WhatsApp API pricing confuses most Indian businesses — Meta charges per conversation, not per message. This guide explains exactly what you pay, when you pay it, and what the total monthly cost looks like for businesses of different sizes.
See WA.Expert Plans →Meta charges for each 24-hour conversation window — not for each individual message. If you send 10 messages to the same customer within 24 hours, you pay for one conversation. If you send 1 message, you also pay for one conversation. This matters for how you structure your automations.
| Conversation type | Rate (India) | When it applies | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing | ₹0.82 | Business sends promotional message | Sale announcements, product launches, offers |
| Utility | ₹0.35 | Business sends transactional message | Order confirmations, shipping, receipts, reminders |
| Authentication | ₹0.15 | OTPs and verification codes | Login OTPs, password reset codes |
| Service | FREE | Customer messages you first | Customer enquiries, support, chatbot conversations |
The 24-hour window rule: Once a conversation is opened (either by your template message or a customer message), all messages within the next 24 hours are in the same conversation window and cost nothing extra. This means multi-step automation sequences cost the same as single messages if they fire within 24 hours of each other.
| Business profile | Monthly Meta fees | WA.Expert plan | Total/month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early stage 500 order notifications/month |
₹175 | ₹2,499 | ₹2,674 |
| Growing brand 2,000 utility + 500 marketing/month |
₹1,110 | ₹2,499 | ₹3,609 |
| Established D2C 5,000 utility + 2,000 marketing/month |
₹3,390 | ₹4,999 | ₹8,389 |
| Large enterprise 25,000 utility + 10,000 marketing/month |
₹16,950 | Custom | ₹20,000+ |
ROI context: A D2C brand at 1,000 orders/month spending ₹3,600/month on WA.Expert saves ₹45,000/month in RTO logistics from COD verification alone, and recovers ₹44,800/month from abandoned cart. ROI: 25× monthly cost from just two automations.
An order confirmation is Utility (₹0.35) not Marketing (₹0.82). Categorise correctly and save 57% on every transactional message.
If you send an order confirmation and then a shipping update within 24 hours, that's one conversation fee — not two. Design sequences to fit within the window when practical.
Sending to invalid or churned numbers wastes conversation fees. WA.Expert automatically detects undeliverable numbers and removes them from active lists.
Route inbound customer enquiries to WhatsApp. Support conversations from customers are free. Design your chatbot to ask customers to initiate the conversation, keeping the conversation type as free service rather than paid utility.
Don't broadcast to your entire contact list — segment by recency, purchase history, and engagement. Higher engagement rates mean better quality scores and lower opt-out rates, both of which reduce wasted spend.
Talk to a WA.Expert consultant who will calculate your expected Meta fees and estimated ROI based on your specific use case.