WhatsApp has announced changes to its conversation-based pricing effective June 1, 2023.
Businesses using the WhatsApp Business Platform will be charged per 24-hour conversation, with different rates by conversation category.
Today’s business-initiated conversations will be split into three new categories: utility, authentication, and marketing.
Today’s user-initiated conversations will be called service conversations.
This move by WhatsApp is aimed at providing greater clarity and transparency in pricing for businesses that use its platform.
The changes also bring in new categories of conversations that will help businesses distinguish between different types of interactions with customers.
Let’s take a closer look at the different conversation categories and how they apply to pricing:
Utility conversations:
These are conversations that facilitate a specific, agreed-upon request or transaction or update to a customer about an ongoing transaction, including post-purchase notifications and recurring billing statements.
Authentication conversations:
These are conversations that enable businesses to authenticate users with one-time passcodes, potentially at multiple steps in the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges).
Marketing conversations:
These are conversations that include promotions or offers, informational updates, or invitations for customers to respond/take action.
Any conversation not qualifying as utility or authentication is a marketing conversation.
Service conversations:
These are user-initiated conversations that help customers resolve enquiries.
The charges for conversations are based on the user’s country code.
Rates for business-initiated and user-initiated conversations vary by country or region.
The rate cards for utility, marketing, authentication, and service conversations can be found on WhatsApp’s pricing explainer document.
Rate Cards:
It’s worth noting that sending multiple templates of the same category within an open conversation will not incur additional charges.
However, if a business replies to a user with a template message or sends a template message in an open service conversation, this opens a new conversation based on the template category.
There are also some additional changes to conversation-based pricing in 2023.
Starting March 1, conversations are not charged when users message businesses using call-to-actions buttons on Ads that Click WhatsApp or Facebook Page call-to-action buttons.
This move will provide more free conversations when users message businesses through these entry points by extending the free conversation window from 24h to 72h.
From June 1, 2023, businesses will continue to be able to trial the WhatsApp Business Platform with 1,000 free user-initiated conversations each month.
However, business-initiated conversations will no longer be included in the free tier.
Each WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) will receive 1,000 free user-initiated conversations per month (independent of the phone numbers attached to the WABA).
In conclusion, the changes to WhatsApp’s conversation-based pricing aim to provide businesses with greater clarity and transparency.
The new categories of conversations will help businesses distinguish between different types of interactions with customers.
It’s important for businesses to review their communication strategies and ensure that they are aware of the new pricing changes to avoid any surprises when the changes take effect.
References: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/updates-to-pricing/
