What is changing in WhatsApp pricing on 1 October 2026?
Two things become billable on 1 October 2026. Service messages, the free-form replies your team or an AI sends inside the 24-hour customer service window, are charged per delivered message at your market’s utility rate, after a free tier of 1,000 a month per business phone number. And utility templates sent inside that same window are charged from the first message. Both were free before.
Nothing else about the 24-hour window changes. It still opens when a customer messages or calls you and resets each time they write again. Only the price of messages sent inside it changes.
What is still free after 1 October?
Messages your customers send you, the first 1,000 service messages on each business phone number every month, everything inside a 72-hour free entry point window, and messages you send from the WhatsApp Business App on your phone. Marketing and authentication templates are already charged and stay exactly as they are.
| Message | Before 1 October 2026 | From 1 October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Messages customers send you | Free | Free |
| Free-form replies inside the 24-hour window (service messages) | Free | First 1,000 a month per number free, then charged at the utility rate |
| Utility templates sent inside the 24-hour window | Free | Charged from the first message |
| Utility templates sent outside the window | Charged | No change |
| Marketing templates | Charged | No change |
| Authentication templates | Charged | No change |
| Anything inside a 72-hour free entry point window | Free | No change |
| Messages sent from the WhatsApp Business App with Coexistence | Free | No change |
How many free service messages do I get?
Each business phone number gets 1,000 free delivered service messages every month, and Meta charges from the 1,001st. The allowance is per number, resets every month and does not roll over. One-to-one and group deliveries draw from the same pool, and a group send uses one unit for each recipient it reaches.
How much will this cost my business?
It depends on three things: how many service messages you send on each phone number, how many utility templates you send inside the window, and which country your customers are in. Service messages cost the same as utility messages in that country and, unlike utility templates, get no volume discount. Meta’s own example puts the utility and authentication rate for Brazil at 0.68 US cents a message.
Here is an illustrative example. One WhatsApp number, customers in Brazil, at 0.68 US cents a message, sending 2,000 utility templates a month inside the window. The rows show what the same business pays as it applies two of the levers below.
| Scenario | Replies Sent | Billable (>1,000) | Service Cost | Utility Templates | Monthly Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline, 6,000 replies | 6,000 | 5,000 | $34.00 | $13.60 | $47.60 |
| Replies consolidated, 30% fewer | 4,200 | 3,200 | $21.76 | $13.60 | $35.36 |
| 40% of replies sent from the phone app | 3,600 | 2,600 | $17.68 | $13.60 | $31.28 |
| Both of the above | 2,520 | 1,520 | $10.34 | $13.60 | $23.94 |
The same traffic costs more in a market with a higher utility rate, so use the calculator with your own countries rather than scaling this one number.
Do AI chatbot replies cost money on WhatsApp?
Yes. A reply written by a third-party AI chatbot is an ordinary service message, so it draws on your 1,000 free messages and is then charged at your market’s utility rate. Meta’s own AI, Meta Business Agent, is billed differently, by the token at $2.00 per million tokens, which is roughly 4 to 5 US cents for a typical reply. A message is charged as one or the other, never both.
Omni Chat Stack’s AI chatbot is not Meta Business Agent, so its replies are service messages at the utility rate. On our AI plans, 300 AI conversations a month are included in the platform price, and Meta bills the message delivery to your own WhatsApp account.
Which countries’ rates are changing?
Meta’s 1 October update includes its regular quarterly rate changes and moves nine markets onto their own rate lines instead of a shared regional rate: Bangladesh, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nepal, Oman, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. Marketing rates also rise in several markets, including Kuwait, Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Meta publishes a separate rate card for each billing currency, so check your customers’ countries on the card that matches your WhatsApp Business Account.
What should I do before 1 October?
Five things, in this order. Add a payment method to your WhatsApp Business Account, count your service messages on each number, put more into each reply, route new enquiries through the free entry point window, and check your provider’s markup. The first has a deadline of 30 September.
Add a payment method to your WhatsApp Business Account in Meta Business Manager. Without one, Meta still delivers your service messages inside the free 1,000, but stops delivering them once it is used up.
Count your service messages on each number for a full month. Anything above 1,000 is billable.
Put the full answer in one message instead of three. Every delivered message is billed, so this cuts the bill and usually reads better.
Send new enquiries through Click-to-WhatsApp ads or a Facebook Page WhatsApp button. Everything inside the 72-hour free entry point window is free, once you reply within 24 hours.
Check what your provider adds on top of Meta’s rate.
How does WhatsApp Coexistence keep costs down?
With Coexistence, messages you send from the WhatsApp Business App on your phone are not billed by Meta, while messages sent through the API are. That lets you answer simple one-to-one chats from the app at no per-message cost, and keep the API and your team’s shared inbox for campaigns, AI and anything that needs several people.
Coexistence does not make API messages free. It gives you two routes on one number, and you choose which route each reply takes.
What happens if I have no payment method on my WhatsApp account?
Meta keeps delivering your service messages inside the free 1,000 a month, then stops delivering them once the free tier is used up. Anything that is charged from the first message, such as utility templates, needs a payment method. Add one to your WhatsApp Business Account before 30 September to avoid any interruption.
Do I need to do anything if I use Omni Chat Stack?
Check that your WhatsApp Business Account has a payment method on file. Omni Chat Stack does not bill or resell your messages: Meta bills your own WhatsApp Business Account directly at its published rate, and we add 0% markup. Our platform fee is a flat price per agent.
When do WhatsApp rates change next?
Meta reviews its rates every quarter, with updates on the first day of January, April, July and October. This page is refreshed when the rate card changes. Last checked 28 September 2026.