WhatsApp Business API Free Tier & Cost Limits in India

Where the free window ends and billing begins

The free window is a service window, not a billing unit — an important distinction. It does not "contain" a bundle of paid messages; it simply defines when your outbound session messages are free. Once 24 hours pass since the customer's last message, the window closes. To re-engage, you send a pre-approved template, and that template is billed by its category the moment it is delivered. Marketing templates are the most expensive because they carry promotional value; authentication templates (OTPs, login codes) are the cheapest; utility templates sit in between but become free when they land inside an open window. This is why the same utility template can be free one hour and billable the next — the trigger is the window state, not the template itself. Volume math follows directly: estimate how many conversations start with an inbound message (cheap or free) versus how many you must reopen with a paid template (billable).

What you actually pay per category (indicative ₹)

Meta publishes a per-message rate card by country and category, and it updates it periodically, so treat every figure here as indicative. In India, marketing messages are the headline cost at roughly ₹0.94 per delivered message; authentication messages are far cheaper at roughly ₹0.14; and utility messages are inexpensive when billable and free inside the service window. Your monthly Meta cost is simply the count of delivered billable messages in each category multiplied by that category's rate. Because unlimited free session replies can flow inside each window, businesses that structure conversations well often find their effective per-customer cost is a fraction of a naive "rate × total messages" estimate. The second half of your bill is your provider's platform pricing.

• Marketing: highest per-message cost — use for promotions and re-engagement
• Utility: low cost when billable, free inside the service window
• Authentication: lowest per-message cost — OTPs and login codes
• Service/session replies: free inside the 24-hour window

How InfiQ prices it on top of Meta

Meta's per-message charge is only one line of your invoice; the platform you build on is the other. InfiQ applies transparent ₹ pricing, quoted ex-GST, with plans starting from ₹999/month. You see the Meta category rate and the InfiQ platform component clearly, so there are no surprise per-message inflations buried in the total. That transparency matters most at the free tier, because the whole point of the free service window and free utility messages is defeated if a platform quietly reprices Meta's zero-cost messages. With InfiQ you also get full ownership of your WhatsApp assets — your WABA, your phone number, your templates, and your BSUID (Business-Scoped User ID, relevant to the 2026 WhatsApp usernames change) — so nothing about your number or identity is held hostage to a plan.

Five ways businesses lose the free tier (and how to fix it)

Most "my WhatsApp bill is too high" complaints trace back to a handful of avoidable patterns that quietly convert free traffic into billable traffic. Fixing them is usually a template-configuration and timing exercise, not a pricing negotiation.

• Sending transactional alerts as marketing templates — recategorise them as utility so they qualify for the free-in-window treatment
• Opening a fresh paid template instead of replying inside an already-open 24-hour window
• Letting the service window lapse before a scheduled follow-up, forcing a paid re-open
• Over-messaging, which raises cost and damages your quality rating and delivery
• Not segmenting audiences, so paid marketing templates go to people who will not respond