WhatsApp Business Platform: prices, limits and rules — with dates and sources

Quarterly change dates only; notice 1/3/6 months by change type.

Charged per delivered message, by recipient market and template category.

Click-to-WhatsApp Ad / FB Page CTA (Android/iOS only) → 72h all message types free after response within 24h.

Service messages (non-template replies powered by a person or a third-party AI) have not been charged since 1 November 2024 and can only be sent inside an open customer service window. Two changes narrow this: since 1 August 2026 non-template messages powered by Meta Business Agent are charged per token, and from 1 October 2026 Meta charges per message for all service messages, with 1,000 free per business phone number per month.

CHANGED 2026-09-02. The previous value said flatly that "non-template messages have not been charged since 1 November 2024". That is no longer true as a blanket statement and was already wrong at the time of this run: Meta Business Agent launched on 1 July 2026 as a second non-template category, and Meta has charged per token for those messages since 1 August 2026 (one global rate of $2.00 USD per 1M tokens, roughly 4–5 US cents per message). The free-since-November-2024 rule now applies only to the *service* category. Second change: from 1 October 2026 service messages are charged per market at the utility/authentication rate, with a new free monthly tier of 1,000 service messages per business phone number. The 1 October date had not passed at the time of this run, so that clause is correctly future-tense and must be rewritten to present tense after 2026-10-01.

Utility templates delivered inside an open customer service window have not been charged since 1 July 2025. This changes on 1 October 2026: Meta will charge per message for utility messages sent in response to users.

Re-verified unchanged 2026-09-02; the source quote still matches the live page verbatim. Free until 30 September 2026. From 1 October 2026 these are charged like any other utility message (Germany €0.0456, Rest of Western Europe €0.0142). There is no change to when a utility message can be sent. The 1 October 2026 date had NOT yet passed at the time of this run, so the value is correctly future-tense; the run after 2026-10-01 must rewrite it to present tense.

Per-message pricing since 2025-07-01; conversation-based pricing deprecated.

€0.0456EUR

Volume tiers from 300,001/mo. Re-verified unchanged 2026-09-02 against the official EUR rate card (current card effective 2026-07-01). Germany authentication also stays 0.0456 on the published "Rate cards effective October 1, 2026" card. Germany has no authentication-international rate (rate card shows n/a). sourceUrl moved from whatsappbusiness.com to the developers.facebook.com/documentation pricing doc, because the interactive rate-card values do not render on whatsappbusiness.com.

€0.0142EUR

Re-verified unchanged 2026-09-02 against the official EUR rate card (current card effective 2026-07-01). Rest of Western Europe authentication also stays 0.0142 on the published "Rate cards effective October 1, 2026" card. No authentication-international rate for this region (n/a). sourceUrl moved from whatsappbusiness.com to the developers.facebook.com/documentation pricing doc, because the interactive rate-card values do not render on whatsappbusiness.com.

Germany standalone (calling code 49); Austria (43) and Switzerland (41) under Rest of Western Europe.

€0.1131EUR

Re-verified unchanged 2026-09-02 against the official EUR rate card (current card effective 2026-07-01). Also checked against the published "Rate cards effective October 1, 2026" card: Germany marketing stays 0.1131, so this value holds past the 2026-10-01 quarter boundary. sourceUrl moved from whatsappbusiness.com to the developers.facebook.com/documentation pricing doc, because the interactive rate-card values do not render on whatsappbusiness.com and the documentation tree is the citable source.

€0.0490EUR

Re-verified unchanged 2026-09-02 against the official EUR rate card (current card effective 2026-07-01). Rest of Western Europe marketing also stays 0.049 on the published "Rate cards effective October 1, 2026" card. Covers Austria (43) and Switzerland (41) — see meta.rates.country_mapping.dach. sourceUrl moved from whatsappbusiness.com to the developers.facebook.com/documentation pricing doc, because the interactive rate-card values do not render on whatsappbusiness.com.

