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Meta bills WhatsApp message charges directly to your own Meta Business account's payment method, at its own published per-message rates by recipient country and message category, with VGraple CRM adding no markup on top; the only charge from VGraple CRM itself is your monthly plan. Since 1 July 2025 pricing is per delivered message rather than per 24-hour conversation, and from 1 October 2026 Meta also charges for replies after the first 1,000 a month on each number, and for utility templates sent inside the 24-hour window.
Meta billing: first 5 of 6 steps
- 1Open the broadcast composer and reach the
- 2Read the cost estimate
- 3Note what is excluded from the estimate
- 4Know what the 24-hour window does and
- 5Watch the number's free replies
Before you start
- Understand the two separate bills: your VGraple CRM plan (Free through Scale, covering the software, agent seats and stored contacts, with unlimited conversations on every plan) and Meta's own message charges (billed by Meta, to your Meta account, for the messages it delivers). They are unrelated line items from two different companies. Platform fee vs Meta charges explains the split.
- Know that pricing is per delivered message, by category (Marketing, Utility, Authentication, and Service for replies) and by the recipient's country, not a flat global rate. See template categories and pricing for how a template's category is decided.
- Check that your Meta account has a payment method. Without one Meta refuses templates today, and from 1 October 2026 it stops delivering replies once a number's free replies are used.
- If you want to see Meta's own itemised billing (not just VGraple CRM's estimate), that lives in Meta Business Suite's billing section, not inside VGraple CRM.
Steps
Seeing the estimated cost before you send
Open the broadcast composer and reach the Review and Send step. Go to Broadcasts, then New broadcast, build the audience and message, and continue to the final step before sending.
Read the cost estimate. VGraple CRM calculates the per-recipient price from the template's category and each recipient's country code, then totals it for the whole audience, shown in INR alongside the recipient count and remaining daily headroom. For a utility template the estimate notes that utility is charged inside the 24-hour window from 1 October 2026. For a free-form broadcast with no template, the estimate prices the messages as replies and subtracts the sending number's free replies left this month.
Note what is excluded from the estimate. Suppressed recipients (opted out, blocked, over a frequency cap, a US number during Meta's marketing pause) are excluded from the projected total, since Meta never charges for a message it does not deliver.
Understanding what is free versus charged
- Know what the 24-hour window does and does not do. The window decides what you may send (replies without a template need it; templates do not). It does not decide the price. From 1 October 2026 Meta charges for replies too; the first 1,000 each month on each WhatsApp number are free. Utility templates are charged per delivered message, including inside the 24-hour window, from 1 October 2026. Marketing and authentication templates are charged whenever they are delivered.
Watch the number's free replies. Each WhatsApp number's card in Settings shows free replies used this month out of 1,000, the rate after that for the number's market, and a warning if the account has no payment method. VGraple CRM raises a notification at 80% and at 100% of the free replies, as a critical alert when there is no payment method.
See Meta's actual invoice for full detail. VGraple CRM's estimate is a projection at send time; Meta's own billing section in Business Suite shows the definitive, itemised charge after delivery, including any rate changes that took effect between your estimate and the actual send.
What does an actual India-market example look like?
Meta's India rates on the card effective 1 October 2026 (unchanged for India from the previous card) show how much category matters more than volume.
| Category | Rate per delivered message (India) | Example: 5,000 messages |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing | Rs 0.8631 | Rs 4,315.50 |
| Utility (inside or outside the window, from 1 October 2026) | Rs 0.115 | Rs 575 |
| Authentication | Rs 0.115 | Rs 575 |
| Replies (service), first 1,000 a month on each number | Free | Rs 0 for the first 1,000 |
| Replies (service), after the first 1,000 | Rs 0.115 | Rs 460 for 5,000 replies (4,000 charged) |
| Anything inside a free entry point window (up to 7 days) | Free | Rs 0 |
Example
A clinic sends the same 5,000-recipient list two different templates on two different days: a Marketing promotional offer, and a Utility appointment-reminder update. Even though the recipient count and delivery rate are identical, the Marketing send costs about seven and a half times more per message than the Utility one, purely because of category. The same clinic's reception sends 3,500 replies from one number in the month: 2,500 are charged at Rs 0.115, which is Rs 287.50 at Meta's rate.
