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Meta has announced a major update to WhatsApp Business Platform’s pricing model, which aims to simplify chat commerce operations for merchants and provide merchants with more flexible business solutions. Whether you’re using it WhatsApp Business API or consider integrating it into your business, this update to WhatsApp’s messaging pricing model may affect your business strategy.
Updates include the following:
- Simplified pricing model: WhatsApp Business Platform will adopt a pricing model based on the number of messages, which means that merchants only pay for the number of messages they send to their customers, and no other fees will be charged. This way, merchants can have more control over their operational costs.
- Provide more flexible business solutions: WhatsApp Business Platform will provide more business solutions, including customized message templates and more API integrations to meet the different business needs of merchants.
- Support more industries: WhatsApp Business Platform will support more industries, including finance, insurance, telecommunications, healthcare, and more. This means that more businesses can use WhatsApp Business Platform to engage with their customers.
Here are a few important changes coming to WhatsApp Business Platform:
- Starting November 1, 2024, service conversations will be completely free.
- From February 1, 2025, the implementation of International Authentication Rates will be extended to more regions.
- Starting April 1, 2025, transaction-related (utility) template information will be sent free of charge within 24 hours after the dialog window opens.
- From April 1, 2025, you will be charged on a per-template message basis, replacing the previous conversation-based model. (Applicable to Merchants Included in Phase 1)
- From July 1, 2025, the charging on a per-template message basis will enter the second phase, and chatalog users will pay for their messages according to the new pricing model from this date.
1. Free Service Conversations (from November 1, 2024).
As of November 1, 2024, WhatsApp’s service conversations will be fully free. Merchants can respond to unsolicited customer inquiries within 24 hours without additional fees. Previously, merchants were only entitled to 1,000 free service conversations per month, after which they were charged extra. With this update, there is no longer a restriction on merchants’ responses. Even during high inquiry periods such as holiday promotions or product launches, merchants don’t have to worry about additional fees. This gives merchants more flexibility to use GenAI chatbots to automatically respond to customer queries, improving service quality and saving costs.
2. International authentication rates will be extended to more regions (from February 1, 2025).
Meta has expanded the implementation of international verification fees to seven new regions, including Malaysia, Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
- New Market Fee Increases: Taking into account local cost-effectiveness and market conditions, international verification message fees will be increased in additional markets (e.g. Malaysia and Nigeria) to harmonize message fees.
- Fee reductions in existing markets: Meta is reducing fees for international verification information in existing markets in order to maintain a competitive edge and enable local merchants to provide user authentication services at a more affordable price and secure communications.
Authentication information is critical to customer engagement and is primarily used to confirm user identity, perform two-factor authentication, reset passwords, and more. If your business involves these new markets or plans to expand into these regions, you’ll need to adjust your budget for international communications and identity verification based on the cost of updated information. This update will help you more clearly calculate and plan for the cost of commercial communications in these regions.
3. Send transaction-related (utility) template information for free within 24 hours (from April 1, 2025)
Meta has launched a new measure that allows merchants to send free utility template messages within a 24-hour conversation window to encourage merchants to actively engage with customers, including order confirmations, appointment reminders and important notifications, which will further improve the operational efficiency of merchants who need to send frequent notifications, such as e-commerce, logistics and medical services, and significantly reduce information costs.
4. Fees are charged on a per-template basis for sending messages (from April 1, 2025).
In order to simplify the messaging fee structure, Meta will switch to a per-template message from April 1, 2025, instead of using a 24-hour conversation window.
Template information, including authentication, utility, and marketing, is a WhatsApp pre-approved format that allows businesses to proactively contact customers without having to wait for them to initiate a 24-hour conversation window. These template messages are often used for order confirmations, appointment reminders, shipping notifications, or promotions, ensuring professionalism and consistency and avoiding spam.
How to deal with the update of the charging model?
1. Learn about the new charging model:
Merchants need to be aware of the new pricing model updates based on the volume of messages and develop a messaging strategy based on their needs to control operating costs.
2. Optimize your messaging strategy
From November 1, 2024, merchants will enjoy free service conversations, which makes it more feasible to enhance customer support services during peak query periods without worrying about message spending. However, from April 1, 2025, the new charging model will require merchants to pay for each template information, so it is important to properly arrange the use and delivery of template information to effectively control the cost of information.
3. Strengthen team training
Ensure the team is fully aware of all fee updates. For example, customer service teams should actively take advantage of the free 24-hour conversation window, while marketing teams need to learn to create more engaging template messages to increase customer engagement and sales conversions.
4. Plan your budget ahead of time
With the implementation of the new charging model, it is recommended that merchants evaluate the needs of information sending and make budget arrangements in advance. If your business is in a market where the cost of international authentication information is charged, you will need to adjust your budget accordingly to include the cost of information such as identity verification and password reset.
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