WhatsApp New Conversational-Based Pricing

Business Initiated Conversation (BIC)

A conversation that initiates from a business sending a user a message outside the 24-hour customer service window. Messages that initiate a business-initiated conversation will require a message template.

Business Initiated Conversation: 55p/conversation.

User Initiated Conversation (UIC)

• Effective from 1st June, 2023

WhatsApp pricing is categorised into four distinct categories:

1. Marketing conversation category – Include promotions or offers, informational updates, or invitations for customers to respond / take action. Any conversation that does not qualify as utility or authentication is a marketing conversation.

2. Authentication conversation category – Enable businesses to authenticate users with one-time passcodes, potentially at multiple steps in the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges)

3. Utility conversation category – Facilitate a specific, agreed-upon request or transaction or update to a customer about an ongoing transaction, including post-purchase notifications and recurring billing statements.

4. Service conversation category – all user-initiated conversations will be categorized as service conversations, which help customers resolve enquiries.

1. WhatsApp Conversation is a 24-hour messaging window initiated only when a business messages a user.

2. Starting April 1, 2023, template approval will require category validation using our new categories — Utility, Authentication and Marketing.

3. If a business replies to a user with a template message or sends a template message in an open service conversation, this opens a new conversation based on the template category.

4. For all Service Category conversations charges, it will only start when there are no other three category conversations ongoing, and a business responds to a user within 24 hours This means that you are only charged for service category conversation when there is no previous conversation window open with the user.

5. 1000 initial conversations per month are free for Service category messages (user-initiated conversation) only from 1st June 2023

6. When businesses engage in conversations that involve multiple categories such as Marketing, Authentication, Utility, or Service, charges will be applied separately for each category’s conversation window initiated.

7. When you send different types of message categories to users, there are a few important things to know about the charges:

Separate Charges: Each category of messages you send, like Marketing, Authentication, Utility, or Service, has its own charges. Business will be charged for each category separately. This means that if you send messages that fall into different categories to the same user in a 24-hour window, you will be charged for each category separately.

24-Hour Window: When you start a conversation in a specific category, you have 24 hours to chat without any extra charges. This gives you ample time to communicate with your customers

Example 1

Opening a marketing conversation inside a service conversation

A service conversation is opened at 9:31 when a business response to a customer message is delivered.

A marketing template is delivered while this service conversation is still open at 4:30.

This opens a separate marketing conversation. The result is one charge for a service conversation and one charge for a marketing conversation.

Example 2

Opening a utility conversation inside a marketing conversation

A marketing conversation is opened at 3:40 when a marketing template message is delivered.

Later, with the marketing conversation still open, a utility template is delivered at 6:00. This opens a separate utility conversation.

The result is one charge for a marketing conversation and one charge for a utility conversation

Example 3

Two templates of the same category result in only one conversation charge.

A utility conversation is opened at 9:00 when a utility template message is delivered.

Later, with the utility conversation still open, another utility template message is delivered at 11:00.

There is no new conversation charge because the template category used within the open conversation window did not change.

The result is one utility conversation charge.

Example 4

One template with both utility and marketing content

A template that includes content that is both utility and marketing based on our template guidelines is delivered at 11:59.

Whenever marketing content is identified in a template, the template will be categorised as marketing.

The result is one marketing conversation charge.

  Find the template pricing for each country here