WhatsApp now bills per message: 1 July changed the invoice
On 1 July 2025 Meta changed WhatsApp Business Platform pricing: from conversations to delivered messages. Marketing, utility, and authentication no longer hide behind a 24-hour “session” that forgave the thread. Each template that reaches the customer is a line on the bill, rated by country.
In Costa Rica and Mexico that hits where the business already lives: appointment reminders, “your order is on the way,” OTPs, and promo blasts someone fires from a spreadsheet. 2 July is not too late to look at the month: it is the first full cycle under the new rule. If you do not categorize templates, you are paying marketing rates for a message that should have been utility.
What stops working
- A personal number with 14 agents in front of it: that is not the API, and it does not scale when Meta counts messages.
- “Just in case” templates that mix offer, reminder, and support in one text.
- Bots that reply with a generic paragraph and dump everything on a human: you pay for the message and the agent minute.
- No log of what was sent, to whom, and in which category.
An inbox you can audit
As a Respond.io partner we set up the channel, the templates, and the queue so sales and support do not step on each other. WhatsApp is still where the customer writes; cost now demands discipline. If the next step after the message is an appointment, an invoice, or a charge, that belongs in web apps and payment gateways, not in the chat.
The cheap message was the one nobody measured. That ended on 1 July.
If the operation lives on WhatsApp and you have not seen the new invoice, talk to sales. We review templates, categories, and the rail into the system. Not a loose chatbot.