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This page covers messages sent through Gallabox. If you have WhatsApp Coexistence enabled, messages you send by hand from the WhatsApp Business App on your phone are free and don’t follow any of the rules below.
Meta charges per message delivered. Three things decide whether a given message costs you anything, and how much:
  1. Who started the conversation, and how long ago — this opens a free window.
  2. What kind of message you’re sending — a free-form reply, or a pre-approved template.
  3. Where your customer is — the rate follows their phone number’s country.
Get the first one right and most of your messages are free. The Rate Card has the actual numbers.

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The two free windows

Almost every question about WhatsApp cost comes down to: is a free window open right now?

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The 24-hour service window

Opens when your customer messages you. Every reply they send resets it back to a full 24 hours, so an active back-and-forth keeps it open indefinitely. While it’s open, you can reply with service messages — ordinary free-form text, images, videos, buttons. No template, no approval, no waiting. When it closes, free-form replies stop working. The only way to reach that customer again is a pre-approved template, and that send is charged.
Answer inside the window and you stay in the cheap lane. Let it lapse and every re-engagement costs you a template.

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The 72-hour ad window

Opens when you reply to someone who arrived from a Click-to-WhatsApp ad or a Facebook/Instagram Page button. Three details that trip people up:
  • The clock starts when you answer — not when they first message you. A slow first reply doesn’t shrink the window, but you have to reply within the normal 24 hours to open it at all.
  • It only applies if they tapped through on the WhatsApp mobile app (Android or iOS). Desktop and web don’t qualify.
  • It runs alongside the 24-hour window, not instead of it. If the customer goes quiet and the 24-hour window shuts, you’re back to templates only — even though the ad window is technically still open. The ad window makes those templates free; it doesn’t let you send free-form messages.
Everything you send in these 72 hours is free, templates included. That doesn’t change on October 1, 2026.

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Templates and their categories

A template is a message you get approved in advance so you can send it outside the service window. Every template belongs to one of three categories, picked when you create it: The category sets the price, and Marketing is by far the most expensive.
You pick the category, but Meta checks that the content matches. A “Utility” template that reads like a promotion gets recategorized to Marketing automatically — and every send after that is charged at the Marketing rate. Keep promotional language out of Utility templates.

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What’s free, what’s charged

Every business phone number also gets 1,000 free service messages a month from October 1, 2026 — Meta only starts charging from the 1,001st. This resets each calendar month and doesn’t carry over.
You’re charged only for messages that are actually delivered. Failed sends cost nothing.

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A worked example

A customer journey, hour by hour, and what each step costs: Four business messages, two charges.

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What changes on October 1, 2026

Two things that are free today start costing money:
  • Service messages — free-form replies inside the service window, uncharged since November 2024, begin billing per message at your market’s Utility rate.
  • Utility templates inside the service window — free since July 1, 2025, also begin billing.
Marketing and Authentication templates are unaffected: they’re already charged. The 72-hour ad window stays free.
Meta only updates pricing on the first day of a quarter — January 1, April 1, July 1, or October 1 — and gives at least one month’s notice for rate changes.

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FAQs

No. Meta charges only for messages that were successfully delivered, whatever the window, message type, or category.
No. Media doesn’t change the rate — you’re charged per message based on category, not on what’s inside it.
Yes. Meta can recategorize an approved template when its content doesn’t match the category it was created under, most often Utility moving to Marketing. That changes what it costs from then on.
No. This page covers messages sent through Gallabox. Messages you send directly from the WhatsApp Business App are always free.
No. You have to reply inside the normal 24-hour service window to open the ad window at all. Reply after that and there’s no free 72 hours — and your reply has to be a template, which is charged.
Your customer’s, taken from their phone number’s country code. Your own billing currency only decides which currency tab you read. See the Rate Card.