Changes to the WABA payment model 01.07.2025

Version 1 01.07.2025

Starting July 1, 2025, Meta* is changing the payment model for WhatsApp Business API and moving away from charging for dialogues. Instead, each delivered template will be charged.

Payment logic until July 1, 2025

The dialogue payment system was in effect from the end of 2022 until July 1, 2025. The terms “dialogue” and “dialogue window” were used. Dialogues were subject to billing, while individual templates were not.

If there has been no communication with the customer in the previous 24 hours, the first template delivered to them will open a dialog box that will be charged. All templates in the same category as the first (dialog-initiating) template sent to the customer's number will not be charged until the dialog box is closed.

The cost of the dialogue was determined by the category of the template that initiated the dialogue: “Marketing,” “Utility,” and “Authentication.”

Each template that differs from the first category (the one that started the dialogue) opens its own dialogue. If the client is sent three templates from different categories in a row, then there will be three dialogues in the billing.

Example: The customer wrote first (a dialogue of the “Service” category is created), the business sends him two templates in a row of the Marketing category and one template of the “Services” category. In this situation, there will be 3 dialogues:

1. Dialogue in the “Service” category initiated by the client is not charged, as incoming dialogues are free of charge.

2. Marketing category dialogue - only the dialogue is paid for; the second template in the “Marketing” category has already been sent to the existing “Marketing” category dialogue and is considered free of charge.

3. The “Utility” category dialogue is also a paid dialogue, opened by the “Utility” category template.

In this situation, the business will pay for two dialogues (Marketing and Utility).

The logic here is as follows: “The category of the dialogue and its cost are determined according to the first template delivered outside the 24-hour dialogue window. Payment is charged for each outgoing dialogue. Templates sent in an open dialogue of the same category as the template that started the dialogue are not charged.”

This payment model ceased to be valid on July 1, 2025.

New payment model for each template delivered. Effective from July 1, 2025.

The payment model for dialogues will be completely discontinued. From July 1, 2025, each template delivered to the customer will be charged.

The template categories remain unchanged: “Marketing,” “Utility,” and “Authentication,” with each category having its own price.

Payment for templates in the Marketing and Authentication categories is recorded each time a template in that category is delivered to the customer, regardless of whether the customer responds or not.

Example: A business sends a customer one template from the “Marketing” category, then 15 minutes later sends a second template from the ‘Marketing’ category, followed by a template from the “Authentication” category. All templates that were delivered to the customer (those with two check marks) will be included in the payment—three templates in total.

Templates in the “Utility” category work slightly differently—sending such a template will be free if less than 24 hours have passed since the customer's last message. In other words, a service template is not charged if it is sent in response to a customer's message. If more than 24 hours have passed since the customer's last message, the “Utility” category template will also be charged.

Example: A business sends a customer with whom it has not communicated in the last 24 hours 1 template from the “Marketing” category and 2 templates from the “Utility” category. In this case, 3 templates will be charged (1 “Marketing“ and 2 “Utility” templates).

If, after receiving the first “Marketing” template, the client wrote something in response or clicked on the quick reply button, then in this case, if “Utility” were sent after the client's response, 1 template will be charged ("Utility" will not be charged as they were sent in response to the client's message).

If templates in the “Utility” category are sent after the 24-hour window has closed, for example, a customer wrote at 6:00 p.m. on July 16, and the business sent a reply at 7:00 p.m. on July 17, these two templates will also be charged, as the dialogue window has already closed (at 6:00 p.m. on July 17).

The dialog box timeout is automatically extended after each client response and is counted after the last response.

All incoming messages are completely free and are not subject to billing.