WhatsApp support is getting more expensive, but not for everyone

Wilene van Greunen

There’s been a fair amount of trepidation and speculation around Meta’s pricing changes for business WhatsApp. Some industries will feel it far more than others, and a few design tweaks can go a long way towards minimising the impact.

What are the changes?

From 1 October, the way businesses are charged for customer service messages on WhatsApp will change. Customers can still start a WhatsApp conversation with a business at no cost to the business. The pricing change applies to replies sent by the business once its free monthly allowance has been used.

Each registered WhatsApp Business number will receive 1,000 free Service messages per calendar month. Once that allowance has been used, additional Service messages delivered during the 24-hour customer-service window will cost 12 cents each in South Africa. That includes replies sent by human agents as well as third-party chatbots or AI.

While 12 cents may not sound like much, the cost can add up when a business handles thousands of customer conversations. But just how big is the impact in actual practice?

We recently looked at WhatsApp usage across 29 Everlytic client organisations and 39 WhatsApp numbers from June to August. The data covers 603,971 messages. This gives us a useful snapshot of how these clients are using the channel today.

The cost sits with a relatively small group

Almost half of the messages in the sample were classified by Meta as Service messages. Broadly speaking, these are the conversations that occur after a customer gets in touch, and they can cover support, enquiries, sales, and other interactions.

If the October pricing had applied to the three months we analysed, 21 of the 29 organisations would have stayed entirely within their free Service-message allowances. This means that for 72% of this sample of customers, there were no additional Service-message cost from 1 October.

Had the new pricing been live during the snapshot, the additional cost would have been concentrated among eight organisations. Within that smaller group, three high-volume organisations accounted for 93.6% of all the Service messages that would have attracted a charge. Across the full sample, the estimated additional Meta cost would have been about R30,700 over the three months.

Yet, as for messages to South African, the 12c charge is only part of the picture. What businesses really need to look at is how much Service messaging they are doing and how often that volume exceeds the free allowance.

How you use WhatsApp changes the calculation

Our data show different patterns across sectors. Education is a good example of a business environment where WhatsApp has become part of ongoing customer service. Service messages accounted for 58.3% of the education traffic in our sample, covering interactions such as student enquiries, admissions support, and account assistance. Around 89% of that Service-message volume sat above the available free allowances.

Commerce and sales clients were using the channel noticeably differently. More than 92% of their messages were classified as Marketing, while Service messages represented only 7.5% of their traffic.

Taking a strategic approach

As we have seen, the businesses affected are those using WhatsApp heavily for ongoing Service conversations. Lower-volume users may see little or no additional cost. Total WhatsApp volume is not the key number to watch either. What counts is the amount of Service traffic going beyond each number’s free monthly allowance.

It is worth reviewing how conversations are designed too. A useful place to start is with the busiest Service journeys.

Look at which customer queries generate the most replies and where an automated flow has grown into several short messages when one clear response could do the job. It is also worth checking where customers are being passed between automation and a person, because unnecessary back-and-forth adds messages without necessarily improving the experience. The focus should be on removing unnecessary replies while keeping the conversation clear and useful for the customer.

Organisations would do well to analyse the bill alongside the customer journey. Some support flows pick up extra steps over time, often because messages are added as new questions arise. The upcoming charge gives businesses a reason to go back through those customer journeys and see where clutter has crept in. The customer still needs to get a clear, complete answer. If trimming a flow only sends them back into support a few minutes later, any saving disappears quickly and the experience is probably worse too – which defeats the point.

For most organisations in our sample, the new charge would not have generated an additional Service-message bill had the price change already been in effect. On the other hand, businesses running high-volume support conversations need to plan for increased costs and look closely at their customer support journeys.

WhatsApp is an important channel for businesses. Meta's pricing change gives all businesses, especially those that use the channel largely for support, another reason to make sure those conversations are well-designed and work harder.

To learn more about how Everlytic can help you optimise WhatsApp for your business, visit its website, or contact (moc.citylreve@selas).