Meta imposes fees on WhatsApp messages for businesses - Sarmad

Starting October 1 (next week), Meta will implement a new system for calculating fees for certain messages sent via the WhatsApp Business Platform/API.

This change will particularly affect companies and institutions that use the platform to manage large volumes of customer conversations and automated support services.

Under the new system, service messages sent by companies to customers will be subject to fees after the first 1,000 free messages per month per business number are exhausted. The change does not apply to the standard WhatsApp Business app used on mobile phones, and Meta does not charge fees for messages sent by customers to businesses.

Fees vary based on the country of the recipient, not the company’s location. According to published rates, the cost of a service/Utility message after the free allowance is approximately:

Egypt: $0.0036 per message.

Algeria: $0.004.

Iraq: $0.0079.

Jordan: $0.0091.

Saudi Arabia: $0.0107.

UAE: $0.0157.

Morocco: $0.023.

Syria: No comparable price is available, as platform data indicates that Syria is currently not eligible to receive WhatsApp Business Platform messages.

For 10,000 billable messages, the base cost amounts to approximately $36 in Egypt, $40 in Algeria, $79 in Iraq, $91 in Jordan, $107 in Saudi Arabia, $157 in the UAE, and $230 in Morocco, before any additional fees imposed by external service providers.

Marketing messages are subject to different, and generally higher, tariffs in most markets. For example, they cost approximately $0.0644 per message in Egypt, $0.0576 in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, $0.0392 in Jordan, $0.0414 in Morocco, and $0.0225 in Algeria.

This change is part of Meta’s gradual transition to a model that calculates fees for business messages based on their type, volume, and the recipient’s country, rather than exempting certain service messages that were previously free.

The decision does not mean that “WhatsApp will become paid for businesses” in general; the fees primarily target companies using the WhatsApp Business Platform/API, while the traditional WhatsApp Business app continues to operate without these fees per message.