€0 until 30 September 2026. From 1 October 2026 service messages to German numbers are charged at €0.0456 per delivered message — the same rate as utility and authentication for the market. Each business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages per month; only the 1,001st onward is charged. No volume tiers.EUR

CHANGED 2026-09-02. Meta published the to-be October service rates on 2026-09-01, so this row now carries a concrete number (€0.0456 for Germany) instead of only the rule "same as utility and authentication". NEW since the last refresh: a free monthly tier of 1,000 service messages per business phone number, which does not roll over and resets monthly — this was not previously recorded. Volume tiers still do not apply to service messages (they continue to apply to utility and authentication). Businesses without a payment method on file by 30 September 2026 will have service message delivery stopped from 1 October 2026. The 1 October 2026 date had NOT yet passed at the time of this run, so the value is correctly future-tense; the run after 2026-10-01 must rewrite it to present tense.

Portfolio-level accrual per market–category pair; monthly reset.

€0.0456EUR

Volume tiers from 100,001/mo: −5%…−25%. Re-verified unchanged 2026-09-02 against the official EUR rate card (current card effective 2026-07-01). Germany utility also stays 0.0456 on the published "Rate cards effective October 1, 2026" card, so this value holds past the quarter boundary. Note: from 2026-10-01 utility messages sent inside an open customer service window stop being free and are charged at this same rate — see meta.pricing.free_utility_in_csw. sourceUrl moved from whatsappbusiness.com to the developers.facebook.com/documentation pricing doc, because the interactive rate-card values do not render on whatsappbusiness.com.

€0.0142EUR

Re-verified unchanged 2026-09-02 against the official EUR rate card (current card effective 2026-07-01). Rest of Western Europe utility also stays 0.0142 on the published "Rate cards effective October 1, 2026" card. Note: from 2026-10-01 utility messages sent inside an open customer service window stop being free and are charged at this same rate. sourceUrl moved from whatsappbusiness.com to the developers.facebook.com/documentation pricing doc, because the interactive rate-card values do not render on whatsappbusiness.com.

messaging_limit_tier deprecated; use whatsapp_business_manager_messaging_limit.

Auto-increase by one level within 6 hours when quality high and ≥ half limit used in last 7 days.

Max unique recipients outside a CSW in a moving 24h period; portfolio-level, shared across numbers.

Newly created business portfolios start at 250 unique recipients per moving 24-hour period. The limit increases to 2,000 by completing a scaling path, then to 10,000, 100,000 and Unlimited via automatic scaling.

Opened by a user message or call; resets with each user message. Non-template messages can only be sent while it is open. Service-category non-template messages are free inside the window until 30 September 2026; Meta Business Agent non-template messages have been charged per token since 1 August 2026.

CHANGED 2026-09-02. This row was outside the 35-day refresh window (it expired 2026-11-22) but was updated anyway because the previous value asserted "any non-template message free while open", which the live source now contradicts and which was already wrong at the time of this run — Meta Business Agent non-template messages have been charged per token since 1 August 2026. Leaving it reading `current` would have fed a wrong fact to the blog pipeline. From 1 October 2026 every non-template message is charged, as either a service or a Meta Business Agent message, never both. sourceUrl moved from .../messages/send-messages to the non-template-messages pricing page, which carries both the window mechanics and the charging rule; the send-messages page remains a valid secondary source for the 24-hour timer wording but was not re-read in this run.

Outside the window only approved templates, charged by category.

Separate paid path for Business App users (Meta Verified subscription).

OBA = blue checkmark; eligibility via WhatsApp Manager; not for WhatsApp Business app numbers.

Official Business Account status is requested via WhatsApp Manager. Eligibility requires policy compliance, at least 30 days on the platform, two-step verification and an approved display name.

Opt-in required before messaging; must state the business name; method free but must comply with applicable law.

Repeated violations → restrictions increasing in duration; review via Business Support Home.

Quality Flagged for 7 days → messaging limit down one level immediately.

As of 2026-09-01, the WhatsApp Business Profile API exposes only about, address, description, email, profile_picture_url, websites and vertical. There is no birthday field.

WhatsApp does not provide customer date-of-birth data to businesses. Birthday campaigns therefore have to run on data you already hold, such as a Shopify customer record.

Cloud API: IVR numbers registrable if they accept international calls and route the code to a person.

WhatsApp Business app supports landlines (code via call/SMS; no extensions).

Authentication templates: OTP button required; no URLs/media/emojis; parameters ≤15 chars.

Meta re-checks templates; utility→marketing with 1-day notice (instant after misuse warning); 60-day appeal.

Three template categories: Marketing, Utility, Authentication. Templates are the only message type sendable outside a CSW.

Utility requires non-promotional AND (user-specific/requested OR essential/critical); mixed content → marketing.