Is WhatsApp paid now? — a full map of what you pay for and what you do not, 2026
The short answer
WhatsApp for business was never entirely free and is not becoming entirely paid. Messages you start — offers, alerts, verification codes — have been paid for years. What was free is replying to someone who wrote to you first.
What changes on 1 October 2026 is that half alone: it becomes free up to 1,000 messages per number per month, and charged after. The change in detail.
And in our own measurement of real platform traffic, 71% of conversations cost nothing. Anyone fearing a surprise bill is most likely paying less than they think, not more.
The map: what is free and what is paid
Free
- Your reply inside the 24-hour window — uncapped until 30 Sep 2026, then 1,000 per number a month
- Everything in the ad window — 72 hours for anyone arriving from a Click-to-WhatsApp ad; templates inside are free
- Receiving customer messages — what arrives is never charged
- The business account itself — no monthly fee from Meta
Paid
- A marketing template — offers and broadcasts, the dearest in every market
- A utility template — order confirmation, shipping, reminders
- An authentication template — login and verification codes
- Your replies past the thousand — from 1 October 2026 only
The three paid categories are not one price. In Egypt a marketing template is about fifteen times a utility one. Sending "your order has shipped" as marketing rather than utility multiplies that message fifteenfold for nothing. It is the single most wasted line on bills in this market.
And how much of it is actually free — measured, not guessed
Every page in this market reprints Meta's table. These come from the other side of it: the billing ledger on our own platform — what we actually paid on real traffic.
The practical meaning: if most of your work is answering people who message you — which describes most shops — the Meta half of your bill is far smaller than you imagine, before October and after.
And after 1 October 2026?
Your replies inside the 24-hour window are free today — and from 1 October 2026 each phone number gets 1,000 free a month, with the rest charged at the customer's market utility rate.
Nothing else on the map above changes. Templates stay as they are, the ad window stays free, and receiving stays free. The change in full · and worked examples.
Frequently asked
Does a WhatsApp Business account itself have a subscription?
No. Meta charges no monthly fee for the account — only for messages. What you may pay a subscription for is the platform you run the conversations on, which is a separate number entirely. Both numbers together here.
Is the ordinary WhatsApp Business app paid?
No — it is entirely free and unrelated to any of this. The fees here belong to the WhatsApp Business API, the interface that lets you automate, broadcast and connect a store. The difference in full.
The customer messages me first — do I pay?
Until 30 September 2026: no, not a cent however much you reply. From 1 October: the first 1,000 replies per number per month are free and each message after is charged. Most shops never reach that number.
And if I message the customer first?
Here you pay, and that has not changed in years. Anything you start is a pre-approved template, priced by its kind: marketing (the dearest), utility, or authentication (OTP). The spread is wide — in Egypt a marketing template is about fifteen times a utility one.
What is the 24-hour window?
A clock that opens the moment a customer messages you and resets with every message from them. Inside it you can reply freely with no templates. Once it closes and they have not written, you can only reach them with a paid template — which is why merchants care about keeping it open.
Is anything free with no limit at all?
Yes: a customer arriving from a Click-to-WhatsApp ad or a Facebook page button opens a 72-hour window in which templates are free. In our measurement that is about 9% of our traffic, and it is a practical reason to favour that ad format over others.
Read next
Know your own bill, not the average
ArabyBot shows every message with its category and cost from Meta itself — and the thousand-free counter for each number on its own.