Rates change periodically (Meta has updated its rate cards several times through 2025 and 2026) and vary by recipient country. The composer's cost estimate always reflects the rate card in effect, which VGraple CRM keeps in step with Meta's published updates; the WhatsApp API pricing pages list every market, and the pricing calculator totals a month.
What changes on 1 October 2026?
Two things, both Meta's, and they apply on every WhatsApp Business Platform provider, not just VGraple CRM. Replies become billable after the first 1,000 a month on each business phone number; the allowance counts messages, not chats, is shared by 1:1 and group replies and by every Messaging account on the number, and does not roll over. And utility templates sent inside an open 24-hour window are charged like any other utility template. The full walkthrough, with levers to keep the bill down, is in Meta's 1 October 2026 pricing change.
Why does VGraple CRM keep these as two separate bills instead of one?
Folding Meta's per-message charges into VGraple CRM's own invoice, with a markup added on top, is a common pattern among WhatsApp platforms, and it is deliberately not how VGraple CRM operates. Keeping the two bills separate means you always see Meta's real rate, in Meta's own billing section, rather than a bundled number that could hide a markup you have no way to verify. It also means a rate change Meta makes (as it has done several times through 2025 and 2026) reaches your invoice exactly as Meta published it, the same day it takes effect on Meta's side, rather than waiting for VGraple CRM to update a bundled price.
What you will see
The broadcast composer shows an estimate before you send and does not attempt to reconcile it against Meta's actual invoice afterward, since VGraple CRM does not itself hold or process the payment; that reconciliation happens on Meta's own billing statement. Each WhatsApp number's card in Settings shows the meter of free replies used out of 1,000, and once charging has started the inbox shows a short line under the reply box with the free replies left. The authoritative number for accounting purposes is always Meta's own invoice.
Settings and options
| Setting or field | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Cost estimate (composer) | Per-recipient and total projected charge, by country and category; free-form broadcasts priced as replies after what is left of the number's 1,000 free replies | Shown automatically at Review and Send, before every broadcast |
| Free replies this month (number card in Settings) | Replies used out of 1,000, the rate after that, and a no-payment-method warning | Shown for every WhatsApp number |
| Free replies alerts | Notification at 80% and 100% of the 1,000 free replies; critical when there is no payment method | On |
| Suppressed recipient exclusion | Removes contacts VGraple CRM will not attempt to send to from the cost projection | Automatic |
| Currency | INR for India-billed accounts | Matches Meta's own billing currency since 1 January 2026 |
| Rate card | The per-country, per-category price table used for estimates | Updated by VGraple CRM as Meta publishes new rates |
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Estimated cost looks higher than expected | The audience includes more Marketing-category recipients than assumed, or a country with a higher published rate | Check the audience's country mix and the template's actual category before sending |
| Meta's invoice does not match VGraple CRM's estimate exactly | A rate change took effect between the estimate and the actual send, or a small share of numbers have an ambiguous country code | Expect small variance; a large or systematic mismatch is worth checking against the template's actual approved category |
| Replies appear on Meta's invoice from October 2026 | The number used its 1,000 free replies for the month, counting replies from every app on that number | Expected; see the meter on the number's card in Settings, and send fewer, fuller replies |
| A utility template inside the window shows a charge | From 1 October 2026 Meta charges utility inside the 24-hour window | Expected; only a free entry point window (up to 7 days) makes templates free |
| Replies stopped delivering mid-month | No payment method on the Meta account and the 1,000 free replies are used | Add a payment method in Meta Business Suite billing |
| Cannot find Meta's own itemised bill | Looking in VGraple CRM instead of Meta Business Suite | Meta's billing section lives in Business Suite, under the WhatsApp Business Account's own settings, separate from VGraple CRM entirely |
Related reading
For the composer's full cost and test-send workflow, see cost estimate and test send before launch. For how a template's category determines its rate, see template categories and pricing, for the two bills see platform fee vs Meta charges, and for the October 2026 change see Meta's 1 October 2026 pricing change.