WhatsApp Business API pricing in Brazil: what a company pays in 2026

A company in Brazil pays for the WhatsApp Business API in two layers. The first is Meta's: a charge for every delivered message, set by message category and by the recipient's country code. For a +55 number, Meta's rate card lists R$0.3217 per marketing template and R$0.0350 per utility or authentication template, the same in the July and October 2026 cards. The second layer is the provider you connect through: a monthly plan, seats for your agents, sometimes its own fee on each message, sometimes a one-time setup charge.

On 1 October 2026 Meta starts charging for something that has been free since November 2024: the replies your team sends inside the 24-hour customer service window. Each business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month; after that every reply costs R$0.0350. Utility templates sent inside the window are charged again from the same day.

For a small business with two agents, one number, 1,000 support replies and 1,000 utility templates a month, the catalog's calculation on 24 September 2026 puts the monthly total at a median of R$672.53 across the platforms that publish enough prices to do the sum. The rest of this guide shows where that number comes from and how to check an offer yourself.

How Meta charges: per message, by category

Since 1 July 2025 Meta bills per message, not per 24-hour conversation. You pay only when a template message is delivered (sent but undelivered messages are free), and messages customers send to you are never charged by Meta. The rate depends on two things: the category of the template and the country calling code of the person receiving it. A company in São Paulo writing to a customer with a Portuguese number pays the rate for Portugal's pricing region, not Brazil's.

There are three template categories plus service messages:

Category	Typical use	Until 30 September 2026	From 1 October 2026
Marketing	Offers, launches, cart reminders	R$0.3217, always charged	R$0.3217, always charged
Utility	Order confirmation, delivery update, payment reminder	R$0.0350 outside the 24-hour window, free inside it	R$0.0350, inside or outside the window
Authentication	One-time passwords and login codes	R$0.0350, always charged	R$0.0350, always charged
Service	Free-form replies inside the 24-hour window	Free	R$0.0350 after 1,000 free per number per month

Meta assigns the category when it approves a template, and the business accepts the charge of the category applied at the moment of sending. That detail matters for your budget. A shipping update that carries a discount code can be categorized as marketing, and then each send costs R$0.3217 instead of R$0.0350. Our guide to WhatsApp message templates covers how the categories are decided.

To estimate Meta's share for your own month, multiply each category by its rate: marketing templates, utility and authentication templates, and, from 1 October, service replies above the free allowance of each number. Leave out anything sent inside a 72-hour free entry point window.

Meta can change rates only on the first day of a quarter (1 January, 1 April, 1 July, 1 October), with at least one month's notice for a rate change. In practice you can budget Meta's share per quarter.

Volume tiers for utility and authentication

Utility and authentication templates get cheaper at high volume. In Brazil the list rate applies to the first 250,000 utility and the first 500,000 authentication messages a month, counted across your whole business portfolio; above those thresholds Meta's tier rates run from 5% to 25% below the list rate. Only charged messages count toward a tier, the count resets every month, and service messages have no tiers at all. A business sending fewer than 250,000 utility templates a month pays the list rate on all of them.

The free windows: 24 hours and 72 hours

Two windows decide what is free.

The customer service window opens when a customer writes to you and stays open for 24 hours after their last message. Inside it you can send any message type, including free-form text, images and buttons; outside it you can only send templates. Until 30 September 2026 everything non-template inside the window costs nothing, and so do utility templates sent there.

The free entry point window applies when a customer reaches you from a Click to WhatsApp ad or a Facebook Page call-to-action button on the Android or iOS app. If you answer within 24 hours, a 72-hour window opens in which every message, templates included, is free. Meta states that this window stays free for message delivery after 1 October 2026. For a business that buys Click to WhatsApp ads, that is the largest discount on the rate card.

What changes on 1 October 2026

Meta's pricing page, updated on 10 September 2026, sets out two changes for all markets, Brazil included.

Service messages become billable. Any non-template message a business delivers inside the customer service window is a service message, whether a person or a third-party chatbot wrote it; the one exception is covered below. From 1 October the rate for service messages equals the utility and authentication rate of the recipient's market: R$0.0350 for a Brazilian number. The rules around it:

• Each business phone number has one free tier of 1,000 delivered service messages a month, shared by one-to-one and group chats.
• Unused messages do not roll over. The count resets every month for each number.
• The allowance counts messages, not conversations. A support chat in which your agent sends six replies uses six units.
• Service messages have no volume tiers.
• Without a payment method on the WhatsApp Business account, Meta delivers service messages inside the free tier and stops delivering them once the tier is used up. Meta asked businesses and providers to add one by 30 September 2026.

Utility templates inside the window are charged again. An order confirmation sent while the customer is still chatting has been free since 1 July 2025. From 1 October it costs R$0.0350, the same as one sent outside the window.

