Conversation

The WhatsApp API's pricing model revolves around conversations, charging businesses for each conversation, which encompasses all messages exchanged within a 24-hour session. There are four distinct types of conversations, each with its own categorization and associated rates:

1. Business-Initiated Conversations:

   • Utility: These are conversations initiated by the business for sending important updates or information to the customers, such as appointment reminders or delivery updates.

   • Authentication: Conversations under this category are initiated for purposes like sending OTPs or verifying user accounts.

   • Marketing: This includes messages aimed at promoting products, services, or offers to customers.

2. User-Initiated Conversations:

   • Service: These are conversations started by the user, typically for customer support or inquiries. This category allows businesses to respond to customer queries initiated through WhatsApp.

Each category has different pricing, reflecting the nature and intended use of the conversation. This model encourages efficient and targeted communication, ensuring businesses use the platform for relevant, high-value interactions with their customers.

Experiments

Meta is conducting an experiment on the WhatsApp Business Platform to assess the effects of marketing messages on consumer experience and engagement. In this experiment, about 1% of WhatsApp users will not receive any marketing messages. Businesses will not incur charges for messages that are not delivered as part of this trial.

Although there's no fixed duration for how long a particular user might be excluded from receiving marketing messages, it's advised not to attempt resending marketing messages to users who receive experimentation error codes, unless there's an ongoing conversation with them. This approach ensures that the experiment's integrity is maintained while minimizing potential disruption to the user experience.