# How much the official WhatsApp costs (Meta)

_How Meta charges for official WhatsApp messages: whoever starts the conversation pays, billing per message and not per conversation, utility vs marketing, what is free, and how to estimate and lower your shop's spend._

> **💡 Tip**
>
> 💡 **Business tip:** before migrating, open **Settings → General → Notifications** and turn off what your shop doesn't really use. Every notification that's on is one billed message per appointment. And mind the wording: a utility text that picks up a "discount" or a "you won" becomes a marketing message and starts costing around eight times more.

Once you [connect WhatsApp to the official API](/en/configuracao/chatbot/conectar-whatsapp-api-oficial/), the messages your shop **sends out** start being charged by Meta. It's the doubt that stalls most migrations, and it has a short answer: you pay cents, only for the messages **your shop** starts, and Meta charges it directly on the card you registered there. This page explains the whole rule: what is free, what costs, how much, and what you can do today to spend less. To keep the number up and with a high limit, see also [keeping your Meta account healthy](/en/configuracao/chatbot/saude-da-conta-meta/).

## How much will this cost me every month?

![The official WhatsApp bill fits any shop's cash flow: what scares people is not knowing the rule.](https://help.tec.pet/_md-assets/quanto-custa-o-whatsapp-oficial__comercial.jpg)

**Fear of the bill stalls the migration**

**The official WhatsApp bill fits any shop's cash flow: what scares people is not knowing the rule.**

> Once you understand the billing rule, you stop postponing the migration.

The question that stalls most migrations isn't technical, it's financial: "will I pay for every message my clients send me?". The shop owner pictures an unpredictable invoice at the end of the month and stays on the old channel, which is free but can go down at any moment.

The rule is simple and you control both sides of it: when the pet parent starts the conversation, everything is free, including all of your replies. You only pay when your shop starts the conversation, and then it's cents per message, charged directly by Meta on your card. The tecpet adds no fee on top, and on this page you see exactly which notifications cost money and which don't.

- **R$ 0**: when the pet parent sends the first message, and you reply as much as you want
- **~R$ 0,04**: per utility notification your shop sends out, approximate value
- **0 taxa**: commission from the tecpet on messages: Meta charges you directly

> ⚠️ **O custo de não usar:** Every month you postpone the migration out of fear of the bill is another month your shop's number can go down without warning, and the cost of a banned number is a frozen schedule, not cents.

👉 [I want to understand my bill before migrating](#_top)

_Read the rule below, review which notifications are on, and you'll walk away with your own cost estimate._

## The golden rule: whoever starts the conversation decides who pays

Meta's billing revolves around a single question: **who sent the first message?**

- **The pet parent started:** it's **free**. They message you on WhatsApp, and from there you exchange as many messages as you want, with a human agent or with the AI, at no message cost.
- **Your shop started:** it's **paid**. Every message leaving the system without the pet parent having brought it up (confirmation, reminder, pet is ready, follow up) costs cents.

The same goes for the phone app: in **Coexistence** mode, when you or your team pick up WhatsApp Business and send a message by hand, **there is no charge**, because the message left through the app and not through the API.

## Billing is per message, not per conversation

This is confusion number one, and it costs money. Until mid 2025 Meta charged per **conversation** (a 24 hour window). Today billing is **per message sent**.

In practice, a single bath can generate more than one charge:

- **Appointment confirmation** (the day before): 1 billed message;
- **Appointment reminder** (on the day): 1 billed message;
- **Service finished** ("you can pick up your pet"): 1 billed message.

Same pet parent, same pet, same day: **three** billed messages. That's why it pays to review which notifications your shop really needs on.

## The two prices: utility and marketing

Meta classifies each message template into a category, and the price changes with the category:

- **Utility:** a message about something the pet parent already hired or already has booked. Confirmation, reminder, pet received, pet ready, invoice notice. Costs around **R$ 0.04** per message.
- **Marketing:** a message meant to create opportunity, with no service in progress. Follow up for a lapsed client, promotion, birthday gift, win back campaign. Costs around **R$ 0.32** per message.
- **Authentication:** verification codes. Not used in a pet shop's routine.

Both values are **approximate and move with the dollar**, because Meta's price list is in dollars. Treat them as an order of magnitude, not a fixed price.

## Careful: the words you choose set the price

The category isn't picked at random, it's inferred from the template's **text**. If a utility notification's text carries sales words, it gets classified as **marketing** and starts costing around eight times more.

The words that pull a message into marketing are the commercial ones: **discount, promotion, promo, offer, coupon, you won, win, black**. Words like **code, verification, token** classify the message as authentication.

An example of what to avoid: instead of *"Tomorrow is Thor's bath. Take the chance and get 10% off the hydration"*, keep the confirmation clean (*"Tomorrow is Thor's bath, at 2pm. Can you confirm?"*) and move the offer into a follow up message, which is already marketing by nature.

> **Atenção**
>
> The category of a template **already approved by Meta cannot be changed**. If a confirmation was approved as marketing because of one word, it keeps costing the marketing price even after you clean up the text. It pays to fix the wording **before** connecting.

