Meta rate card

What WhatsApp costs you now, and what it costs from 1 October

Set monthly volumes to estimate what Meta will bill your own WhatsApp Business account. Every row shows two prices: the rate card in force since 1 July 2026, and the one Meta has published to replace it on 1 October 2026. Both were read on 8 September 2026.

Service messages, meaning the free-form replies you send inside the 24-hour customer service window, have been free since November 2024. On 1 October 2026 every business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month and pays from the 1,001st, at each market’s utility rate. Utility templates sent inside that window lose their free status outright. Incoming customer messages stay free.

Also see WhatsApp Business API on HiQBot.

Dated changes to budget for

  • 1 October 2026Service messages become chargeable at the market's utility rate, with no volume tiers, after a new free monthly tier of 1,000 service messages per business phone number. Utility templates delivered inside an open 24h customer service window become chargeable. Both were free.
  • 1 October 2026Nine markets leave their regional rate to become standalone: Bangladesh, Iraq, Nepal and Sri Lanka at lower utility/authentication rates, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman and Ukraine at higher ones. All nine gain an authentication-international rate.
  • 1 October 2026Eleven further rate moves appear in Meta's October card that its written changelog does not list: Mexico marketing +30%; Pakistan and Peru utility and authentication +50%; South Africa utility and authentication +25%; Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Rest of Asia Pacific and Rest of Middle East marketing +15%.
  • 31 December 2026India billing localisation deadline. Every WABA in an eligible business portfolio must be on INR. From 1 January 2027 Meta stops delivering messages from non-INR WABAs of eligible customers.
  • 30 June 2027Brazil billing localisation deadline. Every WABA in an eligible business portfolio must be on BRL. From 1 July 2027 Meta stops delivering messages from non-BRL WABAs of eligible customers.

How Meta bills

Incoming customer messages are free
  • Message type: marketing, utility, authentication, and service from October
  • Your pick bills as North America
  • Quotes the tier-one rate (the ceiling on what you pay)

Only delivered messages are billed. Failed deliveries cost nothing on Meta’s side.

The 24-hour customer service window

When a customer messages you, Meta opens a 24-hour window, and a WhatsApp call opens one too. Replies inside it are free today. From 1 October 2026 every business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month and pays from the 1,001st, at this market’s utility rate. Utility templates sent inside the window lose their free status outright. Authentication and marketing were always charged either way.

Meta prices by market, not by country. Bills as North America.

All 16 of Meta’s cards. No FX conversion between them.

Quick set

Estimated Meta charge

North America · USD · tier-one rate

Until 30 Sept 2026

$0.00

From 1 Oct 2026

$0.00

  • Marketing

    Until 30 Sept 2026
    $0.025 / message
    Monthly cost until 30 Sept 2026
    $0.00
    From 1 Oct 2026
    $0.025 / message
    Monthly cost from 1 Oct 2026
    $0.00
    messages / month
    Why this rate

    Promotions, offers, re-engagement. Charged on every delivery, with no free window and no volume tiers.

  • Utility and authentication

    Until 30 Sept 2026
    $0.0034 / message
    Monthly cost until 30 Sept 2026
    $0.00
    From 1 Oct 2026
    $0.0034 / message
    Monthly cost from 1 Oct 2026
    $0.00
    messages / month
    Why this rate

    Meta charges both at the same rate in this market. Utility is free inside an open 24-hour service window until 1 October 2026; authentication never is.

  • Service messages

    Until 30 Sept 2026
    Free / message
    Monthly cost until 30 Sept 2026
    $0.00
    From 1 Oct 2026
    $0.0034 / messagenewly charged against the rate today
    Monthly cost from 1 Oct 2026
    $0.00

    Inside the 1,000 free service messages this phone number gets each month.

    messages / month
    Why this rate

    Free-form replies inside an open 24-hour customer service window, whether a person or your own AI writes them. Free since November 2024. From 1 October 2026 every business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month and is charged from the 1,001st, at this market’s utility rate, with no volume discounts. The allowance resets monthly and does not roll over.

Estimated Meta charge

North America · USD · tier-one rate

Until 30 Sept 2026

$0.00

From 1 Oct 2026

$0.00

Meta bills this to your WhatsApp Business account. It is not a HiQBot charge. See HiQBot plans.

