WhatsApp charges per conversation, not per individual message. A conversation is a 24-hour message thread between your business and a customer and is opened (and charged) when messages you send to customers are delivered.

Conversations are categorized into one of four categories: Marketing, Utility, Authentication, or Service. Marketing, utility, and authentication conversations can only be opened with message templates. Service conversations can only be opened with free-form messages.

Learn more about these four conversation categories here.

The rates charged by WhatsApp are based on the conversation category and country/region rate. You can download rate cards here.

Each WhatsApp Business Account gets 1,000 free service conversations monthly across all its business phone numbers. This number is refreshed at the beginning of each month, based on the WhatsApp Business Account's time zone. Marketing, utility, and authentication conversations are not part of the free tier.

For more information, see Meta's documentation:

• Conversation types

• Opening conversations

• Template categorization