Customer service window

Every inbound customer message opens a 24-hour window. Inside it, a business can reply with anything — plain text, images, documents, buttons — with no template submitted in advance.

Until 1 October 2026 those replies are also free, which is the mechanic that has made support economics on WhatsApp work. From that date Meta charges for them per message, at the same rate as a utility message, and utility templates sent inside an open window stop being free too. Support conversations that cost nothing today will carry a real per-message cost.

The window still matters after the change, because letting it lapse is more expensive again: re-opening a closed conversation needs a paid template, and marketing templates cost roughly seven times a service reply at Indian rates. Routing rules and away-hours automations exist largely to keep conversations inside it — and from October, so does watching cost per conversation rather than cost per campaign.