New Delhi: If a company answers your WhatsApp query today, it’s likely paying for it. From October 1, Meta ends free service messaging on the WhatsApp Business API in India, with charges kicking in after a monthly free allowance.
Service messages are the free-form replies a business sends after a customer writes first. They used to go out free inside an open 24-hour “service window.” That’s over. Each business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month, and anything past that costs Rs 0.115 each, the same rate as utility and authentication messages. There are no volume discounts on service messages, either.
The bill for a small shop is trivial. A business sending 1,500 service replies would pay only for the extra 500, roughly Rs 57.50 before GST. Big operators are a different story. One estimate says a company supporting 10,000 users a day could go from paying nothing to around Rs 2 lakh a month. That’s a projection, not a published figure, and real bills will depend on how many conversations each business actually has.
There’s a second change that’s easy to miss. Utility template messages sent inside the 24-hour window, which have been free since July 2025, will now be billed whether or not the window is open. Order confirmations and delivery updates are the obvious examples. Companies that had structured their messaging around that loophole will need to rethink it.
Who isn’t affected? Ordinary users. Nothing changes for people sending or receiving messages on the app, and customers won’t pay to message a business. Marketing, utility and authentication rates for India are unchanged as well.
Meta’s reasoning, as reported, is that the move targets high-volume messaging. Whether that’s the whole story is harder to say. Free replies were a big reason businesses moved customer support onto WhatsApp, so the price change will test how sticky that habit is. One provider notes WhatsApp utility messages at about ₹0.115 are still cheaper than DLT-registered SMS at ₹0.12–0.25, so the economics may hold up for most.
The practical advice is dull but worth following. Businesses should check how many service conversations each number handles, see who’s near the 1,000 cap, and watch for their software provider passing costs along. Provider fees and GST come on top of Meta’s rates.
