WhatsApp Business API pricing calculator

There is no fixed price. You pay per template message, and the rate depends on the category of the message and the country of the number you send it to. Marketing is the most expensive, authentication and utility cost less, and service replies are free. Use the calculator above with your own volumes to get a number.

Per message, since 1 July 2025. Under the old model everything you sent inside a 24 hour window was one charge. Now every template message is charged on its own, with one important exception: utility templates delivered inside an open customer service window are free. High-frequency utility flows cost more than they used to, unless they go out in reply to the customer.

Several things are free. When a customer messages you first, a 24 hour window opens: everything you type back costs nothing, and so does any utility template. If the chat began with a click-to-WhatsApp ad or a Facebook Page button and you reply within 24 hours, a 72 hour window opens in which every template is free, marketing included. Messages that fail to deliver are never billed.

Marketing for promotions and re-engagement, utility for order and payment updates tied to a transaction, authentication for one-time passcodes, and service for your replies inside a customer-initiated window. Meta assigns the category when it approves your template, so you cannot pick a cheaper one for the same content. The category also decides which free windows apply: utility is free inside a service window, marketing is not.

Yes. Since November 2024 service conversations carry no charge in any country and there is no monthly cap. The 24 hour window opens when the customer sends you a message and every reply inside it is free.

No. The business pays. Your customer only uses their own data or wifi, exactly as they would messaging anyone else on WhatsApp.

Meta publishes a separate rate per market and the spread is wide. The rate is decided by the country code of the number you are messaging, not by where your business is registered, so an Indian business messaging UK customers pays the UK rate.

Send utility templates in reply to the customer rather than out of the blue, because inside an open 24 hour service window they cost nothing. Move whatever you can out of marketing: an order update as a utility template is a fraction of the same message as marketing. Run click-to-WhatsApp ads, which open a 72 hour window where everything is free. Watch your monthly volume, since utility and authentication rates drop as it rises. And stop sending marketing to numbers that have not opened a message in months.