WhatsApp now charges for customer service replies, at 1.6p each in the UK

Each business phone number gets 1,000 free delivered service messages a month. Unused ones don't roll over. From the 1,001st, you pay the same rate as a utility message in that market. For UK numbers that's £0.0159 a message on Meta's GBP rate card effective 1 October, or $0.022 on the USD card, according to the rate tables published by WhatsApp provider ChatMaxima.

“WhatsApp support just stopped being a free channel.”

Meta has also started charging again for utility templates sent in reply to a customer, like an order update sent after a question. Those had been free since 1 July 2025.

Meta says the change is meant "to ensure pricing reflects the value these messages deliver to businesses". Messages from customers to you stay free. So do replies in the free window, up to seven days, that opens when someone taps a click-to-WhatsApp ad. If you reply from the WhatsApp Business app on a phone, Techpoint Africa reports you're unaffected: the app is a separate product from the platform.

Who this hits

Anyone who built support, sales or booking flows on the API when replies cost nothing. The price per message is small. The volume is the problem, because a busy support bot can send thousands of replies a month.

If you run an agency, look at what you've built for clients. A WhatsApp assistant you quoted on the basis that replies were free now has a running cost, and the client will see it on their Meta bill or your provider's invoice. Better they hear it from you first.

If you're a marketer at a small brand, WhatsApp support just stopped being a free channel. It's still cheap. It isn't free.

If you sell SaaS and offer WhatsApp as a support channel, or resell it inside your product, the cost now scales with your customers' usage. Check whether your pricing does too.

There's a nudge built in. Meta's own AI, Meta Business Agent, isn't charged the service-message rate. It's billed by tokens instead, at $2 per million, and Meta says a typical message uses 20,000 to 25,000 tokens, roughly 4 to 5 cents. A third-party bot on a UK number pays Meta 2.2 cents a reply past the free 1,000, plus whatever your AI provider charges. Run that comparison on your own numbers before a provider talks you into switching.

What to do this week

1. Check your replies are still going out. Meta asked businesses to add a payment method by 30 September. Its pricing page says that without one, service messages stop once the free 1,000 are used.
2. Count last month's outbound replies per phone number. Under 1,000 a number, you pay nothing for service messages.
3. Over that, do the sum. A UK number sending 5,000 replies a month now pays about £63.60 (4,000 billable replies at £0.0159). At 20,000 replies it's about £302 a month, or roughly £3,600 a year (FER calculations from the GBP rate). Your provider may add its own margin: Techpoint Africa says to expect $0.003 to $0.010 or more a message on top.
4. Cut the chatty replies. A bot that sends "Thanks", then "Let me check", then the answer is now paying for three messages. Make it send one complete reply.
5. If you run client builds, send each client one paragraph this week: what changed, their volume and what it costs. Then decide who pays it, and put that in the next renewal.

At 5,000 replies a month this is about £64, not a crisis. It's a small price rise on a channel that used to be free. Check this month's number before it turns up on an invoice.