What this does to a bill depends on how chatty your support is. A number that sends 3,000 service replies a month pays for 2,000 of them, each at R$0.0350. A business with three numbers gets three allowances, so the way you split teams across numbers now shows up on the bill. Meta's October rate card does not change Brazil's marketing, utility or authentication rates.

Meta added one more category in July 2026: replies written by Meta Business Agent, Meta's own AI agent. Since 1 August 2026 they are charged per token at a single global US-dollar rate that covers both the AI and the delivery. Replies from any other AI, such as your provider's chatbot, count as ordinary service messages, and the AI vendor bills its usage separately. Our guide to AI agents on WhatsApp goes through those costs.

Who sends the invoice, and in which currency

Meta's partner documentation describes three ways the message fees reach you, and the difference shows up on your invoice:

1. Direct integration with the Cloud API. You add a payment method in Meta's Billing Hub and Meta charges you the rate card. You still need software for the inbox and automation, built or bought. See how the Cloud API works.
2. Through a Tech Provider. The provider connects your number, but Meta bills you directly for messages on your own payment method, and the provider invoices its software separately.
3. Through a Solution Partner. The partner's credit line with Meta covers your messages and the partner invoices you for API usage together with its own services. This is the model in which a provider can pass Meta's fee through at cost, add a margin, or sell you its own per-message price.

Our guide on what a BSP is and how to choose one explains the partner types in detail.

Currency changed this year. Since 1 July 2026 businesses and providers whose Sold-To country is Brazil can open WhatsApp accounts billed in reais, invoiced by Meta's Brazilian entity, Facebook Brasil. Eligible customers have until 30 June 2027 to move every account in the portfolio to BRL; from 1 July 2027 Meta stops delivering messages from their non-BRL accounts. If a provider still bills Meta's fees to you in US dollars, ask what its plan is for that deadline.

The provider's layer

Unless you build your own software on the Cloud API, the tools around it (shared inbox, chatbot builder, CRM, campaign sender) come from a provider, and each provider prices them differently. We read the pricing pages of the 23 platforms in the catalog; their charges fall into six lines.

1. The plan

The base fee comes in four shapes:

• Flat monthly plan. 360dialog charges a license per WhatsApp number, in euros (from €49/month), and states that it adds no markup to Meta's fees.
• Per user. Kommo charges per user: from $20/month each, with a six-month minimum subscription.
• Per conversation. VTEX CX Platform (Weni) charges per conversation with a minimum of 1,000 conversations a month, which the catalog shows as from R$1,900/month.
• No plan fee. For Twilio the catalog shows "No monthly fee, pay per message": the provider earns on each message instead. The self-serve plan of Gupshup works the same way.

2. Seats

Most inbox tools include a number of agents and charge for the rest. Some include unlimited agents, some include one. For a team of five, the seat line can be larger than the plan. When a provider does not publish how many agents a plan includes, the catalog cannot compute a total and marks the platform "Quote needed".

3. A fee on each message

Some providers pass Meta's rate through and add their own fixed fee per message. Twilio charges a per-message fee in US dollars on every message, inbound or outbound. Gupshup's Console plan does the same, with incoming and outgoing messages charged equally, and bills Meta's fees at cost. If your customers write a lot, a fee on inbound messages adds up: the catalog's small-business model assumes one customer message for every reply.

360dialog, Kommo and respond.io list no fee of their own on messages. respond.io states that WhatsApp fees are not included in its subscriptions and are charged by Meta on usage.

4. Bundled per-message prices

Other providers fold Meta's fee into one price per message of their own. Zenvia, Huggy, VTEX CX Platform (Weni) and RD Station Conversas work this way, some in reais and some in dollars. You cannot see Meta's part or the provider's margin separately. In every bundled price list we read on 24 September 2026, the utility price was above Meta's list rate for Brazil.

Bundled prices also carry the provider's own rules on service messages, which can differ from Meta's. Zenvia's pricing page already gives 1,000 free service messages a month, then charges its own service price. After 1 October, check whether a provider that listed service messages as free has updated its price list.

5. One-time setup

Several Brazilian providers charge for activation, onboarding or configuration. From the catalog, for the plan behind each platform's starting price:

Platform	One-time setup
Zenvia	+ R$649 one-time setup
RD Station Conversas	+ R$1,999 one-time setup
Poli Digital	+ from R$1,197.90 one-time setup
Octadesk	+ one-time setup fee on request
Huggy	No required setup fee (optional service R$1,250)
Kommo	No setup fee

The catalog does not add setup fees to the monthly cost, so spread them over the contract term yourself: a fee paid once on a 12-month contract adds a twelfth of it to each month.

