WhatsApp Pricing India
What Meta actually charges
Meta bills the WhatsApp Business Platform per message, at a different rate for every category and every destination market. These are Meta's own published rates, in the currency your WhatsApp Business Account is billed in. No platform fee, no agency margin, nothing added.
Promotions, offers, re-engagement
Order, delivery and payment updates
OTPs and login codes
Replies in customer-initiated chats - first 1,000 free each month
OTP to a number outside the market
Rate breakdown
| Category | Messages | Rate | Per 1,000 | Subtotal |
|---|
Who we work with
We work with businesses that can show us who they are. Before we quote, we ask for an official email address and basic business documentation - a PAN or GST certificate and a live website. It keeps things clean on both sides, and Meta will ask for the same before approving a sender anyway.
For smaller operators - a neighbourhood bakery, a salon, a studio - we match the business to a provider that fits its size and sending volume, rather than putting everyone onto the same platform because it happens to be the one we resell.
There is work we turn down. We don't run political or propaganda messaging, and we don't take on phishing, impersonation, or anything built to mislead the person receiving it. That holds at any budget.
If you're still deciding whether the Business API is the right fit, our WhatsApp marketing and Business API services page covers Blue Tick verification, template approval, opt-in rules and what a managed setup actually involves.
The rate card
What Meta charges per message in India
Four categories, four rates. Meta's INR list rates for messages delivered to Indian numbers, effective 1 October 2026.
The one ratio that decides your bill
Marketing costs 7.5x more than utility
On 30,000 marketing, 10,000 utility and 2,000 authentication messages a month, marketing is 71% of the volume and 95% of the cost. The biggest saving available is rarely a cheaper rate — it is moving messages into the right category. An order update that carries a relevant suggestion is a utility message. The same content written as a promotion is not.
Changed 1 October 2026
The first 1,000 service messages each month are free
It does not roll over
The allowance resets monthly. Unused messages are lost, not banked.
It is per phone number
A multi-number setup gets a separate 1,000 free on each number.
No payment method, no delivery
Without a card on file Meta delivers inside the allowance and stops beyond it — the support queue goes quiet with no obvious cause.
In practice, a single-number business handling fewer than about 33 support replies a day pays nothing for service messages.
Volume pricing
Where volume discounts actually begin
Meta applies volume pricing to utility, authentication and service credits once monthly thresholds are reached. In India that threshold is 25,000,000 utility messages a month. Marketing is priced flat at every volume.
The full picture
What you pay on top of Meta
The calculator shows Meta's cost and nothing else. A working setup sits on that foundation in three further layers.
Meta prices its own Business Agent separately again, at $2.00 per million tokens — token-based rather than per-message, so it does not appear in the calculator.
Straight answers
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does WhatsApp marketing cost in India?
Meta's share is ₹0.8631 per marketing message and ₹0.1150 per utility or authentication message. For 100,000 marketing messages that is ₹86,310 before GST. A provider platform fee, campaign management and creative sit on top.
Is the WhatsApp Business API free in India?
The API carries no licence fee, and service messages are free up to 1,000 per phone number per month. Everything else is charged per message. There is no free allowance for marketing.
Why is the WhatsApp API expensive?
Usually it is not the rate, it is the category mix. Marketing costs 7.5x utility in India, so a promotion-heavy programme looks expensive while a transactional one on the same account looks cheap. Getting the category split right is where the saving is.
Does the rate depend on where my customer is, or where I am?
Both. The rate is set by the destination market; the currency is set by the billing currency of your WhatsApp Business Account, not the destination. An India-billed account pays the INR card wherever it sends. Currency is chosen when the Messaging account is created and can only be changed afterwards through Meta's Currency Migration API.
How often do these rates change?
Meta reissues the rate card periodically, usually effective the first of a month, with a minimum advance notice that varies by the type of change. The card on this page is the one effective 1 October 2026. We re-check Meta's published card every month and update this page when it moves.
