WhatsApp Pricing Change Proposed By Meta – Effective June 1, 2023

Under the old pricing model (until June 2023), businesses were being charged based on conversations rather than individual messages. For instance, delivery notification.

Ideally, a fee was applied per 24-hour conversation window, irrespective of the number of messages exchanged between a business and its customers. The fee depended on who initiated the conversation.

To reflect its vision via the new WhatsApp pricing model, Meta has introduced four conversation categories. These are as follows.

These are business-initiated conversations which typically entail transactions, such as,

As per Meta’s new WhatsApp pricing plan, utility conversations have become cheaper with an aim to enhance customer service and experience.

As the name suggests, Authentication conversations are those that prioritise security.

Businesses ideally use authentication templates to verify user identities through one-time passwords during login or verification processes, including account registration and recovery.

While Meta is yet to reveal the final WhatsApp pricing for Authentication conversations, it’s expected to be lower than the existing rates and are aligned with Utility conversation cost.

Marketing conversations refer to business-initiated communication for promoting products or services to customers. Businesses can use Marketing templates to send relevant offers, deals, product restocking information, and more such messages to customers. Any business-initiated conversation that does not fit into the Authentication or Utility category falls under Marketing.

The rates for Marketing conversations have been increased. However, this category also offers a higher return on investment compared to other messaging channels.

Service conversations are typically user-initiated conversations and primarily aim to resolve customer inquiries. For instance, a conversation initiated by a customer for tracking their order or to know more about a particular product or service offered by a business.

The fees for Service conversations has been kept similar to the current user-initiated conversations owing to the nature of the category.

Note,

Since business-initiated conversations are more template-driven, Meta will now use these templates to determine the conversation type of the (24 hour) conversation window. Businesses will be able to switch between categories to start a new conversation. However, these will also be charged, but accordingly.

For instance, if you begin a conversation with a Marketing template to promote your newly launched products, it will fall under the Marketing category. And, you will be charged as per the new Marketing conversation fee.

However, if during the conversation, you switch to a Utility template, a new 24-hour window will begin and you’ll be charged as per the Utility conversation fee structure.

All the existing WhatsApp Business templates have been categorised under these four categories starting April 1, 2023.