Volumes start at zero. Use a preset or type a monthly volume to see a charge.

Every market Meta prices

What WhatsApp costs in all 47 of Meta’s markets

Meta does not price by country. It sorts 140 countries into 47 rate markets and charges on the recipient’s country calling code, so a London business messaging German customers pays the German rate. Every figure is US dollars per delivered message, read from Meta’s own rate card on 8 September 2026. The left figure is the 1 July 2026 card in force today. The coloured figure beside it is Meta's published card for 1 October 2026: a percentage where a rate moves, and a price where something free starts being charged. A market with no published rate for a category is marked unpriced rather than shown as zero.

WhatsApp per-message rates in US dollars for each of Meta’s 47 rate markets, comparing the 1 July 2026 rate card with the 1 October 2026 card, read 8 September 2026.
MarketCountriesMarketingUtilityAuthenticationService
Argentina1$0.0618$0.0260$0.0260Free$0.0260
Bangladesh1—$0.0732—$0.0037—$0.0037Free$0.0037
Brazil1$0.0625$0.0068$0.0068Free$0.0068
Chile1$0.0889$0.0200$0.0200Free$0.0200
Colombia1$0.0125$0.0008$0.0008Free$0.0008
Egypt1$0.0644$0.0036$0.0036Free$0.0036
France1$0.0859$0.0300$0.0300Free$0.0300
Germany1$0.1365$0.0550$0.0550Free$0.0550
Hong Kong1$0.0732$0.0260$0.0260Free$0.0260
Hungary1$0.0860$0.0350$0.0350Free$0.0350
India1$0.0118$0.0014$0.0014Free$0.0014
Indonesia1$0.0411$0.0250$0.0250Free$0.0250
Iraq1—$0.0341—$0.0079—$0.0079Free$0.0079
Israel1$0.0353$0.0053$0.0053Free$0.0053
Italy1$0.0795$0.0300$0.0300Free$0.0300
Kazakhstan1—$0.0604—$0.0180—$0.0180Free$0.0180
Kuwait1—$0.0792—$0.0440—$0.0440Free$0.0440
Malaysia1$0.0860$0.0140$0.0140Free$0.0140
Mexico1$0.0305+30%$0.0085$0.0085Free$0.0085
Morocco1—$0.0414—$0.0230—$0.0230Free$0.0230
Nepal1—$0.0732—$0.0034—$0.0034Free$0.0034
Netherlands1$0.1597$0.0500$0.0500Free$0.0500
Nigeria1$0.0516$0.0067$0.0067Free$0.0067
North America2$0.0250$0.0034$0.0034Free$0.0034
Oman1—$0.0341—$0.0247—$0.0247Free$0.0247
Other0$0.0604$0.0077$0.0077Free$0.0077
Pakistan1$0.0473$0.0100+50%$0.0100+50%Free$0.0150
Peru1$0.0703$0.0200+50%$0.0200+50%Free$0.0300
Poland1$0.0366$0.0122$0.0122Free$0.0122
Qatar1$0.0341$0.0120$0.0120Free$0.0120
Rest of Africa41$0.0225$0.0040$0.0040Free$0.0040
Rest of Asia Pacific19$0.0732+15%$0.0113$0.0113Free$0.0113
Rest of Central & Eastern Europe17$0.0860$0.0212$0.0212Free$0.0212
Rest of Latin America15$0.0740$0.0113$0.0113Free$0.0113
Rest of Middle East7$0.0341+15%$0.0091$0.0091Free$0.0091
Rest of Western Europe9$0.0592$0.0171$0.0171Free$0.0171
Romania1$0.0860$0.0290$0.0290Free$0.0290
Russia1$0.0802$0.0400$0.0400Free$0.0400
Saudi Arabia1$0.0501+15%$0.0107$0.0107Free$0.0107
Singapore1$0.0732$0.0160$0.0160Free$0.0160
South Africa1$0.0379$0.0076+25%$0.0076+25%Free$0.0095
Spain1$0.0707$0.0200$0.0200Free$0.0200
Sri Lanka1—$0.0732—$0.0020—$0.0020Free$0.0020
Turkey1$0.0109$0.0009$0.0009Free$0.0009
Ukraine1—$0.0860—$0.0298—$0.0298Free$0.0298
United Arab Emirates1$0.0499+15%$0.0157$0.0157Free$0.0157
United Kingdom1$0.0635$0.0220$0.0220Free$0.0220

Service messages are your replies inside an open 24-hour window. They are free today and stay free for the first 1,000 each business phone number delivers per month from 1 October 2026, then bill at the rate shown. The allowance resets monthly and does not roll over.

