Most WhatsApp platforms sell you message credits. The price on the plan looks simple, and it hides the one number that matters: what Meta actually charges, and how much the vendor added on top.
How Meta bills
Meta does not charge per message. It charges per conversation — a 24-hour window with one customer — and the price depends on who opened it and why.
- Service conversations are started by the customer. Since late 2023 these are free within the 24-hour window, for any volume.
- Utility conversations are started by you with an approved template for something the customer expects: an order update, a reminder, a receipt. These are the cheapest paid category.
- Marketing conversations are started by you with a promotional template. These cost the most.
- Authentication conversations carry one-time passcodes and have their own rate.
Meta publishes the rate card per country. In India, a utility conversation is a fraction of a rupee and a marketing conversation is under a rupee. Meta bills the card attached to *your* WhatsApp Business account, monthly, with a line-by-line statement.
What a markup looks like
A vendor that resells conversations sets its own price above Meta's. Sometimes that is a flat per-message fee, sometimes a "credit" whose rupee value is not printed anywhere obvious. Either way, the difference is margin, and it scales with your volume — the more you send, the more the vendor earns from the messages rather than the software.
The alternative
Connect your own Meta account. Invite uses Meta's own Embedded Signup flow, so the number, the business verification and the payment method are registered to you. Meta bills you at the published rate. We charge a flat monthly fee for the software and add nothing per message.
What that means in practice
- Your Meta statement is the whole cost of messaging. There is no second invoice for the same messages.
- Service conversations — the ones your customers start — cost you nothing, however many there are.
- If you leave, the number and its history carry on. Nothing was registered to us.
Where to look this up yourself
Meta's conversation pricing page lists the rates by country and category. Your own usage is visible in Meta Business Manager under WhatsApp Manager → Insights. Compare that number against any "credits" invoice you have paid, and the markup is the difference.