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Per-message pricing
Meta's current WhatsApp billing model for template messages, where each delivered template message is charged individually at a rate set by its category and the recipient's country.
One term from the WhatsApp Business Platform glossary. Last updated 2026-07-25.
Each template message you deliver carries its own charge, priced by the template's category and where the recipient's number is registered. Marketing templates cost more than utility templates, and rates vary substantially between countries.
Because cost now scales directly with volume sent rather than with conversation windows opened, a cost preview before launching a campaign is far more useful than it was under the old model — the difference between a 5,000-contact segment and a 50,000-contact one is a straight tenfold cost difference.
Related terms
- Conversation-based pricing
- Meta's earlier WhatsApp billing model, which charged for a 24-hour conversation window rather than per individual message. Meta has since moved to per-message pricing for template messages.
- Message category (Marketing, Utility, Authentication, Service)
- The four buckets Meta sorts WhatsApp conversations into. Marketing, Utility and Authentication are template messages and each carries its own rate; Service messages are free-form replies inside the 24-hour window, free until 1 October 2026 and charged per message after that.
- Utility template
- A WhatsApp template category for transactional updates tied to a specific order, account or appointment — confirmations, shipping updates, reminders. Rates are lower than marketing.
See Per-message pricing in a real workspace
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