WhatsApp billing
What a WhatsApp message costs on a Dapta line: what Dapta charges, what Meta charges, the rates by country, and how to keep the bill down.
Two companies charge you, for two different things, and nothing is charged twice.
Dapta charges for the agent. The platform, the AI that reads and answers, sequences, the Inbox, template management and your integrations. In credits, on your Dapta invoice.
Meta charges for delivery. Putting each message on WhatsApp. In money, through your own Meta account.
Meta's charges do not consume Dapta credits and do not appear on your Dapta invoice, so you see the two amounts in two places. For what Dapta charges, see How Credits Work in Dapta. The rest of this page is Meta's side.
What Meta charges for
Meta charges per delivered message, and the rate follows the recipient's country, not yours.
A customer messages you
Free, always
Your agent replies inside the 24-hour window (a service message)
Free for the first 1,000 per number each month, then charged
A utility template — order update, reminder, confirmation
Charged, inside or outside the window
A marketing template — offers, campaigns, re-engagement
Charged
An authentication template — one-time codes
Charged
A message that fails to deliver
Free
Anything inside the 72-hour window opened by a Click-to-WhatsApp ad
Free
Your first 1,000 service messages each month are free. The allowance is per business phone number, counts across all countries, resets monthly, does not roll over, and the month begins at midnight in your WhatsApp Business Account's time zone. Charging starts at the 1,001st.
This is why answering costs so little in practice. A customer writing to you is free, most small lines never exhaust the 1,000 free replies, and a failed message costs nothing. The charges that add up are the ones you start — campaigns and reminders.
Meta's rate card
USD per delivered message, first volume tier.
Colombia
0.0125
0.0008
0.0008
0.0008
Mexico
0.0397 ¹
0.0085
0.0085
0.0085
Brazil
0.0625
0.0068
0.0068
0.0068
Peru
0.0703
0.0300 ¹
0.0300 ¹
0.0300
Chile
0.0889
0.0200
0.0200
0.0200
Argentina
0.0618
0.0260
0.0260
0.0260
Spain
0.0707
0.0200
0.0200
0.0200
Rest of Latin America
see rate card
see rate card
see rate card
0.0113
United States and Canada
see rate card
see rate card
see rate card
see rate card
¹ Changed on 1 October 2026: marketing in Mexico rises from 0.0305, and utility and authentication in Peru rise from 0.0200. Every other market keeps its rates.
Rest of Latin America covers Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Venezuela.
What changed on 1 October 2026
Meta's pricing change, and Meta's date. If you are setting up now, this is simply how billing works — it is listed here so older material still makes sense.
Service messages became billable, after the 1,000 free per number each month. They used to be free.
Utility templates sent inside the 24-hour window became billable. They had been free since July 2025.
Inbound messages, failed messages and the 72-hour ad entry window stayed free.
Set up your payment method in Meta
Meta bills you through your own Meta account. Dapta cannot add this for you — Meta requires the business itself to do it.
Sign in to Meta Business Suite with the account that owns the business portfolio holding your WhatsApp Business Account.
Go to Billing and payments, then Payment methods.
Select Add, and complete the business and tax information your country requires.
Currency and taxes
Meta can bill in local currency where it is available, including COP, MXN, BRL, ARS, CLP and PEN. In Brazil, eligible businesses are invoiced in BRL by Meta's local entity.
Whether Meta charges VAT, and how you account for it, depends on your country and your company. Check with your accountant and with Meta's billing help — we cannot give tax or legal advice.
How a payment problem appears in Dapta
The line shows the issue Payment issue in Meta. Review the payment method and billing in Meta Business settings, then check the line again.
If several lines in your workspace share one WhatsApp business account, a payment problem can affect them together. The absence of a reported payment error does not by itself confirm that billing is set up correctly.
Sending fewer billable messages
Combine replies. Every delivered message counts. An agent that answers in one message instead of three costs a third as much.
Keep utility templates strictly transactional. Meta can recategorize a utility template as marketing if it reads as promotional, and the charge follows the category at the time of sending. Marketing is the most expensive category in every market.
Use Click-to-WhatsApp ads where they fit. Conversations they open carry a 72-hour free entry point window.
Want to see this as a monthly figure for your own business? Every use case carries a worked cost example.
Source review: September 21, 2026.
Connected before the direct route existed?
If your line was connected through the older WhatsApp Business card, it is a legacy line: Dapta bills its messaging in credits on a single invoice, and it is unaffected by the October change. Nothing you need to do.
Billing on legacy linesLast updated