WhatsApp Pricing Update – 2024/2025 Timeline: What It Means for Businesses

Utility Rate Reductions (Effective August 1, 2024)

Meta has lowered utility rates across most regions to remain competitive with alternative channels. This move is intended to encourage businesses to bring more post-purchase customer journeys to WhatsApp, helping improve customer engagement. Please refer to the updated rate card for more details.

Marketing Rate Updates (Effective October 1, 2024)

Meta has adjusted marketing rates in specific markets, with increases in UAE, Saudi Arabia, and India, and a decrease in the UK. Moving forward, marketing rates may be updated on a quarterly basis, with approximately 30 days’ notice provided. Please refer to the updated rate card for more details.

Service Conversations are Now Free (Effective November 1, 2024)

Meta has introduced a significant change by making service conversations free to help businesses maintain connections with their customers on WhatsApp. Additionally, utility rates for the ‘Rest of Africa’ region have been lowered. Please refer to the updated rate card for full details. Service conversations in the free tier will no longer be capped at 1,000 effective November 1, 2024

Expanded Global Reach for Authentication Messages and Changes to Authentication rates (Effective February 1, 2025)

Starting February 1, 2025, international authentication rates will apply in seven additional markets: Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the UAE. In addition, authentication rates in these regions will be lowered. Authentication conversations across India, Indonesia, and the new seven markets will be counted to determine eligibility for international authentication rates starting January 1, 2025. Learn more about Authentication International rates here.

1. Switch from Per-Conversation to Per-Message Pricing (Effective July 1, 2025)

Meta will transition from per-conversation to per-message pricing model starting July 1, 2025. This change is designed to provide businesses with a simplified way to compare ROI across different communication channels.

With this pricing model, charges will be incurred:

• Per message for each marketing template
• Per message for each authentication template
• Per message for each utility template sent outside of a customer service window

Meta will maintain the same pricing for per-conversation as per-message, according to the ​most recent rate cards. Check out the pricing here.

What’s changing in Digital Connect dashboard:

eOcean will be updating the Insights section for WhatsApp Conversations page in your Digital Connect account to reflect the new per message pricing model. We will reach out to you via email to inform you of the applied changes.

2. Utility Templates within the Customer Service Window Will Become Free (Effective July 1, 2025)

Meta has decided to make utility templates sent within the 24-hour customer service window free for all businesses. These templates include account updates, order management, delivery and service updates, and feedback collection. Templates sent outside the customer service window will continue to be charged at the utility rate.

This is a great opportunity for businesses to send transactional alerts at no cost, within the free service window.

Important Notes:

• No Change in Free Entry Point Conversations: No change in free entry point conversations, except they will reflect ‘messages’ instead of ‘conversations’.
• Billing Process: All charges will continue to be passed through eOcean and invoiced monthly.

This pricing change can impact your business use case depending on your messaging behavior. Below are some examples of how this can impact your business:

• Frequent marketing or authentication notifications using template messages: If you are sending multiple template messages for marketing or authentication use cases, you will now incur a separate charge from WhatsApp for each template message sent.
• Initiating conversations with utility messages: If you send messages using utility templates without the user first reaching out to you, you will be charged per template message.
• Customer support: If you are responding to incoming user-initiated (Service conversations) messages with a non-templated or utility template message, these messages will no longer incur any Meta charges.

Please review these updates carefully to ensure you understand the changes and can adjust your WhatsApp Business messaging strategy accordingly.

For full details on this pricing change, see Meta’s Developer Documentation here.