Estimate your WhatsApp API bill before you commit

A WhatsApp Business API bill has two parts. The first is the platform subscription — what you pay your provider for the software: the shared team inbox, broadcast campaigns, CRM and analytics, with the chatbot and developer API on higher tiers. On InfiQ that is ₹999/month on Lite or ₹2,999/month on Growth (which adds API, webhooks and a chatbot), with plan details on the pricing page. The second part is messaging: your provider's per-message charge for each template message you send, priced by category.

Messaging charges are category-based. Marketing templates — promotions, offers, win-back campaigns — carry the highest rate. Utility templates for order confirmations and delivery updates, and authentication templates for one-time passcodes, are priced much lower — and utility messages are free inside the open 24-hour service window. Since 1 July 2025 billing is per delivered message. Rates vary by category and the customer's country and are revised periodically, which is why this calculator lets you edit every rate instead of hard-coding numbers that would drift out of date. The defaults are indicative only — check your provider's rate card, or on InfiQ, the live rate card in your dashboard. And when a customer messages you first, a 24-hour service window opens in which your free-form service replies are free, so support-heavy businesses often spend far less than campaign-heavy ones at the same volume.

A few budgeting habits keep estimates honest. Build your projection from real numbers — last quarter's order volume for utility messages, your active login base for authentication, planned campaign reach for marketing — rather than a single blended figure. Model a realistic range, not one scenario: a festive-season month can carry several times the marketing volume of a quiet one. And revisit the numbers quarterly, because both your mix and the underlying rates shift over time.

When you want to go deeper, two companion tools pick up where this one stops. The conversation cost estimator breaks down what a single message costs by template category and destination country, while the broadcast cost calculator prices an individual campaign against its expected returns. Used together, they turn a rough monthly guess into a budget you can defend.