Meta charges this, not HiQBot

HiQBot is a Tech Provider. Meta meters messages and bills your WhatsApp Business account directly. Our subscription is separate on the pricing page. Meta’s invoice is the authoritative record.

What Meta does not charge for

  • Any non-template message sent inside an open 24h customer service window. Free since 1 November 2024; chargeable from 1 October 2026 at the market's utility rate, with no volume tiers.

    Free until 1 Oct 2026

  • Utility templates delivered inside an open 24h customer service window. Free since 1 July 2025; chargeable from 1 October 2026 at the market's ordinary utility rate.

    Free until 1 Oct 2026

  • Any message inside the 72h free entry point window opened by a Click-to-WhatsApp ad or a Facebook Page CTA. Explicitly stated to remain free after 1 October 2026.

    Stays free

  • Messages a WhatsApp user sends to the business are never charged, before or after 1 October 2026.

    Stays free

  • The first 1,000 service messages delivered from each business phone number each month, from 1 October 2026. They do not roll over and reset monthly.

    Stays free

How this estimate is built

  • Two cards, both from Meta

    Meta publishes the card in force and, alongside it, the card that replaces it on 1 October 2026. This page reads both, so the second column is not our forecast of the change. It is Meta’s own file.

  • Tier one, not your tier

    Volume discounts aggregate across every WhatsApp account in your Meta business portfolio, including traffic you send through other vendors. Nobody outside your Meta billing account can see that number, so this page quotes the highest tier. Your invoice can be lower. It will not be higher.

  • Charged on delivery

    Meta charges when a message is delivered. Messages that fail to deliver cost nothing, so a real invoice tracks delivered volume rather than attempted volume.

  • Markets, not countries

    Meta prices markets. Some are single countries and the rest are regional buckets, so the United States and Canada share one rate and every country Meta has not listed falls to a catch-all. Nine countries move out of their bucket in October. The calculator shows which market your choice bills as, before and after.

  • One rate card, no second copy

    The numbers on this page are fetched from the same rate card the HiQBot product bills against. There is no separately maintained marketing copy of the rates that could quietly go stale.

Marketing Messages API traffic is a ceiling, not a quote

Meta says the Marketing Messages API uses the same billing model as the Cloud API. It has not said anywhere we could find that it uses the same rate, and its own rate calculator exposes no such category, so we treat the marketing rate above as an upper bound for that traffic rather than a price. Businesses on that API can also set a maximum price per delivery, which Meta then charges or beats.

The rules this page follows, quoted from the rate card itself

UNKNOWN AND FREE ARE DIFFERENT. A (market, category, currency) triple that is absent from markets[].rates, or present with status == 'unknown', carries no sourced rate: callers MUST surface it as unpriced, MUST NOT substitute 0, and MUST NOT fall back to another currency by FX conversion (Meta's per-currency rate cards are separate cards, not conversions of the USD card). Only status == 'free' means zero money. Only status == 'charged' carries a billable rate. An entry's 'upcoming' object, when present, is the rate that replaces it on its effective_date; it is not in force before that date.
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, matching phonenumbers.region_code_for_number(). Transcribed from the country/market table on Meta's pricing page, retrieved 5 August 2026. Kazakhstan (KZ) appears in no regional list and is therefore assumed to fall to 'Other' — flagged, not verified.

