WhatsApp to Charge Businesses Per Message From October 1

Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, will introduce charges for certain business messages sent through the WhatsApp Business Platform from October 1, 2026.

The pricing change, announced by Meta in a WhatsApp Business Platform pricing update in July, will affect companies that use the official platform to manage customer conversations and transactional communications at scale.

The development will primarily affect larger businesses such as banks, fintech companies, telecommunications operators, e-commerce platforms, logistics firms and major retailers. However, ordinary WhatsApp users and most small businesses using the standard WhatsApp Business application on their phones will not be affected.

Under the existing system, when a customer contacts a business, a 24-hour customer service window opens, during which businesses can respond using free-form service messages and certain utility messages without paying Meta.

From October 1, however, Meta will begin charging businesses on a per-message basis for service messages sent during the customer service window.

The company also said utility messages sent in response to users within an open 24-hour customer service window would become chargeable. These include payment confirmations, order updates and delivery notifications.

Meta explained that service messages had not been charged since November 1, 2024, while qualifying utility messages had been free since July 1, 2025.

The company has also warned businesses and Solution Providers to add a valid payment method before the new charges take effect. Businesses without a payment method on file by September 30 could have their chargeable service messages blocked from October 1.

For Nigerian businesses, a chargeable service or utility message is expected to cost approximately $0.0101, or about N14 per message based on an exchange rate of N1,340 to the dollar. Marketing messages are considerably more expensive, at about $0.062, equivalent to roughly N83 at the same exchange rate.

The charges are Meta’s fees and may not represent the total amount businesses pay. Companies accessing WhatsApp through third-party Business Solution Providers could incur additional service charges.

For a business sending 500,000 chargeable messages monthly at $0.0101 each, Meta’s fees alone would amount to about $5,050, or approximately N6.8 million at the stated exchange rate.

Although the cost per message is relatively small, the financial impact could be substantial for businesses handling hundreds of thousands or millions of customer messages monthly.

The new pricing will therefore require Nigerian businesses heavily dependent on WhatsApp for customer support and transactional communication to reassess their messaging costs ahead of October 1.