Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, has announced plans to start charging businesses for messages sent on the WhatsApp Business platform from October 2026.
The company said the new pricing structure will affect service messages, including replies to customer inquiries handled by human agents or third-party artificial intelligence solutions.
DailyVista247 learnt that Meta will introduce per-message charges for service messages and utility messages sent within an open 24-hour customer service window from October 1, 2026.
The charges are being reinstated nearly two years after the company waived fees for such messages to support businesses during the customer service window.
According to Meta's updated pricing documentation, the company launched the Meta Business Agent Platform on July 1, 2026, as part of its efforts to accelerate monetisation of the messaging platform.
From August 1, 2026, businesses using the Meta Business Agent on WhatsApp will be charged on a token basis instead of the current per-message model.
The token-based pricing means businesses will pay based on the amount of artificial intelligence processing required for each interaction, rather than the number of messages exchanged.
Meta estimates that a standard customer interaction typically consumes between 20,000 and 25,000 tokens, which translates to roughly 0.04 dollars to 0.05 dollars per message.
From October 1, any non-template message that is not powered by Meta Business Agent will be regarded as a service message and will attract charges.
A sample calculator based on WhatsApp's updated developer documentation showed that complex interactions powered by other bots could cost businesses up to 968 dollars for 10,000 messages, depending on token usage, while using Meta AI would cost between 400 and 500 dollars.
The move indicates that conversations powered by third-party AI models like OpenAI and Anthropic could cost businesses nearly twice as much as those handled by Meta AI.
Meta said the new model rolls AI processing and message delivery into one unified fee, unlike traditional WhatsApp tier pricing which varies heavily by destination country.
Businesses have been advised to review the updated pricing structure and adjust their customer engagement strategies ahead of the implementation date to avoid unexpected costs.
