply to businesses in the Phase 2 group.
• pricing_analytics analytics field now available to businesses in the Phase 2 group.
• Authentication-international eligibility is now counted using messages sent instead of conversations opened for all businesses on the platform. Authentication-international rates now apply per-message (instead of per-conversation) for all businesses on the platform.

Document changelog

• October 28, 2024 — Added country dialing codes to expanded authentication-international rate countries.