What does the WhatsApp Business Platform cost?
Unlike the WhatsApp Business App, the WhatsApp Business Platform is not available free of charge due to its range of functions and focus on data protection and GRDP-Compliance. Furthermore, the pricing differs from the WhatsApp Business Platform due to the "conversational billing" of the WhatsApp Business Platform.
Understand the WhatsApp-costs in action, demo'ed through our WhatsApp-case-calculator, here:
Source: Chatarmin, Q1, 2024
Charges per conversation
WhatsApp charges a small amount of cents per conversation. A conversation reflects a 24-hour window upon chatstart by the business, or, upon a business answering a client message within 24 hours. Only if you exceed the monthly free quota of 1,000 service, or, user-initiated, conversations. Note: This free quota can only be used for service chats, i.e. conversations where a customer contacts your company first. You can find a detailed explanation of the free 1,000 monthly service conversations in META's official WhatsApp Business Platform pricing documentation.
🚨 ATTENTION: You will NOT be billed twice if you use the same 24 hour window!
Q: When I send a Marketing Template (Hour 0) and then send another Marketing Template (Hour 10), do we get billed twice? Or is it still that one marketing conversation from the beginning.
A: No, you won't be billed twice. If you send another marketing message within the 24-hour service window, it will have the same conversation ID, and if the conversation ID remains the same, you won't be charged again. Only after the 24-hour window has passed will you be charged for sending a new marketing template.
This leads to strategical implications for example abandoned checkout best-practice-flow, to exploit the free conversational window!
Source: Chatarmin, Q3 2024
BONUS Video: Understanding the META costs catalogue: Deep dive breakdown
Source: Chatarmin, Q3, 2023
Marketing, Utility, Authentification, Service conversations
To understand how META prices different conversation types we first have to understand which types of conversations are initiated by whom.
Servide conversations:
If your customers start the conversation, for example when a client of yours has a support request the conversation is marked as a service conversation. The first 1000 each month are free of charge.
Business-initiated conversations:
A company can only initiate a conversation via a template, never via a message. Depending on what template type you chose the initiated conversation will be billed differently, marketing being the most expensive, followed by authentication and utility.
Marketing — Marketing conversations include promotions or offers, informational updates, or invitations for customers to respond or take action.
Utility — Utility conversations facilitate a specific, agreed-upon request or transaction, or update a customer about an ongoing transaction. These may include transaction confirmations, transaction updates, and/or post-purchase notifications.
Authentication — Authentication conversations enable you to authenticate users with one-time passcodes, potentially at multiple steps in the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges).
Service — Service conversations help you resolve customer inquiries.
Country-specific pricing
Depending on the prefix of the client number you are communicating with the pricing will be more or less expensive. For example, a marketing conversation in Germany costs €0,1131, while in Austria a marketing conversation costs €0,049. You can calculate the rate according to the type of conversation and the country of the client's phone prefix here.
Marketing templates triggering new conversation
Since March 2024 META introduced an additional cost factor. Previously you could send unlimited template amounts within the 24-hour conversation window free of charge. Starting March 2024 every marketing template will trigger a new conversation window, refresh it, and be billed my META accordingly.
You can still send unlimited amounts of messages, utility templates, and authentication templates inside of an existing conversation window free of charge.