What it costs
The short version: your first 1,000 replies each month are free, and Engage never bills you for messages.
Two separate bills, and only one is ours
Engage charges a plan for the software — the inbox, the follow-ups, the AI. You can start on the free plan and no card is needed to create a workspace.
Meta charges for certain WhatsApp messages, and bills you directly. That money does not pass through us, so there is nothing for us to add to it. You are paying Meta’s own rate, whatever it is in your country.
Your first 1,000 replies each month are free
Meta gives every business phone number 1,000 free replies a month. The allowance resets on the first of the month and does not roll over — an unused October does not make a bigger November. Past the thousandth, each reply is charged at the utility rate for the country the customer is in.
This changed on 1 October 2026. Between November 2024 and then, replies were free with no limit at all, so older guidance — including ours, until now — says so.
What can cost money
Messages you start, after the customer has been quiet for 24 hours. Those have to be approved templates, and Meta prices them by the kind of message and the country the customer is in.
One thing makes this smaller than it sounds: you are only charged when the message is actually delivered, so one that fails costs nothing. An order update sent inside an open 24-hour window used to be free as well, but Meta began charging for those on 1 October 2026.
Without a payment method, replies stop at 1,000
This is the one worth acting on. Meta delivers replies inside the free thousand whether or not a card is on file — but once the thousand is used, a number with no payment method stops delivering them until the month turns over. Nothing in WhatsApp announces this to your customers; their messages simply go unanswered.
Settings › Channels shows whether your number has a payment method on Meta’s side. If it does not, add one before you need it.
You can see it before it happens
Settings › Usage shows what has been sent and what it cost, so the first you hear of a charge is not a bill. Prices are set by Meta and change at most four times a year, with notice.
Why Meta asks for a card
Meta requires a payment method on file before a business number can send, the same way a bank wants your details before it will settle card payments for you. Having a card on file is not the same as being charged. If you only ever reply to customers, nothing is taken.
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