How much does the WhatsApp Business Platform cost?
There are two separate bills and people routinely confuse them: what Meta charges you for conversations, and what your software vendor charges you for the product sitting on top. Understanding the first one is what makes the total predictable.
Meta charges per conversation, not per message
You are not billed for each individual message. Meta bills a conversation, which is a window of messaging between you and one customer. Many messages back and forth inside that window fall under a single charge.
Conversations are categorised by purpose, and the categories are priced differently. Broadly, a conversation the customer starts is treated differently from one you start, and marketing is priced differently from a transactional notification.
Rates vary by country
Pricing is set per market, so what a business pays in Ghana is not what a business pays elsewhere. Meta publishes a current rate card and revises it, which is why it is worth reading the live version rather than a figure quoted in an article.
Budget from your own numbers: roughly how many distinct customers you expect to talk to in a month, and how many of those conversations you will start rather than them.
The bill goes to you, not to your vendor
Conversation charges are billed to your own Meta account at Meta's published rates. Kairos adds no markup on them, and we would encourage you to check that any vendor you talk to says the same thing plainly.
That separation is worth insisting on. It means you can see exactly what the channel costs, independently of what the software costs, and you keep the relationship with Meta if you ever change vendors.
The lever that actually moves the number
Since you pay per conversation rather than per message, resolving something fully in one conversation is cheaper than three fragmented attempts. Answering well the first time is a cost strategy, not just a service one.
This guide describes Meta's own rules, which change and differ by country. Check Meta's current documentation before relying on any specific figure or timeline.