WhatsApp Business API pricing: what a small business really pays each month, with 3 worked examples

You want your team to answer customers on WhatsApp, and you're wondering what that will cost each month. Meta charges for every message that gets delivered, your software provider charges as well, and since October 2026 even replies cost money once you send more than 1,000 a month.

Below you'll find Meta's prices for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, 3 worked examples from a trades business, a restaurant and an online store, and a formula for running your own numbers.

What does Meta charge for?

Meta only charges for messages from your business to a customer, and only when they are delivered. Whatever customers send you is free, photos and voice messages included.

The price depends on 2 things: the category of the message and the country code of your customer's number. Where your business is based makes no difference.

Free text in the 24 hour window

You can only send free text within 24 hours of the customer's last message. Each new message from them restarts the 24 hours.

Meta calls these replies service messages, whether a person writes them or an AI.

Templates once the window has closed

Once the window has closed, or if you want to message someone first, you can only send a template that Meta has approved in advance. Templates come in 3 categories:

• Marketing for offers and news
• Utility for updates on an order, an appointment or a request
• Authentication for verification codes

What changed on October 1, 2026

Since October 1, 2026, every number gets 1,000 service messages a month for free. From the 1,001st on you pay, and whatever you don't use in a month expires.

Since the same day, utility templates you send into an open window cost money too. Before that, both were free.

So where your bill ends up depends mostly on one number: how many replies your team writes each month.

What does a message cost in Germany, Austria and Switzerland?

These are the prices per message from Meta's rate card in euros, valid from October 1, 2026. Meta puts Austria and Switzerland in its "Rest of Western Europe" region.

German numbers are among the expensive ones. A marketing message costs €0.1131 here, and less than half that when it goes to an Austrian number.

Volume discounts only exist for utility and authentication, and in Germany they start at the 100,001st utility message in a month. So they make no difference to a small business.

Meta also publishes the rate card in US dollars, Brazilian reais and other currencies. According to its own calendar, Meta only changes prices at the start of a quarter: on January 1, April 1, July 1 or October 1.

How to spot an outdated pricing page

All Meta figures in this article come from Meta's pricing documentation and the euro rate card in effect since October 1, 2026. Meta has charged per message since July 1, 2025.

If a pricing page still works with 24 hour "conversations", it is out of date. The same goes for a page that calls every reply inside the 24 hour window free, because free replies have been capped since October.

7 days without Meta fees after an ad

One exception is worth real money. If someone messages you from their phone through an ad that leads to WhatsApp (Click to WhatsApp) and you reply within 24 hours, your reply opens a window of up to 7 days.

Within that window, Meta charges nothing for any message to that person, templates included.

No payment method, no replies

Add a payment method for your WhatsApp account in Meta's billing settings. Since October, Meta only delivers the 1,000 free service messages to accounts without one. From the 1,001st service message in a month, your replies no longer arrive.

The second cost: the software

Providers price this in very different ways, for example:

• According to its own pricing page, the API provider 360dialog charges €49 a month per number on its smallest plan and, by its own account, adds nothing on top of Meta's fees.
• According to its pricing page, Twilio charges $0.005 per message, incoming and outgoing alike, on top of Meta.

With every offer, ask whether Meta's fees are passed through unchanged or with a markup.

What Deskwoot charges

Deskwoot is our own tool. You connect your number to it directly through Meta's WhatsApp Cloud API. Meta bills the fees to your WhatsApp Business account, and Deskwoot adds no markup.

Deskwoot itself charges for team seats and for AI conversations beyond your plan's allowance, in US dollars:

How an AI conversation is counted

Fynn is the AI assistant in Deskwoot. An AI conversation counts once per conversation and calendar month, however many replies Fynn writes in it.

You pay for extra ones from a prepaid balance (how Fynn is billed).

Templates, and numbers on Twilio

On every plan you can send approved templates right from the conversation, including to start a new conversation.

You can also connect a number that already runs on Twilio. In that case Twilio's fees come on top, and Deskwoot only sends templates through numbers connected directly through Meta (templates after the 24 hour window).

Example 1: a plumbing business with 3 people

All 3 examples assume that customers have German numbers, Deskwoot runs on the Startup plan billed annually, and Fynn replies first to every new request.

The owner, an office assistant and a plumber share the WhatsApp number. Each month brings 90 requests, and Fynn and the team write about 8 messages per request: asking for the address and photos, agreeing on a time, confirming.

A reminder goes out the day before each appointment, 40 a month. By then the window is usually closed, so it has to be a utility template.

Meta only gets €1.82 a month here, because every reply falls within the free allowance.

A discount turns the reminder into advertising

If the reminder said "10% off heating maintenance this autumn", Meta would treat it as advertising. The €1.82 would then turn into €4.52.

