Meta changed how WhatsApp Business billing works on 1 July 2025, moving from per-conversation to per-message pricing. Most of the pricing pages I see quoted in India still describe the old model, which is why the numbers people budget with keep coming out wrong.
Here is the current structure, taken from Meta’s own developer documentation rather than a reseller’s summary.
You are charged per template message delivered
Not per conversation. Not per contact. You pay when a template message is delivered, and the rate depends on which category the template falls into and which country the recipient is in.
The three template categories
- Marketing: promotions, offers, re-engagement. The most expensive category.
- Utility: order updates, appointment reminders, payment confirmations. Cheaper, and free inside an open service window.
- Authentication: OTPs and login codes. The cheapest category.
That split matters commercially. A business that treats WhatsApp as a broadcast channel pays marketing rates on everything. A business that structures its messages as utility, tied to something the customer actually did, pays a fraction of that.
What is genuinely free
Three things, and together they are where the savings live.
Free-form messages, meaning ordinary text and images rather than templates, cost nothing inside an open 24-hour customer service window. Utility templates are also free inside that window.
Then there is the one most Indian businesses never use: the free entry point window. When a user contacts you through a Click-to-WhatsApp ad, you get a 72-hour window in which any message to that user is free.
Read that again if you run ads. A Click-to-WhatsApp campaign does not just produce a cheaper lead than a form. It also opens three days of free messaging with someone who raised their hand. If your follow-up runs inside that window, your messaging cost for that lead is zero.
Volume discounts
Utility and authentication rates drop as monthly volume rises, calculated at the portfolio level, and the tiers reset each month. For most small businesses this is not a factor. For anyone sending order updates at scale it is worth modelling.
What this means for an Indian business
Three practical conclusions.
First, structure follow-up as utility wherever it is honestly a utility message. An appointment reminder is a utility message. Dressing up a promotion as one is a good way to get templates rejected.
Second, if you are running Meta ads, use Click-to-WhatsApp rather than lead forms where the offer allows it. Cheaper result in the auction, and 72 free hours to work the lead.
Third, budget the software separately from the messages. Providers like AiSensy, Interakt and Wati charge a platform fee on top of what Meta charges for messages. The platform fee is predictable, the message cost is not, and quotes that bundle them tend to hide which is which.
The setup order that avoids waste
Get the offer and the follow-up sequence right on a single number first. Move to the API when message volume actually justifies the platform fee, not before. I have watched businesses pay a monthly platform fee for months while sending fewer messages than a person could type by hand.
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Related reading
- AI lead qualification on WhatsApp
- How to run Facebook ads in India
- Choosing a CRM for an Indian small business
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