Questions about WhatsApp pricing

What changes on 1 October 2026?
Meta starts charging for service messages, the free-form replies you send inside an open 24-hour customer service window. Every business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month and is charged from the 1,001st. Utility templates delivered inside that same window also stop being free, with no allowance of their own. Incoming customer messages stay free, and so does the 72-hour free entry point window opened by a Click to WhatsApp ad.
Are any WhatsApp service messages free after 1 October 2026?
Yes. Each business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month, and Meta charges from the 1,001st delivered. Inbound messages from customers stay free too, and so does everything inside the 72-hour free entry point window opened by a Click to WhatsApp ad or a Facebook Page button.
What will a service message cost?
Past the free 1,000, whatever a utility message costs in the same market. We checked Meta's October card in all 16 published currencies and the service column matches the utility column in every market, with no exceptions. Service messages get no volume discounts, so unlike utility and authentication the rate never falls as you send more.
How many free service messages do I get?
1,000 per business phone number, per month, from 1 October 2026. Meta charges from the 1,001st service message delivered. The allowance resets monthly and unused messages do not roll over. It is per phone number, so a business running several numbers gets the allowance on each. This calculator subtracts it before pricing the October column.
Does WhatsApp charge for chatbot and AI replies?
Yes, once the phone number is past its 1,000 free service messages for the month. A free-form reply is a service message whether a person, your chatbot or your own AI writes it. The exception is Meta Business Agent, which bills separately per token at $2.00 per million, roughly 4 to 5 cents a message on Meta’s own sizing. Set the service volume above to your total outbound replies, automated ones included.
Does this affect the WhatsApp Business app?
No. These are WhatsApp Business Platform rates, meaning the API. The free WhatsApp Business app and consumer WhatsApp are not billed per message and are unaffected by the October change.
Are these rates what HiQBot charges?
No. These are Meta’s per-message rates and Meta bills them to your own WhatsApp Business account. HiQBot is a Tech Provider, so the money never passes through us and we add nothing to it. Our own subscription is separate and is listed on our pricing page.
Why do utility and authentication messages cost the same?
Because on Meta's rate card they do, in every market and every currency we checked, on both the card in force and the October one. The categories still differ in three ways: utility templates are free inside an open 24-hour service window until 1 October 2026 and authentication templates never are, authentication reaches its volume discounts at much lower monthly volumes, and several markets carry a separate and higher international authentication rate.
Which countries are repriced in October?
Nine leave their regional bucket to stand alone on the card. Bangladesh, Iraq, Nepal and Sri Lanka get lower utility and authentication rates. Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman and Ukraine get higher ones. All nine gain an international authentication rate. Meta’s written changelog stops there, but its October card also raises Mexico marketing by 30 per cent, Pakistan and Peru utility and authentication by 50 per cent, South Africa by 25 per cent, and marketing in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Rest of Asia Pacific and Rest of Middle East by 15 per cent. Pick one of those countries above and the calculator shows both rates.
Can I see a rate in a currency you do not list?
We now carry every currency Meta publishes: AED, ARS, AUD, BRL, CLP, COP, EUR, GBP, IDR, INR, MXN, MYR, PEN, SAR, SGD, USD. That matters because Meta writes a separate rate card per currency rather than converting one. India's own card implies one exchange rate for marketing and a different one for utility, an eleven per cent gap inside a single market, so a converted dollar figure would be a number Meta never charges. An Indian business should budget in rupees off the rupee card.
Do volume discounts lower what I pay?
Messages are aggregated at the business portfolio level across all WABAs owned by the portfolio. Only charged messages count. Tiers are market-and-category specific and reset monthly at 00:00 in the WABA timezone. Utility templates delivered inside a customer service window or a free entry point window do not count toward tiers while they remain free. A per-broadcast estimate cannot know the portfolio's month-to-date volume. Use volume_tiers[0].rate (== the top-level rate) as the ceiling and label it as such. This calculator therefore quotes the tier-one rate, which is the highest one and the ceiling on what you will pay. Marketing messages have no volume tiers, and from October neither do service messages.
What if a country or category shows no rate?
It means we did not source a rate from Meta for that combination, not that the message is free. Absent and free are different things and the calculator keeps them apart: a free category shows a zero, an unsourced one shows why it cannot be priced and is left out of the total.
How current are these numbers?
This page reads Meta's rate card from the same endpoint HiQBot bills against, so the figures here and the figures in the product cannot drift apart. The card in force took effect 2026-07-01, the October card is Meta's own published successor, and both were last read on 2026-09-08. Meta may change pricing only on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October, with one month of notice. 47 markets are priced.

Know the Meta bill. Run WhatsApp on HiQBot.

Meta bills message delivery to your own WhatsApp account. HiQBot bills the plan that puts an agent on that number and keeps your team in one inbox.

Start free trialBook a demo