WhatsApp has changed its business pricing model starting February 1, 2022. 

From February 1, 2022 Businesses will be charged per conversation.

How did the older pricing model of WhatsApp work?

Under the older pricing model, 

• When a customer (user) sent you a message, the business could reply for free for up to 24 hours from the last customer message.

How has this changed under the new pricing model?

• WhatsApp Business API has started charging for all user-initiated conversations. The pricing will vary depending on the country code of the recipient's phone number (Check the detailed pricing table at the end of this article).

• WhatsApp costs are only incurred when the company responds to an inquiry.

• The first 1000 conversations are free per WhatsApp Business API account per month.

You can check the detailed pricing table at the end of this article.

How does it work?

WhatsApp Business API conversations are measured in 24-hour increments, or 'sessions'. The first message by the user will initiate a conversation (A user is defined as the person or entity with whom the business is interacting).

Freshworks will generate invoices separately for WhatsApp usage charges incurred in the previous calendar month at the start of the ongoing calendar month.

Let’s understand what User-Initiated Conversations mean, below:

User-initiated conversations:

Scenario: Customer care or general support inquiries in a single 24-hour conversation session.

• Our user, Kelly, messages Acme Air about an upcoming reservation. When Acme Air’s reply message is delivered, it starts the 24-hour conversation session.

• In this scenario, all additional messages are free within the 24-hour session. This encourages Acme Air to follow up with support inquiries promptly while providing users the ability to exchange as many messages as needed to resolve concerns within the 24-hour session.

In this scenario, Kelly gets the info she needs about her reservation, and Acme Air pays for one user-initiated conversation. If Acme Air continues to exchange messages with Kelly after the initial 24-hour conversation session has ended, they’ll incur costs related to a new conversation. 

Cost per Conversation in USD 

 
*Conversion rate:
While the aforementioned rates are in dollars, the invoice is generated in the base currency. The exchange rate for the same is as given below.

For more information about the revised WhatsApp pricing, please visit: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/pricing/conversationpricing

Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or write to crm-support@freshworks.com if you have more questions.