Message category (Marketing, Utility, Authentication, Service)

Category is the field that decides what a WhatsApp message costs. Marketing covers promotion, offers and re-engagement and is the most expensive. Utility covers messages tied to an existing transaction — order confirmations, shipping updates, payment reminders. Authentication covers one-time passcodes. Service covers free-form replies inside the customer service window; it carries no template charge, and from 1 October 2026 Meta charges for it per message at the utility rate.

Two practical consequences follow. First, cost control on WhatsApp is mostly category discipline: an order update written as Utility rather than Marketing costs a fraction as much at Indian rates, and the difference compounds across a large contact list. Second, Meta reviews the category a template is submitted under, and a promotional message submitted as Utility is a common rejection reason — the cheaper category has to be genuinely earned.