Price Updates

In October 2024, we announced updates to WhatsApp Business platform pricing to simplify them and better align with industry practices, provide users with higher quality messaging experiences, and better match the value they offer to people and businesses.

  • From November 1, 2024: service conversations will be free for all businesses.
  • From February 1, 2025: international authentication rates will be extended to seven more markets in Asia-Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa.
  • From April 1, 2025: we are lowering the recently introduced rates in four of these seven markets as part of ongoing efforts to ensure our prices are competitive with alternative channels.
  • From July 1, 2025:
    • We will charge per message instead of per conversation to simplify our pricing and better align with industry standard pricing for messages.
    • Utility template messages sent in response to a user’s message (and therefore within an open customer service window) will become free to provide businesses with more flexibility when interacting with users.

On May 15, 2025, we announced additional updates that will also be implemented on July 1, 2025 as part of ongoing efforts to ensure our partners and businesses can get value from utility and authentication messages with simple and satisfactory pricing.

  • From July 1, 2025: we will update our utility and authentication rates in several markets as part of ongoing efforts to ensure our prices are competitive with alternative channels.
  • From July 1, 2025: we will introduce volume tiers for utility and authentication messages to incentivize and reward growth on our platform. Businesses can automatically achieve more competitive pricing as they reach higher volume tiers.
  • From July 1, 2025: we will improve our utility definition based on user interaction and perception and, therefore, adjust specific use cases regarding the utility category.
  • From July 1, 2025: cloud API marketing rates will apply to messages sent through the Lite marketing messages API.

Per-message pricing

Per-message pricing will apply to all businesses starting July 1, 2025 at 00:00 according to the WhatsApp Business account timezone. With per-message pricing, businesses on our platform will be charged the following:

  • For each delivered marketing template message
  • For each delivered authentication template message
  • For each delivered utility template message, if delivered outside a customer service window

For example, if you send a marketing template and then two utility templates to a WhatsApp user, you will be charged three separate fees (one marketing and two utility). If the two utility templates are sent within an open customer service window between the user and you, only one charge will apply (for the marketing template).

Free utility templates during customer service window

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

Volume tiers for utility and authentication messages

Starting July 1, 2025, we will introduce volume tiers for utility and authentication messages to incentivize the adoption of these use cases on WhatsApp. Businesses can achieve lower rates as they reach higher volume tiers.

How tiers work

  • Rates are tier-specific: when a business sends enough messages to reach the next tier, it unlocks the more attractive rate for that tier for messages at that tier.
  • Tiers are market and category specific: they vary by market (according to our rate card; i.e., for example, Brazil or Rest of Latin America) and category (utility or authentication).
  • Tiers reset monthly: at the beginning of the next month (at 00:00 in the WABA account timezone), the message count resets to 0 and tiers are applied based on messages from that month.
  • Messages are aggregated across all WhatsApp Business accounts belonging to a business portfolio: to determine tiers, we aggregate messages from all WhatsApp Business accounts in a business portfolio for each market and category pair (e.g., authentication messages in Brazil, utility messages in Brazil, authentication messages in India, etc.).

Starting July 1, 2025, our volume tiers will be reflected in the rate cards shown below.

Note that utility templates sent to WhatsApp users during an open customer service window are not charged and therefore are not counted toward volume tiers.

Template category policy updates

Starting July 1, 2025, we will update our utility definition to be more specific and clear. For a template to be categorized as utility, it must meet the following additional criteria:

  • It cannot be promotional or contain a promotional or persuasive intent.
  • It must (1) be specific to the user or have been requested by the user (must be clearly related to their order, account, services, or transactions) or (2) be essential or critical for the user (e.g., to ensure user protection).

This means that starting July 1, 2025, we will do the following

  • Categorize newly created templates according to our updated utility definition.
  • Update approved templates with their corresponding category (utility or marketing) based on our updated utility definition. As currently happens, businesses will receive email notifications and webhooks to confirm the template category update.

Additional documentation

For more detailed information about these pricing updates, you can consult the official Meta documentation: WhatsApp Business Pricing Updates (Meta)