# WhatsApp Business API pricing: who bills what
URL: https://samva.dev/guides/whatsapp-business-api-pricing
> Every WhatsApp message a business sends can carry two charges: Meta's, and your provider's. Here is how each one is decided.
- Published: 2026-11-11

A business that sends WhatsApp messages through the WhatsApp Business Platform usually pays two
parties. Meta charges for the message. The provider you reach the platform through charges for its
service. The two fees are set by different rules and arrive on different bills, and most confusion
about WhatsApp pricing comes from reading them as one number.

This guide explains how each bill is decided. It gives Samva's fee exactly. It gives no figure for
Meta's fee, because Meta sets its rates by country and currency and changes them through the year:
[Meta's pricing page](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/pricing) holds the current rate
cards. The description of Meta's rules below comes from that page, read on November 11, 2026.

## The two bills [#the-two-bills]

| Bill           | Who charges   | Where it arrives                                                         | What decides it                                                    |
| -------------- | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Meta's fee     | Meta          | Your WhatsApp Business Account, on the payment method you added to it    | The message's category and the recipient's country                 |
| Provider's fee | Your provider | Your provider's invoice or plan                                          | The provider's own pricing. On Samva, the message's Meta category |

Some providers resell Meta's fee and add a margin to it, so you see one combined price. Others,
Samva among them, leave Meta's fee on Meta's bill and charge only their own. When you compare
providers, ask which model a quoted price uses, or the comparison is between different things.

## What decides Meta's fee [#what-decides-metas-fee]

Meta charges per delivered message. A message that is sent but never delivered is not charged, and
neither is anything a customer sends you. Two things decide the rate.

**The message's category.** Every message a business sends has one category, and each category has
its own rate. A template is a message whose wording Meta approved in advance, and Meta assigns it
one of three categories:

- **Marketing**: promotions, offers, announcements, and anything else that is not a utility or
  authentication message.
- **Utility**: a follow-up to something the customer did, such as an order update or a booking
  confirmation.
- **Authentication**: a one-time code that confirms who the customer is.

The category that counts is the one Meta has assigned when the message sends, which can differ from
the one you declared when you submitted the template.

Anything that is not a template, such as typed text, an image, or a set of reply buttons, is a
**service** message. Service messages have their own rate, and they can only be sent while a
customer service window is open.

**The recipient's country.** Meta's rate depends on the country calling code of the number you are
writing to, not on where your business is.

## The 24-hour customer service window [#the-24-hour-customer-service-window]

When a customer writes to your business, a 24-hour customer service window opens, and each new
message from the customer restarts it. The window decides what you may send. It does not make a
message free:

| Message                 | Window open              | Window closed            |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------ |
| Service message         | Allowed, charged by Meta | Not allowed              |
| Utility template        | Allowed, charged by Meta | Allowed, charged by Meta |
| Authentication template | Allowed, charged by Meta | Allowed, charged by Meta |
| Marketing template      | Allowed, charged by Meta | Allowed, charged by Meta |

Sending a template does not open the window. Only a message from the customer does. So the first
message you send to someone who has not written to you is always a template.

Guides written before October 2026 describe service messages, and utility templates sent inside an
open window, as free. Meta charges for both.

## When Meta does not charge [#when-meta-does-not-charge]

Meta's page names two cases.

**The monthly free tier of service messages.** Each business phone number gets 1,000 delivered
service messages a month at no charge. Meta charges from the 1,001st. The allowance resets each
month and does not roll over.

**A free entry point window.** When a customer writes to you from a Click to WhatsApp ad and you
answer inside the customer service window, that answer is free and opens a free entry point window
that can stay open for up to 7 days. While it is open, Meta charges for no marketing, utility,
authentication, or service message.

Meta also lowers its utility and authentication rates as a business's monthly volume grows. Those
tiers are on the same rate cards.

## What your provider charges [#what-your-provider-charges]

Provider pricing varies more than Meta's does. The common shapes are a monthly platform fee, a fee
per message or per conversation, a margin on top of Meta's rates, or some mix of them. Read what
counts as a billable unit, whether received messages count, and whether Meta's fee is inside the
quoted price or on top of it.

## What Samva charges [#what-samva-charges]

Samva charges for outbound WhatsApp messages in sending credits, the same allowance your plan's
emails draw from. One email is one sending credit. A WhatsApp message draws by its Meta category:

| Message                    | Covers                                                                                           | Sending credits |
| -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------- |
| WhatsApp message           | Free-form messages inside the service window, and utility and authentication templates           | 1               |
| WhatsApp marketing message | Marketing templates                                                                              | 5               |

Messages you receive cost nothing. WhatsApp needs a paid plan, and there is no separate WhatsApp
plan or add-on: the messages come out of the plan you already have.

