The short answer
Meta bills the WhatsApp Business Platform per delivered message, not per conversation. There are four paid categories: marketing, utility, authentication and service. Your provider (a Meta Business Solution Provider, or BSP, or a platform such as Voxvalley that connects through one) adds its own platform or per-message fee on top of Meta's charge, and 18% GST applies in India.
As of the fourth quarter of 2026, published India rates were roughly ₹0.86 per marketing message and roughly ₹0.12 per utility or authentication message, before GST. Meta can change rates at the start of each quarter, so always check the current rate card before you budget.
The four message categories
- Marketing: offers, product launches, reminders to come back, newsletters. The highest rate, and can be sent at any time using an approved template.
- Utility: order updates, payment receipts, appointment confirmations, delivery alerts. Low rate, with volume discounts as monthly volume grows.
- Authentication: one-time passwords and login codes. Low rate, with volume discounts. A separate, higher "authentication-international" rate applies in some markets when the business is outside the recipient's country.
- Service: free-form replies to a customer who messaged you, sent inside the 24-hour customer service window. Meta gives 1,000 free service messages per business number each month, then charges from the 1,001st.
When messages are free
- Customer messages to you are never charged.
- The 24-hour customer service window opens each time a customer messages you. Inside it you can reply without a template.
- Click-to-WhatsApp ads open a free entry point window of up to 7 days when you reply, in which all categories are free.
Note one 2026 change: utility templates sent inside an open service window were free from July 2025, but Meta began charging them again from 1 October 2026.
INR billing and GST
Meta introduced billing in Indian rupees from 1 January 2026. Eligible Indian businesses must move their WhatsApp Business Accounts to INR billing by 31 December 2026; Meta has said it will stop delivering messages from non-INR accounts after that date. GST at 18% applies to Meta's charges and to the provider's fees.
A worked example
A retailer sends 50,000 order updates (utility), 20,000 OTPs (authentication) and 10,000 promotional messages (marketing) in a month, and answers 3,000 customer questions inside the service window.
- Utility: 50,000 × ~₹0.12 ≈ ₹6,000
- Authentication: 20,000 × ~₹0.12 ≈ ₹2,400
- Marketing: 10,000 × ~₹0.86 ≈ ₹8,600
- Service: 3,000 replies, inside the 1,000-free allowance for the first 1,000, then charged per message
Meta's charges come to roughly ₹17,000 plus service-message charges, before GST and the provider's fee. Marketing is 12% of the volume but about half the cost, which is why most savings come from targeting marketing messages better, not from cutting utility alerts.
How to lower your WhatsApp bill
- Classify templates correctly. A template that reads like a promotion is billed as marketing, even if you submitted it as utility.
- Use the free windows. Ask customers to message you first (QR codes, "WhatsApp us" buttons, Click-to-WhatsApp ads) so replies fall inside the free windows.
- Fall back to SMS or RCS for alerts where WhatsApp adds no value. A workflow builder can try RCS, then WhatsApp, then SMS automatically.
- Grow utility and authentication volume on one account to reach Meta's volume tiers sooner.
How Voxvalley bills WhatsApp
Voxvalley connects to the WhatsApp Business Platform through a Meta Business Solution Provider (BSP), so you get the official API without contracting a BSP yourself. Your price covers Meta's per-message charges plus a transparent Voxvalley platform fee, billed in INR, USD or EUR. Resellers can white-label the WhatsApp channel and set their own prices for their customers. We send a rate card for your volume on request.
Sources: Meta, WhatsApp Business Platform pricing (rates and policies as published for Q4 2026). Rates change quarterly; verify against Meta's current rate card.