Starting July 1st, 2025, WhatsApp will be moving to a per template message based pricing model and the new pricing will be reflected in the WhatsApp Business API with Twilio. This guide explains the changes and what to expect from the WhatsApp Business API with Twilio. If you want to learn more about the pricing model prior to July 1st, 2025, please click here.
What is changing?
Meta will switch to a per template message pricing structure starting from July 1st 2025. 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
Template Categories
You choose a template category when you submit a template to WhatsApp for review through the Content Template Builder or Content Template API. Meta may recategorise your template based on their own algorithms after submission and you can choose to let this happen or not when you submit the template for WhatsApp review.
WhatsApp divides template categories into three types:
- Authentication: One-time passcodes.
- Marketing: Any business-initiated template that does not qualify as utility or authentication. Can include promotions, offers, informational updates, or invitations for customers to respond / take a certain action.
- Utility: Confirm or suspend an existing transaction, change or update a transaction, account, billing, or payment notification
Free Entry Points and Free Conversations
With the launch of the new pricing structure, free entry point conversations (conversations started by an end user through Click to WhatsApp Ad or Facebook Page Call-to-Action buttons) will behave the same but reflect messages instead of conversations. If a WhatsApp user messages you via a free entry point surface, you can respond with any type of message for free within 24 hours; this opens a free entry point customer service window that lasts 72 hours. You can continue to message the user using any type of message while this window is open without any Meta template charges. Twilio per-message costs still apply.
Free Service Conversations
Starting November 1, 2024, service conversations are free for all businesses (free tier conversations are now unlimited instead of capped at 1,000). As a reminder, a customer service window must be open between you and a WhatsApp user before you can send the user a non-template message. Twilio per-message costs still apply.
How does this impact Twilio's per message charges?
Twilio’s pricing model for WhatsApp is not changing. A separate fee is applicable depending on how a customer is using the WhatsApp Business API with Twilio:
- Programmable Messaging API - per message fee
- Conversations API - additional per MAU fee
- Flex - per seat or AUH fee, unlimited messages subject to fair use policy
How does this impact my business use case?
This pricing change can impact your business use case depending on your messaging patterns. 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 (i.e., service conversations) messages with a non-templated or utility template message, these messages will no longer incur any Meta charges.
For full details on this pricing change, see Meta’s Developer Documentation here.