Replies to customers on WhatsApp have been free since November 2024. Meta confirmed on 2 September that this ends on 1 October 2026. From that date, every reply your business sends is a billable message.
Nothing changes in how you use Zacx. What changes is the Meta charge on your account.
What a service message is
Every message a business sends on the WhatsApp Business API is one of two kinds.
A template message is pre-approved by Meta and can be sent at any time, whether or not the customer has written to you recently. Broadcasts, OTPs and order confirmations are templates. Meta already charges for these, by category: Marketing, Utility or Authentication.
A service message is everything else. When a customer messages you, a 24 hour window opens, and inside it you can send free-form messages without a template. A typed reply from your team, a chatbot response, a quick reply button, a photo or a PDF sent in the chat: all of these are service messages. They have been free since November 2024.
What changes
Service messages are charged. From 1 October, every service message is billed at the same rate as a Utility template. The current rate for India is on our pricing page.
Utility templates sent inside the window are charged too. These have been free inside the window since July 2025. That ends on the same date.
Charges are per message, not per conversation. Six replies in one chat are six charges. This is the detail that decides your bill.
1,000 free service messages a month
Each WhatsApp number gets its first 1,000 service messages free every month. Charging starts from the 1,001st. The count resets on the 1st and unused messages do not carry over.
Monthly cost = (service messages sent − 1,000) × Utility rate. All charges exclude 18% GST.
What stays the same
- Messages from customers to you remain free.
- Marketing and Authentication template rates are unchanged.
- Replies inside the 72 hour window from a Click to WhatsApp ad remain free.
- Your Zacx plan price is unchanged. Meta’s rates are passed on as published, with no markup.
- The 24 hour window itself works exactly as before.
What this costs in practice
How many messages become chargeable at different reply volumes from one number. Multiply the last column by the Utility rate on the pricing page for the monthly Meta charge.
| Replies sent per month | Free tier | Chargeable messages |
|---|---|---|
| 800 | 1,000 | 0 |
| 2,500 | 1,000 | 1,500 |
| 6,000 | 1,000 | 5,000 |
| 15,000 | 1,000 | 14,000 |
How this affects your chatbot
A bot reply is a service message like any other. Meta does not distinguish between a person typing and an automation sending. Every step your bot sends is one message against the free tier.
Take a bot with 20 steps: a greeting, a menu, a few questions, and a confirmation. One customer completing that flow costs 20 service messages. 500 customers a month is 10,000 messages, of which 9,000 are chargeable.
The same bot cut to 8 steps sends 4,000 messages for the same 500 customers, and 3,000 of those are chargeable. It still does its job. It asks less and sends less.
How to keep the cost down
Replace multi-step questions with a WhatsApp Form. A Form collects name, preferred date, service and any other field in one interactive message. The 20-step bot above becomes two messages: the Form and a confirmation. 500 customers a month is 1,000 messages, all inside the free tier. Forms can be triggered from the automation builder. See the Forms documentation.
Send one complete reply instead of several short ones. Opening hours, location and parking in one message is one charge. The same information sent as three messages is three.
Send Utility templates proactively. A confirmation sent on its own costs the same as one sent inside the window from October, and it usually prevents the follow-up question.
Meta Business Agent is billed separately
Meta also sells its own AI assistant, Meta Business Agent, billed per token. It applies only if you enable it. Replies from your team or from Zacx automations are service messages and follow the pricing above.
Questions about this change
If you would like to know how this applies to your account, or want an estimate based on your current reply volume, contact us on WhatsApp or by email. We can review your numbers and suggest where a Form or a shorter flow would help.
The current rates are on the pricing page.