Under Meta's template categorization rules, templates with mixed content count as marketing. Meta also changes the category of templates it has already approved, with one day's notice.

Our page AI for contractors and tradesmen shows how a trades business can sort its WhatsApp requests.

Example 2: a restaurant with 4 people

A restaurant with 80 seats gets booking requests on WhatsApp, along with questions about opening hours, allergens and groups. That adds up to 450 requests a month, each with about 5 messages from Fynn and the team.

The restaurant is closed on Mondays. Whatever Fynn hands over to the team on Sunday evening, such as a request for a party of 20, often gets an answer only on Tuesday, when the window has closed. That makes 60 utility templates a month.

Here Meta is the bigger cost at €59.74, and only since October. Until the end of September, all 2,250 replies would have been free.

Startup or Business?

Startup is enough as long as all channels together stay under 1,000 conversations a month. Business, which has no such limit, would come to 4 × $6.40 plus 350 × $0.05, so $43.10.

What a chatbot can take on in a restaurant, and where it has to stop, is on our page AI for restaurants.

Example 3: an online store with 3 people

A store selling bike accessories gets 300 WhatsApp requests a month, mostly about delivery status, sizes and returns, with about 6 messages each.

In 80 cases a month, the team only gets back to the customer after more than 24 hours, for example once a return has arrived and the money has been refunded. It sends a utility template for that.

If the store also sells to Austria and Switzerland, Meta's share goes down. Numbers from those 2 countries cost €0.0142 instead of €0.0456.

Business would cost $29.20 here (3 × $6.40 plus 200 × $0.05), with no limit on conversations. There's more on order questions in chat on our page for online stores.

How to keep Meta's bill small

• Write one message instead of three. "Hi!", "Thanks for your message" and "We have a table on Saturday from 7 pm" count as 3 service messages for Meta.
• Reply with free text while the window is open. A free text reply comes out of the free allowance, while a utility template in the same window costs money from the first one.
• Reply before the 24 hours are up. After that you need a template for the same information, and templates cost money from the first message.
• Keep advertising out of utility templates. In Germany, a single discount in the text turns €0.0456 into €0.1131.
• Every number has its own free allowance. A business with 2 locations and 2 numbers gets 2,000 free service messages a month.
• Questions in the live chat on your website don't go through WhatsApp and cost nothing in Meta fees.

Advertising is the most expensive item

An offer sent to 300 regular customers with German numbers costs €33.93 in Meta fees every time you send it.

Deskwoot doesn't send WhatsApp broadcasts. Campaigns are available in Deskwoot from the Business plan up, and they only go out by email.

When is the API worth it instead of the free app?

The WhatsApp Business app is free, and so are messages sent from it. According to Meta, they even stay free when the same number also runs through the API.

If one person handles the replies in your business, the app is often the right choice. The API pays off as soon as one of these applies:

• Several people answer on the same number and need to see who has picked up what. Our post on WhatsApp Business with several employees covers what the app can do for a team and where it stops.
• You want an AI to answer at night and on weekends.
• You want WhatsApp in one inbox together with email and the chat on your website.
• The number shouldn't be tied to a single phone.

And the number on your phone?

Meta now lets you use a number in the Business app and through the API at the same time, if the provider builds in this coexistence. Deskwoot doesn't offer it. A number you connect to Deskwoot runs only through the platform from then on.

If the number currently sits in the Business app, Meta says you first have to delete the account there. The app's chat history is lost when you do. So back it up first, or use a new number for the API.

Your own calculation in 3 lines

1. Requests per month times messages per request, minus 1,000, times the price for your customers' country.
2. Plus the templates you send after the window has closed, times the price for their category.
3. Plus your provider's price.

What Deskwoot takes off your plate

For the plumbing business in example 1, Deskwoot costs $12.40 a month and Meta €1.82. For that, all 3 people reply from one inbox, and the first reply goes out even at night, when nobody picks up the phone.

You can check every figure on the pricing page and in Meta's rate card. On the go, you reply in the Deskwoot app for iPhone and Android, which is free on every plan and sends a push notification for new messages.

If your number already runs on Wati, Zoko, Twilio or 360dialog, you move it to Deskwoot in Meta Business Manager. Your approved templates come along, because they belong to your WhatsApp Business account.

For $99, paid once, our team sets up Deskwoot for you: it connects your channels, trains and tests Fynn on your website and adds the chat to your website. A plan is not included.

Your next step

Create a workspace at deskwoot.com/signup and connect your number by following the help article Setting up WhatsApp. Then send yourself a WhatsApp message, and it lands in the shared inbox.

The first 7 days run on Enterprise, with no credit card and for up to 30 people, you included. If you don't pay after that, you keep the free Hacker plan for 1 person, just without Fynn.