Does Meta charge me separately from what I pay the platform?

This is the most expensive wrong expectation in this market, and it is almost never explained before the first invoice.

The two payments

• The platform (us, or whoever you use) charges you for infrastructure: the queue with retries, webhook signing, idempotency, the media proxy, template management. Here it is charged per connected number, with no message cap.
• Meta charges you for the messages, directly, on your own card added to your Meta account. We do not charge it, we do not see it, and we add nothing on top.

What Meta charges and what WAIA Connect charges

Checked against Meta's documentation on 2026-10-23.

• The 14-day trial is WAIA Connect's, not Meta's. During the trial you don't pay us; Meta's charges follow Meta's own rules.
• Meta charges per delivered message, not per conversation: conversation-based pricing ended on 1 July 2025.
• Templates (marketing, utility, authentication) are what let you message first or outside the 24-hour window. Meta charges each delivered one by its category and the recipient's country.
• Service is the free-form text you reply within 24 hours of your customer's last message. Since 1 October 2026 Meta charges it per delivered message (in its rate card, the same figure as each country's utility rate), and also utility sent while the window is open. The first 1,000 service messages per number per month are free; after that Meta charges for each reply and needs your card added in Meta. Meta charges this, not WAIA Connect: your trial is still free. The 24-hour window still exists and defines whether you can send free-form text.
• What you were actually charged is in your Meta billing. While a number is within its 1,000 free, Meta marks each reply free_customer_service and billable: false; from the month's 1,001st, regular and billable: true. Meta's month resets at midnight in your Meta account's time zone, and what you don't use doesn't roll over.
• Click-to-WhatsApp ads: when the conversation starts from one of those ads, a window opens that can last up to 7 days; while it is open Meta doesn't charge for messages.
• App and API: in Coexistence, what you send from the WhatsApp Business app on the phone stays free. What goes out through the API is charged like any API message, service included.
• What your customer writes to you is not charged. Without a payment method in Meta the number keeps receiving, but you can't start a conversation with a template, and Meta delivers your replies only within the month's 1,000 free: after that it stops delivering them until you add a card.
• Meta changes its rates and they vary by country: its rate card.

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