Meta starts charging for WhatsApp support replies beyond 1,000 per number on October 1

The change runs through the customer service window. A customer message opens a 24-hour window, and each new customer message resets it ^[2]. Inside the window a business can send free-form replies, which Meta calls service messages. Once the window closes, only templates get through ^[2]. From July 1, 2025, Meta billed per delivered template message, and free-form replies inside the window cost nothing ^[1][13].

All of this comes from one source. It is a pricing guide on dev.to that lists Meta's official rates effective October 1, 2026, and it names AnswerForMe as one platform provider ^[16][14].

From October 1, the price of a reply follows the customer's phone number, set by its country code ^[1][3]. Rates run higher in the Netherlands, Germany and France and lower in Colombia, Turkiye and India, according to the guide ^[15]. The United States has no rate of its own and pays the North America regional rate ^[12].

The guide's worked example is a Brazilian e-commerce shop sending 1,500 service replies a month ^[10]. Its 500 billable replies cost $3.40, about 27% of a $12.37 Meta bill ^[10][17]. That figure is someone else's workload. It applies to another desk only if that desk's monthly reply count per number also sits near 1,000. Past the allowance, billing is per delivered message. An agent who splits one answer into five short messages sends five billable replies ^[1][3]. One number answering 10,000 messages a month from Brazilian customers would pay $61.20 for service replies alone ^[18]. That is above the $30-60 platform fee in the same example ^[10].

I would check the Billing Hub default first. Under the July 2025 rules, a number that sent only free-form replies and in-window utility templates ran up no Meta charges ^[13]. Such a number may have no payment method on file. Reply 1,001 is an awkward moment to discover that. The allowance is counted per business phone number ^[3], so a team running three numbers gets 3,000 free replies a month ^[20].

I think the design is defensible. Past the allowance, a free-form reply and a utility template cost the same utility rate ^[3][4]. A desk that stays under 1,000 replies per number pays nothing for its free-form traffic ^[3]. Messages customers send stay free ^[8]. The guide's category advice still holds for everything else: in Brazil a marketing template costs $0.0625 against $0.0068 for utility, roughly nine times as much ^[9][19].