WhatsApp message costs

Sending a campaign involves two separate costs, and they are billed by two different companies.

• Campaign recipients come out of your Fetchply plan. One recipient is used each time WhatsApp accepts a message.
• WhatsApp's own charge is billed straight to your WhatsApp business account by the payment method attached to it. Fetchply never collects it and cannot discount it.

Neither figure includes the other, and the review screen keeps them apart on purpose.

What WhatsApp charges for

Three things decide the price of one message.

1. The type of message. Promotional messages cost the most. Order and account updates and one-time codes cost less.
2. Where the recipient is. WhatsApp groups countries into pricing regions, and rates differ sharply between them. The same promotional message can cost several times more in one country than another.
3. Whether it was delivered. You are charged when a message reaches someone. Messages WhatsApp refuses, and anyone Fetchply leaves out before sending, are not charged.

Reading the estimate before you send

The review step shows an Estimated WhatsApp charge with a breakdown by destination, showing how many recipients are in each and the rate applied.

Read it as a ceiling, not an invoice.

• It is the maximum. The estimate assumes every single message is charged at WhatsApp's published rate. Real charges are frequently lower.
• It uses published list rates. The date those rates took effect is shown beneath the total. Amounts are before tax, and your account may be billed in a different currency.
• Unpriced recipients are excluded, not free. If a number cannot be matched to a destination WhatsApp publishes a rate for, it is reported separately as unpriced and left out of the total. Those messages can still be charged. Fetchply will not invent a rate to make the total look complete.
• It uses the rates for the send date. A campaign you send now is priced at today's rates. A scheduled campaign is priced at the rates in force on its scheduled date, so a rate change before then is already included. WhatsApp charges the rates in force when each message is delivered.
• Rates change quarterly. WhatsApp can adjust rates at the start of January, April, July and October. When the rates Fetchply holds predate the most recent change, the review adds a reminder to check the current ones.
• Volume discounts are not included. WhatsApp lowers the rate for order and account updates and one-time codes once you send a large number in a month. The estimate always uses the standard rate.
• One-time codes can cost more in some countries. WhatsApp charges a higher international rate for one-time codes in certain countries, but only to businesses it has notified in advance. The estimate uses the standard rate.

Which region a country belongs to

WhatsApp prices some countries on their own and groups the rest into regions such as "Rest of Africa" or "Rest of Latin America". Any country WhatsApp does not list in a region is priced at its Other rate. For example, several Caribbean islands, Luxembourg, Iceland, Malta, Cyprus and South Korea are priced as Other, not as part of a nearby region.

Since 1 October 2026, WhatsApp gives nine more countries their own rates: Bangladesh, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nepal, Oman, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. The breakdown on the review screen shows the name WhatsApp uses for each destination.

When messages are not charged

• They came from an ad or a link. If someone messages you from a click-to-WhatsApp ad or a Facebook Page button on their phone, and you reply within 24 hours, a free window opens for up to 7 days in which all messages to that person, including campaign messages, are not charged. Until 28 September 2026 this window lasted 72 hours.
• The message never arrived. Undeliverable messages, for example to an inactive number, are not charged.
• They are among the first 1,000 replies of the month. Each WhatsApp number gets 1,000 free replies a month for customers who wrote to you in the last 24 hours. The allowance resets each month at midnight in your WhatsApp business account's time zone, and unused replies do not carry over.

Promotional messages, order and account updates, and one-time codes are charged whenever they are delivered, unless they fall inside an ad window.

Because Fetchply cannot know whether a particular person reached you through an ad, the estimate never assumes a free window. That is why the real charge is often below the estimate rather than above it.

What changed on 1 October 2026

WhatsApp changed its prices on 1 October 2026, at midnight in your WhatsApp business account's time zone.

• Order and account updates inside the 24-hour window are charged. Before this date they were free when the customer had written to you in the last 24 hours.
• Ordinary replies are charged after a free allowance. Replies sent while the customer's 24-hour window is open, including automatic replies from your agent and replies your team sends from the inbox, are chargeable. Each WhatsApp number gets 1,000 free replies per month. After that, each reply costs the same as an order update to that country. Unused free replies do not carry over to the next month.
• Replies beyond the free allowance need a payment method. Without one, WhatsApp stops delivering them. Fetchply marks those replies Not delivered in the conversation and notifies you. See Replies that were not delivered.
• Some promotional rates went up, including Mexico, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Morocco, and the rest of the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions.
• Nine countries got their own rates, listed in the section above.

Fetchply's estimates switched to the new rates automatically on that date.

What results tell you afterwards

Once WhatsApp confirms delivery, the results screen reports how each message was actually billed:

• Charged by WhatsApp — the message was delivered and billed.
• Not charged — the message fell inside a free window.
• Delivered with optimization / Delivered without optimization — on an optimized-delivery campaign, whether WhatsApp was able to optimise each message. Messages sent without optimization were still delivered and charged normally. This is not a failure.

Billing details only appear once WhatsApp sends a receipt, so this section stays empty for a short while after sending, and for campaigns sent before this feature existed.

About the broadcast list in the WhatsApp app

The WhatsApp Business phone app has its own broadcast list feature. It is not the same thing as a campaign, and Fetchply cannot send through it.

• A broadcast list reaches at most 256 people.
• People only receive it if they have already saved your business number in their own phone contacts. Anyone who has not saved you silently receives nothing.
• There is no scheduling, no personalisation, and no delivery reporting.

Campaigns have none of those limits: they reach everyone who gave permission whether or not they saved your number, and they report delivery per person.

If you want to keep using the phone app as well, connect your existing number so both work together. You can then keep handling one-to-one chats and app broadcast lists on your phone while Fetchply runs campaigns and automatic replies on the same number.

Troubleshooting

The invoice is lower than the estimate

This is expected. The estimate charges every message at the standard rate. Your invoice can be lower because of volume discounts, messages that were never delivered, and people who reached you through an ad.

The invoice is higher than the estimate

• The campaign was delivered after a rate change. WhatsApp charges the rates in force on the delivery day, not the day you reviewed the campaign.
• Some recipients were listed as unpriced and left out of the total.
• WhatsApp has told your business that international rates for one-time codes apply to you.

A country is priced under Other instead of a nearby region

WhatsApp decides which countries belong to each region. A country WhatsApp does not list in any region is priced at the Other rate, even if it is geographically close to one. Fetchply follows WhatsApp's list exactly.

Replies show Not delivered

Since 1 October 2026, WhatsApp only delivers replies beyond the 1,000 free ones each month when your WhatsApp business account has a payment method. Fetchply marks the replies it did not deliver Not delivered in the conversation, shows the problem under Connection health, and notifies you. Add a payment method in Meta's billing settings for that account. Replies are delivered again from then on, but the ones already marked are not resent, so answer anyone still waiting.

Order updates now show as charged

From 1 October 2026, order and account updates are charged even when the customer wrote to you in the last 24 hours. Before that date the same messages showed as Not charged.

Finding your WhatsApp invoice

1. Open Meta Business Manager.
2. Go to All tools → WhatsApp Manager.
3. Open the billing section to download monthly invoices and see itemised delivery charges.

The invoice there is the authoritative record. Fetchply's estimate and result counts are for planning and review, not billing.