Meta has made the decision to revamp the existing classification of WhatsApp conversations, shifting away from the current user-initiated and business-initiated division. Effective from June 1st, 2023, the categories will be restructured as outlined below:
The business-initiated conversations will now be categorized into three distinct groups: Utility, Authentication, and Marketing. And the user-initiated conversations will undergo a name change to Service conversations.
These conversations involve businesses reaching out to customers to promote their products or services, such as providing relevant offers to customers who have opted in. Any business-initiated conversation that does not qualify as an authentication or utility conversation will also fall under this category.
This category encompasses any conversation initiated by the user, such as customer inquiries or requests for assistance.
Situation: At 9:31 am, a service conversation is initiated upon the delivery of a business response to a customer message. Meanwhile, while this conversation is ongoing, the business proceeds to deliver a marketing template at 4:30 pm, which subsequently initiates a new marketing conversation.
Cost: There will be two distinct charges incurred- one for the service conversation and another for the marketing conversation. It’s important to note that modifying the message category within the same chat will trigger an additional charge for a separate conversation.
Note: Examples are illustrative only, templates containing similar content or content including this example text may be categorized differently based on their exact content.
Note: Examples are illustrative only, templates containing similar content or content including this example text may be categorized differently based on their exact content.
Situation: At 9 am, a business sends a utility message, and two hours later, at 11 am, the company delivers a second utility template message.
Cost: The business incurs a charge for only one utility conversation as it utilized the same message template type. When there are two conversations of the same message category, they are counted as a single charge.
Note: Examples are illustrative only, templates containing similar content or content including this example text may be categorized differently based on their exact content.
Situation: At 11:59 am, a business sends a single template that contains both marketing and utility content. When WhatsApp detects marketing content within a message template, it classifies the message as a marketing conversation.
Cost: The business incurs a charge for a single marketing conversation.
At present, Meta offers a generous allowance of up to 1,000 free conversations per month for each WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) using WhatsApp business API. These conversations can be either business-initiated or user-initiated.
However, starting from June 1, 2023, Meta will introduce a modification to this policy. The free tier will now encompass up to 1,000 free service conversations per month for each WABA, exclusively counting user-initiated conversations as part of this update.
| User-initiated | Business-initiated | |||
| Conversation Type | Service | Utility | Authentication | Marketing |
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| Free 1000 conversations per month | YES | NO | NO | NO |
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