Guide · Meta pricing · Effective 1 October 2026
WhatsApp replies are no longer free without limit from 1 October 2026
From 1 October 2026 Meta charges for replies to customers once a business phone number passes 1,000 in a month. If the account has no payment method, replies after the 1,000th are not delivered at all. Here is what changed, and the three things to check now that it is in force.
Published 27 September 2026 · Updated 4 October 2026
What changes on 1 October 2026
A service message is a reply you send inside the 24 hours after a customer writes to you. Before 1 October 2026 Meta did not charge for them. From 1 October 2026, Meta charges for service messages per message, at the same rate as a utility message to the customer's country.
- 1,000 free a month
- Each business phone number gets 1,000 free delivered service messages a month. Replies in one-to-one chats and in groups share the same 1,000.
- Groups count per person
- A reply in a group uses one of the 1,000 for every member it is delivered to, not one per message.
- No carry-over
- Unused free replies do not roll over. The count starts again each month, separately for each number.
- After the 1,000th
- Each further reply is charged at the utility rate for the customer's country.
- Reactions never count
- An emoji reaction to a customer's message is the one service message Meta keeps free for every business, and it does not use up any of the 1,000.
Two kinds of account are treated differently. Eligible governments and non-profits keep free service messages beyond the monthly 1,000 through 31 December 2027, with Meta deciding who is eligible. Businesses Meta classes as AI providers are charged under its separate AI Providers policy instead.
Two more changes on the same day
- Order and delivery updates in the window
- Utility templates, such as an order confirmation, sent inside the 24 hours after a customer writes have been free since 1 July 2025. From 1 October 2026 Meta charges for them too, at the utility rate.
- Marketing costs more in the UAE
- Meta's rate card for 1 October 2026 raises marketing rates in the UAE and the rest of the Middle East, among other markets. Check Meta's rate table for the new figures before planning a campaign.
The part that can stop your replies
Meta's documentation says that if your WhatsApp Business account has no payment method, Meta delivers service messages within the free 1,000 and does not deliver them after that. Your team keeps typing replies and customers stop receiving them.
Worked example (made-up numbers)
What to do before 1 October
- Check the payment method. In Meta's Billing Hub, make sure the WhatsApp Business account that owns your number has a payment method. This is the one step that keeps replies arriving.
- Count your replies per number. Look at how many replies each business number sent last month. Under 1,000 ordinary replies cost nothing; over it, you now have a monthly cost to plan for. Order and delivery update templates are charged separately.
- Ask whoever runs your WhatsApp software whether it shows how many free replies are left this month. Meta's delivery updates now mark replies that came out of the free allowance, so the count can be shown to you.
What does not change
The 24-hour window works as before: once a customer writes, you can reply with any message for 24 hours. Messages you start outside that window still have to be approved templates, and those are charged as before. Conversations that start from an ad that clicks to WhatsApp are still not charged: answering inside the 24-hour window opens a window of up to 7 days in which nothing you send is charged, except messages written by Meta's Business Agent. The change is only that free replies inside the window now come from a monthly allowance of 1,000 per number.
Meta's own pages disagree for now
Questions
We have two WhatsApp numbers. Do we get 1,000 free replies in total?
No, each business phone number has its own 1,000 a month.
What does a reply cost after the first 1,000?
The same as a utility message to that customer's country. Meta publishes the rates by country and they differ, so check Meta's rate table for the countries your customers are in.
Are emoji reactions charged?
No. Meta's pricing page names the reaction as the one service message that is free for every business since 1 October 2026, and it does not count toward the 1,000.
We are a charity. Does this apply to us?
Meta says service messages stay free beyond the monthly 1,000 for eligible governments and non-profits through 31 December 2027. Meta decides eligibility, and says it is building a way for organisations to check theirs and request a review.
Do we need to change anything if we send fewer than 1,000 replies a month?
Ordinary replies under 1,000 cost nothing, though order and delivery update templates are now charged separately. Adding a payment method is still worth doing so a busy month does not stop your replies.
Sources
- Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform pricing documentation, read 4 October 2026.
- Meta's developer documentation: upcoming pricing updates for service and utility messages, read 1 October 2026.
- Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform pricing page, read 27 September 2026.
- Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform changelog, read 27 September 2026.
More plain-language notes like this one are on the guides page.
Not sure how many replies you send?
We connect a business's WhatsApp number to a system that counts replies per number and keeps working through changes like this one. A short call is the easiest way to see whether it fits.
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