## What does NOT generate a message charge

- **Any conversation the pet parent starts**, and all of your replies inside it;
- **Messages sent by hand from the** WhatsApp Business app on the shop's phone (Coexistence mode);
- **The AI reading and processing**. The [artificial intelligence](/en/configuracao/chatbot/inteligencia-artificial/) service is charged **per service**, inside your tecpet subscription (or through extra credits), and has nothing to do with the Meta bill. They are two separate bills: Meta charges **per message sent**, the AI is counted **per service**;
- **Receiving** messages, always.

## Meta charges you, straight on your card

The credit card is registered **in your Meta Business account**, and it's Meta that charges it. The tecpet **does not resell messages and adds no fee on them**: no summing up the month's spend and passing it back with a margin. You pay Meta's price, and that's it.

Two practical consequences:

- **The message invoice doesn't come inside your tecpet subscription.** They are two different payments, in different places;
- **If the payment at Meta fails, sending stops.** An expired or declined card, or an unpaid invoice, makes Meta pause the account, and automatic notifications stop going out. The system flags this in the [diagnostic and in the WhatsApp notices](/en/configuracao/chatbot/saude-da-conta-meta/).

It's also worth knowing this cost **isn't the tecpet's, it's the channel's**: any platform connected to the official API (the tecpet or any other) generates the same Meta charge.

## How to estimate your shop's spend

The math is straightforward. For each month:

1. Add up how many **services** your shop does per month;
2. Multiply by the number of **utility notifications turned on** (each one is a message);
3. Multiply the result by **R$ 0.04**;
4. Add the **marketing messages** you intend to send (follow up, birthday, campaigns), multiplied by **R$ 0.32**.

Example of a shop with 250 services in a month and 3 utility notifications on: 250 x 3 x R$ 0.04 = **R$ 30**. Adding 100 follow up messages: 100 x R$ 0.32 = **R$ 32**. Approximate total: **R$ 62 in the month**.

On the tecpet website, on the plans page, there is a calculator that makes this estimate from your appointment and campaign volume.

## Review your notifications before migrating

In **Settings → General → Notifications** you see all the shop's [automatic notifications](/en/configuracao/geral/notificacoes-automaticas/), grouped by subject, with the **Inactive** ones marked. Every active card here becomes an approved template at Meta and a billed message when it fires.

What to look at before connecting:

- **Turn on only what the shop actually uses.** Confirmation and reminder usually earn every cent, because they cut no shows. Having both on when the booking is always same day can be double spend;
- **Separate service messages from offers.** Keep service texts clean of promotional words;
- **Follow up and birthday are marketing.** They are the priciest per message and, normally, the ones that bring the most return. Turn them on with intent, not out of inertia.

![Message templates screen, in Settings, with the notification cards grouped by Appointment and Birthday and the Inactive marker on the ones turned off.](https://help.tec.pet/_md-assets/quanto-custa-o-whatsapp-oficial__notificacoes.png)

## Where to see what was sent and what it cost

Fine grained spend tracking lives at **Meta**, not in the system:

- In **Meta Business** (business.facebook.com), the **Template manager** shows each message template, its status (approved, in review, rejected, paused) and the sending metrics: how many messages went out, how many people clicked the link and how much was spent;
- In the tecpet system, the WhatsApp screen shows the **messages per day limit** and the **quality** of your number, which is what determines how much you **can** send. How to raise that limit is in [keeping your Meta account healthy](/en/configuracao/chatbot/saude-da-conta-meta/).

![Official Meta WhatsApp panel connected, showing verified name, phone, number quality and the messages per day limit.](https://help.tec.pet/_md-assets/quanto-custa-o-whatsapp-oficial__painel-conectado.png)

## Is it worth it? A real example

An example the tecpet presented in a workshop with shop owners, to give an order of magnitude for the cost (it is a **client's result, and it varies with the operation**):

- A win back campaign with **56 messages** cost around **R$ 25** in messages and brought **7 pet parents** who had nothing booked, adding up to around **R$ 838** in services. That's roughly **R$ 3.69 of message cost per recovered appointment**;
- In another shop, message spend was around **R$ 123 in the month** against about **R$ 3,171** in services coming from that channel, meaning message cost was around **4%** of what the channel gave back.

The number that matters isn't the absolute value, it's the proportion: for most shops, monthly message spend lands in the **tens of reais**, less than one grooming session.

> **⚠️ Heads up**
>
> ⚠️ The most common confusion: Meta charges **per message**, not per conversation. If the same visit triggers the confirmation, the reminder and the service finished notice, that's **three** billed messages, even for the same pet parent, the same pet and the same day.

> **🚫 Caution**
>
> 🚫 The card is registered **with Meta**, not with the tecpet. If the card expires, gets declined, or the Meta invoice goes unpaid, Meta pauses your account's sending and automatic notifications stop, with nothing changing here in the system. Keep the card valid and the invoices paid at Meta Business.

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_feature: whatsapp-meta-cloud-migration · atualizado em 2026-09-03 · fonte: https://help.tec.pet/en/configuracao/chatbot/quanto-custa-o-whatsapp-oficial/ · tecpet Central de Ajuda_