Samva does not resell Meta's fee. Meta bills it to your WhatsApp Business Account, sending credits
never pay it, and Meta's invoice never includes Samva's.

Samva does estimate Meta's fee for each message you send and returns it as `estimatedProviderCost`
on the message's deliveries. Read it as an estimate, not a bill:

- It prices each message at Meta's published rate for its category. It applies the monthly
  free tier of service messages, counted by calendar month in UTC, and does not apply Meta's
  volume tiers.
- It counts a free entry point window as 7 days from your first reply, the longest Meta says the
  window can stay open.
- It is in your account's billing currency when Samva holds Meta's rate card in that currency, and
  in US dollars otherwise. Check the `currency` returned with it.
- Until Meta assigns your account a billing currency, messages carry no estimate.

Meta's invoice is the final amount.

## A worked example [#a-worked-example]

A store connects its WhatsApp Business number and, in one month, sends:

| Messages                                         | Count | Samva's fee each     | Sending credits |
| ------------------------------------------------ | ----- | -------------------- | --------------- |
| Replies to customers inside the service window   | 2,000 | 1 sending credit     | 2,000           |
| Order updates (utility templates)                | 1,500 | 1 sending credit     | 1,500           |
| A promotion to opted-in customers (marketing)    | 500   | 5 sending credits    | 2,500           |
| Messages received from customers                 | 3,000 | None                 | 0               |

Samva's side of the month is 6,000 sending credits, drawn from the same allowance as the store's
email.

Meta's side is a separate bill. From the rules above, Meta charges for the 500 marketing templates,
the 1,500 order updates, and 1,000 of the replies: the store sends from one number, so the first
1,000 replies of the month fall in its free tier. It does not charge for the messages the store
received. Multiply the charged messages by the rates on Meta's rate card for each recipient's
country to get the amount.

## How to estimate your own cost [#how-to-estimate-your-own-cost]

1. Count the messages you expect to send in a month, split into service messages, utility
   templates, authentication templates, and marketing templates.
2. Take 1,000 off the service messages for each business phone number you send from, and leave out
   the messages you expect to send in a free entry point window.
3. For each group that remains, look up the rate for your recipients' countries on
   [Meta's rate cards](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/pricing). That is Meta's bill.
4. Apply your provider's pricing to the full counts from step 1, since Meta's free cases do not
   change your provider's fee. On Samva, that is 1 sending credit for each WhatsApp message and 5
   for each WhatsApp marketing message.

Once you are sending, check the estimate against Meta's invoice, which is the final amount. On
Samva, [`GET /v1/messages/{id}/deliveries`](/docs/api-reference/messages/listDeliveries) returns
`estimatedProviderCost` and its `currency` for each delivery, to read with the limits above.

## FAQ

### Is the WhatsApp Business API free?

Access to the API has no fee from Meta. Meta charges for each message a business delivers, by the message's category and the recipient's country. Messages a business receives are not charged, each business phone number gets a monthly free tier of service messages, and messages in a free entry point window are free. A provider's own fee is separate.

### Who sends the bill for WhatsApp messages?

Meta bills its fee to your WhatsApp Business Account, through the payment method on that account. Your provider bills its own fee. On Samva the two never mix: sending credits do not pay Meta's fee, and Meta's invoice does not include Samva's.

### What does Samva charge for a WhatsApp message?

A WhatsApp message (a free-form message inside the service window, or a utility or authentication template) costs 1 sending credit. A WhatsApp marketing message (a marketing template) costs 5 sending credits. Received messages cost nothing. WhatsApp needs a paid plan.

### Which WhatsApp messages does Meta charge for?

Meta's pricing page says it charges for every message a business delivers: marketing, utility, and authentication templates, and service messages, which are the non-template replies you can only send inside the 24-hour customer service window. Two things are free. Each business phone number gets 1,000 service messages a month before Meta charges for them. And in a free entry point window, opened when you answer a customer who reached you from a Click to WhatsApp ad, Meta charges for no template or service message for up to 7 days.

### Where are Meta's current WhatsApp rates?

On Meta's pricing page for the WhatsApp Business Platform, which publishes rate cards by billing currency and country. Meta can change rates on the first day of a quarter, so read the rate card for the current figure.
## Related

- [WhatsApp](/docs/channels/whatsapp): Connect a number, send templates and free-form messages, and read what each message costs.
- [Send a WhatsApp message](/docs/channels/whatsapp/send-a-message): Send a template anytime, or free-form content inside the service window.
- [WhatsApp MCP server](/mcp-server/whatsapp): Your agent reads and answers WhatsApp chats from any MCP client.
- [Pricing](/pricing): Plans, sending credits, and what each kind of message draws.