WhatsApp now charges for replies (1 October 2026)
In short
Since 1 October 2026 Meta charges for two things that used to be free. Service messages — a business replying to a customer inside the 24-hour window — are charged at the same rate as utility messages for that market, after a free allowance of 1,000 service messages per business phone number per month, which resets monthly and does not roll over. Utility templates sent inside an open customer service window are charged too; they were free from 1 July 2025. This is a Meta platform change and applies to every provider equally.
Checked
If your WhatsApp is mostly customers writing in and your team writing back, your Meta bill was probably zero until September. From October it may not be.
This is Meta’s change, not any provider’s. It applies to everybody on the WhatsApp Business Platform on the same date, at the same rates.
What changed
Service messages are chargeable. A service message is your reply to a customer inside the open 24-hour window — text, an image, a PDF, anything that is not a template. These were free for every business from 1 November 2024.
Since 1 October 2026 they are charged at the utility rate for that market, after 1,000 free service messages per business phone number each month. Charging begins at the 1,001st, the allowance resets monthly, and unused messages do not carry over.
Utility templates inside the window are chargeable. From 1 July 2025 a utility template sent while the window was open was free — the order confirmation you send right after somebody asks about their order. Since October it is charged like any other utility message.
What did not change
- Inbound messages are still free. Customers writing to you has never cost anything.
- The 24-hour window works the same way. What you may send and when is unchanged; only what it costs. How the window works.
- The free entry point window is unaffected. Reach somebody through a Click-to-WhatsApp ad, reply within 24 hours, and everything stays free for 72 hours.
- Marketing and authentication rates are not part of this change.
Whether it will actually cost you anything
Count roughly how many messages your team sends per month, per WhatsApp number — not what you receive, and not broadcasts, which are templates and were always charged.
Under a thousand a month per number, you will not notice anything; that is about thirty a day, every day. Over a thousand, multiply the excess by your market’s utility rate. In India that is a fraction of a rupee, so even a busy support desk is looking at a modest number rather than a shock. The businesses that should model this properly are the ones running high-volume support on WhatsApp, where every ticket is a dozen replies.
What to do about it
Do the arithmetic now, before the first invoice surprises you. Your provider should be able to tell you how many service messages you sent last month. If they cannot, that is its own answer about the provider.
Do not start rationing replies. Answering customers slower to save a fraction of a rupee is the wrong trade in every business.
Watch out for a second markup. The rate Meta charges is Meta’s. If your provider bills you on its own rate card rather than Meta billing you directly, this change arrives through them, and you cannot check that what they added on 1 October is what Meta added. Why that distinction matters.
Where to check this yourself
Meta publishes the change, the free allowance and the rate cards in its own pricing documentation, and revises rates only on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October with a month’s notice. This page was last read against that documentation on 6 September 2026. If you are reading it much later, check the source — that is what it is there for.
