WhatsApp Business API pricing in India, explained

The short version

• Since 1 July 2025 Meta charges per delivered template message, not per 24-hour conversation.
• There are three paid categories: marketing, utility and authentication. Marketing costs about 7.5 times as much as utility or authentication in India.
• Replies you send inside the 24-hour customer service window are free. Utility templates sent inside that window are free too.
• Customers who reach you through a click-to-WhatsApp ad or a Facebook Page button open a 72-hour window where every message to them is free.
• You can pay Meta directly. With your own card in Meta Billing Hub, no provider should add a markup on top. Ask how your provider bills messages before you sign.

This guide covers the WhatsApp Business Platform, the official API that platforms like Aviral WhatsApp Platform connect to. It is not about the free WhatsApp Business app on your phone. Meta owns the pricing and can change it, so use this as a planning guide and confirm current rates in Meta’s official pricing page and in your own Meta Billing Hub.

How per-message pricing works

Until June 2025, Meta charged per conversation. You paid once for a 24-hour block and could send many messages inside it. From 1 July 2025 Meta moved to per-message pricing: every template message you send is priced on its own, by its category and by the country calling code of the person who receives it.

Two things follow from that. First, you are charged when a message is delivered, not when you press send, so failed messages cost nothing. Second, only template messages carry a per-message price. Free-form messages (text, images, documents, buttons) have no price, but you can send them only inside an open customer service window.

Message categories and India rates

Every template belongs to one of three paid categories. The fourth row below, service messages, is not a template category: it is the name for free-form replies inside the 24-hour window.

Marketing

Marketing is the default for anything promotional. If a template mixes a receipt with an offer, Meta usually treats the whole message as marketing. It is the most expensive category, at about 7.5 times the utility rate, so it is where the bill is won or lost.

Utility

Utility messages relate to a specific transaction or request the customer has already made: an order confirmation, a shipping update, a payment receipt, a booking reminder. They should carry no promotion. Utility templates sent inside an open service window are free; outside the window they are charged at the utility rate.

Authentication

Authentication templates deliver one-time passcodes. Meta fixes their format, so you cannot add offers or extra text. Authentication sent to Indian numbers by a business registered outside India has a separate, higher rate in Meta’s rate card.

The 24-hour customer service window

When a customer messages you, a customer service window opens and stays open for 24 hours from their latest message. Each new message from them restarts the clock. Inside the window you can send any free-form message, and you pay nothing for it.

Once the window closes you can reach the customer only with an approved template, and Meta charges for it by category. That is why fast replies matter for cost as well as service: an answer sent in time is free, and a late one needs a paid template. The team inbox in Aviral WhatsApp Platform shows the time left in the window on every chat.

Free entry points from ads

If a customer starts a chat from a click-to-WhatsApp ad or a WhatsApp button on your Facebook Page, and you reply within 24 hours, Meta opens a free entry point window that lasts 72 hours from your reply. In that time every message to that customer is free, including marketing templates.

• It applies when the customer uses WhatsApp on Android or iOS. The desktop and web apps are not covered.
• It runs alongside the 24-hour window and does not replace it.
• Messages sent for free do not count toward volume tiers, because only charged messages count.

For a business that sells through Facebook and Instagram ads, this is the biggest lever on cost: the follow-up offers you send in those 72 hours cost nothing.

Volume tiers

For utility and authentication templates, Meta applies lower rates as your monthly volume grows. Tiers are set per market and per category, they count charged messages across all WhatsApp Business Accounts in the same business portfolio, and they reset every month. When you reach a new tier, the lower rate applies to the messages in that tier.

Marketing messages have no volume discount. Meta decides the tier thresholds and publishes them in its rate card for each currency; look for the INR volume tiers there. The utility and authentication rates in this guide are the standard rates, so high-volume senders can pay less.

A worked monthly example

Here is an illustrative month for an online home-decor store. The numbers are made up to show the arithmetic; they are not a customer. It sends 20,000 festive-offer messages, 15,000 order and shipping updates after the customer’s window has closed, and 2,000 login codes. Customers also write in and the team replies from the inbox, which costs nothing.

Almost the whole bill is marketing. If half of those 15,000 order updates went out while the customer’s window was still open, they would cost nothing, so a real bill is often lower than a simple multiplication. You can try your own numbers in the message cost calculator.

How to lower your costs

• Send marketing only to people who want it. Each marketing message costs ₹0.8631 whether or not it is read. Segment by interest and recent activity, and honour opt-outs straight away. Meta also caps how many marketing messages one person can receive, so over-sending fails and annoys.
• Get customers to message you first. A chat they start opens a free window. Put a WhatsApp link or QR code on your website, packaging, Instagram bio and Google Business Profile, and run click-to-WhatsApp ads for the 72-hour free window.
• Reply while the window is open. Free-form replies cost nothing, and a template sent after the window closes does. Route chats to the right person fast and set up automatic answers for common questions.
• Send utility updates while the window is open. If a customer has just written to you, send the order or booking update then: utility templates are free inside the window.
• Use categories honestly. Dressing up an offer as a utility message risks recategorisation and, if repeated, trouble with your account’s quality rating. The saving is not worth it.
• Clean your list. Remove numbers that are not on WhatsApp and contacts who never respond. You are charged only for delivered messages, but a poor reply rate also pulls down your quality rating and your sending limits.
• Estimate before you send. The campaign review step in Aviral WhatsApp Platform shows an estimated Meta cost for the audience you chose, so a large send never surprises you.

How billing works

On the official platform, Meta charges for delivered template messages. The usual setup is that your WhatsApp Business Account has a payment method that you add in Meta Billing Hub, and Meta charges it directly. Some providers instead bill you and pay Meta on your behalf. You see the charges in Billing Hub and on Meta’s invoices.

In India, Meta now bills in rupees. Meta asks eligible Indian businesses to move their WhatsApp Business Accounts to INR billing by 31 December 2026, and from 1 January 2027 it stops delivering messages from accounts that are still billed in another currency. If your account was created before the switch, check its currency in Billing Hub.

Tech Provider or BSP markup

The software you use to send messages sits between you and Meta, and providers handle the money in two different ways.

You own the account, Meta bills you

With a Tech Provider setup, you onboard your own WhatsApp Business Account through Meta’s Embedded Signup. The account, the phone number and the payment method are yours, and Meta bills you at Meta’s rates. The provider charges a separate fee for the software. This is the default with Aviral WhatsApp Platform: a flat plan fee, and no markup on Meta’s message fees when you pay Meta directly.

The provider bills you for messages

Some providers act as a business solution provider (BSP) that holds the credit line. They bill you per message, often with a markup, or sell prepaid message credits. That can be convenient if you do not want to add a payment method with Meta, but the cost per message is higher than Meta’s own rate, and you may not see what Meta actually charged.

Aviral WhatsApp Platform offers this too, as an option: a prepaid wallet you recharge in rupees by UPI, card or net banking. Wallet message rates include a small margin to cover payment-gateway and Meta-side fees, and you can switch to paying Meta directly at any time.

Source: Meta, WhatsApp Business Platform pricing. Rates in this guide come from Aviral Techlab’s rate table for India, as of 1 October 2026. Meta sets and may change them at any time.