WhatsApp is where many customers prefer to talk to a business. To answer them from a shared team inbox, connect WhatsApp to your own systems or add an AI chatbot, you need the WhatsApp Business Platform, usually called the WhatsApp Business API. This guide explains how its pricing works, which rules apply to chatbots and how to get started. It is based on Meta’s own documentation as of October 2026.

App or API: what's the difference?

  • WhatsApp Business app: free, used on a phone and linked devices, with quick replies, labels and a catalogue. Fine when one or two people answer chats by hand.
  • WhatsApp Business Platform (API): has no app of its own. It connects WhatsApp to software: a shared team inbox, your CRM, booking or shop system, and chatbots. Certain messages are charged.

If several people answer customer chats, or you want bookings, order updates or a chatbot to run automatically, you need the platform.

How pricing works

Since 1 July 2025, Meta charges per delivered template message instead of per conversation. A template is a message that Meta has approved in advance and that a business may send to start or restart a conversation. The price depends on the template's category and the country code of the recipient's phone number.

  • Marketing: offers, news and invitations to come back. Always charged.
  • Utility: updates about something the customer started, such as an order confirmation or an appointment reminder. Free inside the customer service window, charged outside it.
  • Authentication: one-time login codes. Charged.
  • Normal replies: text, images and other messages you send to a customer who wrote to you. Free within the customer service window.

The 24-hour customer service window

When a customer sends you a message, a 24-hour window opens. Within it you can reply freely, and utility templates are free too. Once 24 hours pass without a new message from the customer, you can only send templates, and those are charged by category. A customer who contacts you from a Click to WhatsApp ad or a Facebook Page button on their phone opens a 72-hour window in which all your messages are free.

In practice, a chatbot that mainly answers customers who write first costs very little in WhatsApp fees. The costs come from marketing messages and from reminders sent outside the window. Current rates per country are on Meta’s pricing page.

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Rules for AI chatbots

Meta’s terms for the WhatsApp Business Platform do not allow general-purpose AI assistants on the platform: products where the AI itself is what is being offered, such as a public ChatGPT-style bot. A chatbot that serves your own customers, answering questions, taking bookings and orders and giving support, remains allowed, because the AI supports your business instead of being the product.

  • Customers must agree (opt in) before you send them templates, and must be able to stop them easily.
  • Meta reviews every template before use, and it must match its category.
  • A person should be able to take over when the chatbot can't help.
  • Data protection law applies to the chats. In the EU that is the GDPR: tell customers how you use their data and keep only what you need.

How to get started

  1. Choose the number. A new number or your existing WhatsApp Business number. Depending on the setup, you can keep using the app alongside the platform.
  2. Set up the business account. A Meta business account with your display name and profile. Verifying your business with Meta raises your sending limits.
  3. Choose how you connect. Through a Meta business solution provider or directly through Meta's Cloud API, linked to your inbox, CRM or shop.
  4. Write your templates. Confirmations, reminders and updates, submitted to Meta for approval.
  5. Automate step by step. Start with frequent questions and bookings, with a handover to your team, then expand.

Where an AI chatbot fits

Once the platform is in place, an AI chatbot can answer routine questions from your own information, take bookings and orders and pass conversations to your team with the full history. Read more about our WhatsApp AI chatbot or see the AI receptionist and WhatsApp cost guide.

Want WhatsApp to answer your customers for you? Tell us what your customers ask or send us a WhatsApp message, and you receive a free, personal proposal.

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