How WhatsApp Business messaging is priced, and why answering orders costs almost nothing
WhatsApp Business Platform billing changed on 1 July 2025, from charging per 24-hour conversation to charging per delivered template message. What matters for a restaurant taking orders is a detail inside that change: service messages, meaning your replies inside the 24-hour window after a customer writes to you, are free. If your customers start the conversation, which is exactly what happens when they order, the messaging cost of answering them is close to zero.
What are the message categories?
Every message you send falls into one of four categories, and the category determines the price:
- Service: your replies within the 24-hour window after the customer messages you. Free.
- Utility: transactional messages tied to an existing order, such as a confirmation or a delivery update. Free when sent inside an open customer service window; otherwise charged.
- Marketing: promotions, offers, re-engagement. The most expensive category by a wide margin.
- Authentication: one-time passcodes. Priced separately, and higher when sent to numbers outside your registered market.
Why does inbound ordering land in the cheap category?
Because the customer opens the conversation. A customer messaging "do you deliver to Maadi?" starts a 24-hour service window, and everything you send back inside that window is service-category. Taking the order, confirming items, quoting a total, and answering follow-up questions all happen inside it.
The cost only appears when you initiate contact: a promotional blast, or an order update sent after the window has closed. That is the opposite of how most people assume messaging is billed.
What actually drives the bill
- Marketing broadcasts. This is where nearly all avoidable spend goes. Rates vary substantially by country.
- Utility messages sent after a service window has expired. A delivery update the next morning is chargeable where the same message an hour after the order is not.
- The software layer. The API needs a platform in front of it, and that subscription is usually larger than the messaging spend for a single-location restaurant.
One practical consequence
Answering faster is not just better service; it keeps messages inside the free window. A restaurant that replies within the day and sends order updates promptly will pay materially less than one that batches replies and follows up late.
Rates are set by Meta per country and per category and are revised periodically; the structure above reflects the platform as of July 2026, but check current rates for Egypt before budgeting. Redood's own plans are billed separately, by monthly orders. See the pricing page.