Intro

Businesses are charged per conversation, which includes all messages delivered in a 24-hour session. The first 1,000 conversations each month are free. They are opened and charged when messages you send to customers are delivered. The criteria that determine when a conversation is opened and how it is categorized are explained below.

📚 Conversation Categories

Conversations are categorized into one of the following categories:

Marketing

• Enables you to achieve a wide range of goals, from generating awareness to driving sales and retargeting customers. Examples include new product, service, or feature announcements, targeted promotions/offers, and cart abandonment reminders.

Utility

• Enables you to follow up on user actions or requests. Examples include opt-in confirmation, order/delivery management (e.g., delivery update); account updates or alerts (e.g., payment reminder); or feedback surveys.

Authentication

• This enables 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

• Enables you to resolve customer inquiries. Marketing, utility, and authentication conversations can only be opened with template messages. Service conversations can only be opened with free-form messages.

Opening Conversations

Conversations are opened when you send a template message or free-form message under the following conditions.

Marketing, Utility, and Authentication Conversations

Marketing, utility, and authentication conversations are opened when you send an approved marketing, utility, or authentication template message to a customer and no open conversation with that category exists between you and that customer.

For example, if an open authentication conversation exists between you and a customer and you send them another authentication template message within 24 hours, a new conversation is not opened. If you send them a marketing message, however, a new marketing conversation is opened, resulting in two open conversations.

Service Conversations

Service conversations are opened when you are within a customer service window, you send a free-form message to a customer, and no open conversation of any category exists between you and the customer.

For example, if an open conversation of any category exists between you and a customer and you send them a free-form message within 24 hours, no new conversation is opened. However, if no open conversation exists and the customer messages you (which starts a customer service window) and you reply within 24 hours with a free-form message, a new service conversation is opened.

Customer Service Windows

When a customer messages you, a 24-hour timer called a customer service window starts. If you are within the window, you can send free-form messages or template messages. If you are outside the window, you can only send template messages.

Multiple Conversations

It is possible to have multiple open conversations between you and a customer. This can happen in the following situations:

An open marketing, utility, or authentication conversation exists between you and a customer and you send them a template message of a different category within 24 hours.

An open service conversation exists between you and a customer and you send them a template message within 24 hours.

Free Tier Conversations

Each WhatsApp Business Account gets 1,000 free service conversations each month across all of its business phone numbers. This number is refreshed at the beginning of each month, based on the WhatsApp Business Account time zone.

Marketing, utility, and authentication conversations are not part of the free tier.

Conversation Examples

Only one conversation opened with a customer:

• No open conversation exists between you and a customer and you send multiple utility template messages to the customer within 24 hours.
• An open conversation of any category exists between you and a customer and you send multiple free-form messages to the customer within 24 hours.

Multiple conversations opened with a customer:

• An open marketing conversation exists between you and a customer and you send them a utility template message within 24 hours. This results in a marketing conversation and a utility conversation.
• An open service conversation exists between you and a customer and you send them a utility template message within 24 hours. This results in a service conversation and a utility conversation.

👁️ How to View conversations billing insights for your WhatsApp Business account

You can run real-time monitoring of messaging and spending analytics for your WhatsApp business account in the Insights tab of Meta WhatsApp Manager. You can view the metrics of all conversations. The real-time graphs allow you to look into how each metric is performing over time.

<aside> ❗ Note: All insights data is approximate and may differ from what's on your invoice due to variations in data processing.

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Step-by-step checking payment amounts in the Meta Business Suite of WABA (WhatsApp Business API):

Access Meta Business Suite

• Log in to your Meta Business Suite account using your credentials. You can access the login page via this link

Navigate to the Payment Section

• Once logged in, locate the section or tab related to payments. This could typically be found under a section titled "Billing" or "Payments."

Select WABA Usage

• Within the payment section, there should be an option to view usage or charges associated specifically with your WABA usage. Click on this option to proceed.

Review Payment Details:

• You should now be presented with a summary or detailed breakdown of your WABA usage and associated charges. This may include metrics such as the number of messages sent, received, media usage, etc.

Check Payment Amount

• Look for the payment amount or charges incurred for the specified period. This could be displayed as a total amount or broken down into individual charges based on usage metrics.

Review Additional Information

• Depending on the platform, you may have the option to view additional details such as billing cycle, payment methods, past invoices, or any applicable taxes or fees.

Verify Accuracy

• Double-check the payment amount to ensure it aligns with your expectations and usage. If there are any discrepancies or questions, you may need to reach out to customer support for clarification.

Take Action

• If everything looks accurate, you can proceed with making the payment through the provided methods. Alternatively, if there are issues or changes needed, follow the appropriate steps outlined by the platform.

Keep Records

• It's good practice to keep records of your payment transactions, invoices, or any communication related to billing for future reference or auditing purposes.

Regular Checks

• Make it a habit to periodically review your WABA usage and associated payments to stay informed and manage your budget effectively. This can help identify any unusual spikes in usage or potential optimizations to reduce costs.

💲 WhatsApp Official Business API - Rates

Rates vary based on conversation category and country/region rate. You can download the rate card below that corresponds to your WhatsApp Business Account's currency to see our rates by country/region for each conversation category.

These rates apply for any conversation opened on or after June 1, 2023, at 12:00 AM, based on the WhatsApp Business Account time zone.

Rate Cards

• Cost per conversation in USD, effective June 1, 2023

<aside> ❗ **Note: Authentication-International rate applies for Indonesia as of June 1, 2024 and India as of July 1, 2024. Refer to our developer documentation for more details on this rate.

Note: Authentication templates will be available in India as of July 1, 2024.

Note: Charge will be based on the message recipient’s country**

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Country Calling Codes

Charges for conversations are based on the country of the user’s phone number. We rely on your customer's country calling code and network prefix (area code) to determine their country. The table below shows how we map country codes to countries or regions. If a country is not listed below, it maps to Other.