We want to give you advance notice of a pricing change Meta has announced for the WhatsApp Business Platform.
What's changing on October 1, 2026
Every message sent within the service window (by an agent, in reply to a customer, or via a third-party AI) becomes billable. An exchange made up of 4 outbound messages will now generate 4 separate Meta charges, billed at the utility and authentication message rate by country (for example, €0.0248 per message in France).
Utility messages sent within an already-open service window, currently free, will also be charged per message.
What isn't changing
How the service window works: it still opens and resets with each message a customer sends, and service messages can still only be sent within that 24-hour window.
Messages sent by your customers, which remain 100% free.
Template pricing (Marketing, Utility, Authentication). Learn more.
Our recommendations
The spirit of WhatsApp remains the same: when a contact replies, it's a sign of genuine interest. That level of engagement remains valuable, even with this new rate.
That said, if you'd like to, you can:
Optimize your campaigns and automations by identifying the flows most exposed to this change and favoring more complete messages to limit back-and-forth exchanges.
Complement your WhatsApp strategy with RCS and SMS.
These channels can be more cost-effective depending on the use case, while also letting you reach a complementary audience.
RCS also offers rich, interactive formats similar to WhatsApp's.
To make it easy for you to try RCS, we're offering free agent creation along with your first month's license.
Our team will help you identify a first use case and launch your campaign.We'll continue to monitor Meta's pricing closely and keep you informed of any further changes.
Frequently asked questions
Are the first 1,000 service messages each month really free?
Yes. Each month, the first 1,000 service messages sent from your WAX account (your agents' replies in the Inbox and the replies sent by your automations) are completely free: no Meta fee and no WAX fee. Per-message billing only starts from the 1,001st message.
The counter resets at the start of each month. You can check how many you've used at any time in Analytics (the "Service" tile), and directly in the Inbox, below the reply box, which shows how many free messages you have left.
Does the cost estimate for my campaigns take this change into account?
Yes. Before you send a campaign, the estimated cost now includes the replies planned in your flow, at the service message rate (WhatsApp fees and WAX fees included). Any free messages you have left for the month are automatically deducted from the estimate.
Since no one can know in advance how many contacts will interact, the estimate may be shown as a range: the lower amount covers the messages every recipient will receive, and the higher amount also includes messages that are only sent if the contact interacts (clicking a button, replying, etc.). Either way, you're only billed for messages that are actually delivered.
Are the WAX AI Agent's replies billed per message?
No. Replies sent by the WAX AI Agent carry no per-message fees: no Meta fee and no WAX fee. The AI Agent is still billed per conversation it handles (a 24-hour exchange with a customer), however many messages it sends.
If a conversation is handed over to one of your agents, their replies are billed as standard service messages and also count toward your 1,000 free messages for the month.
Third-party AI tools connected to WAX don't get this: their messages are billed as described above.