6. AI

AI replies are priced as included replies, metered usage, a paid add-on or not at all. Weni's page says the AI cost is included in the price per conversation. Where a provider does not publish AI prices, the catalog leaves the AI line out of the total and says so on the platform card.

Prices in dollars and euros: the PTAX conversion

About a third of the platforms in the catalog publish prices in US dollars or euros. To compare them with plans priced in reais, the catalog converts at the Banco Central do Brasil PTAX closing selling rate: R$5.1414 (23 September 2026) for the dollar and R$5.8576 (23 September 2026) for the euro. PTAX is the arithmetic average of four daily consultations with foreign-exchange dealers, published each business day, which makes it a neutral reference.

Your real cost in reais will not match a PTAX conversion exactly. A card charge in dollars is converted at the card issuer's rate on the billing date, and a Brazilian company paying a foreign supplier may owe IOF on the exchange and taxes on imported services. Ask your accountant which apply before you compare a dollar price with a price in reais. Some foreign vendors also quote in reais for Brazil (Kommo's Brazilian page offers per-user prices in USD or BRL); others bill in dollars only.

The exchange rate also moves. A plan priced in dollars costs 10% more in reais when the real loses 10%, while a plan priced in reais and Meta's BRL rate card stay fixed until their next change.

Worked example: the small-business scenario

The catalog calculates one standard month for every platform so that offers can be compared on the same volumes. The small-business scenario is a model chosen by the editors, not a market average:

• 2 agents and 1 WhatsApp number
• 1,000 service replies inside the customer service window
• 1,000 utility templates outside the window
• 1,000 incoming customer messages
• no marketing templates

The core monthly cost is the plan, extra seats, Meta's fees and the provider's per-message fees, at the scored plan's month-to-month price where the vendor offers one. It leaves out setup fees, AI and payment processing. The figures below were calculated on 24 September 2026 with the Meta rates in force on that date.

Under the rate card in force until 30 September 2026, Meta's share of the scenario is 1,000 utility templates at R$0.0350 each, and the 1,000 service replies are free. From 1 October those 1,000 replies stay inside the free allowance of 1,000 per number, so for this exact scenario Meta's share does not change. A team that answers each customer with three or four messages instead of one would pay for the replies above the allowance.

Five platforms show how different structures reach a total:

• Kommo, per user with Meta's fees at cost. Two users on the Advanced plan, priced in dollars and converted at PTAX, plus Meta's utility fees with no markup: R$343.48.
• Huggy, bundled rates in dollars. The Starter plan has no monthly fee and one user; the second agent is an extra seat. Huggy's page notes that WhatsApp on Starter comes with restrictions it does not detail. Messages are billed at Huggy's own per-message prices in US dollars, which include Meta's fee, and service replies are listed at zero: R$326.97.
• Gupshup, plan plus a fee on every message. The Console plan in dollars includes up to five users. Meta's fees are billed at cost, and Gupshup adds its fee to all 3,000 messages in the scenario, the 1,000 incoming ones included: R$672.53.
• Zenvia, plan plus bundled rates in reais. The Specialist plan includes ten users; utility templates are charged at Zenvia's own price, and the 1,000 service replies fall inside Zenvia's free monthly quota: R$1,150.00 a month. The first invoice also carries the setup fee: + R$649 one-time setup.
• SendPulse, flat plan with bundled rates in reais. The Pro plan is priced by subscriber tier (500 subscribers at the entry price) and charges nothing per agent. Messages are billed at SendPulse's own per-message prices in reais, which include Meta's fee, and service replies are listed at zero: R$146.00.

Every platform whose public prices allow the full calculation, cheapest first:

The median of these totals is R$672.53. Each platform card breaks its total into lines (plan, extra agents, Meta's fees, the provider's per-message prices), so you can see which line drives the difference. The other platforms in the catalog show "Quote needed" on their cards because at least one line of the sum is not public: the number of agents included, the provider's per-message price, how Meta's fees are billed, or a price sent only in a commercial proposal. That label is not a verdict on the price; it means you have to ask.

Volume changes the order. A plan with a fee on every message grows in a straight line with traffic, while a flat plan with Meta's fees at cost grows only by Meta's rate. Before you choose, redo the sum with your own numbers: agents, numbers, replies per conversation, utility and marketing templates, and incoming messages.

Which WhatsApp API providers give the best value in Brazil?

Value is the lowest cost for what you actually need, so the answer has two parts: what a month costs and what the platform covers. For a small team with two agents, the lowest monthly total in the catalog is SendPulse, R$146.00 a month. The table puts each platform's total for the same scenario next to its score and the strengths that set it apart, cheapest first:

How to read it:

• A higher price can still be the better deal when the extra points come from what you need, such as Pix charges in the chat, an AI agent or a built-in CRM. Each platform card shows its score criterion by criterion.
• Gupshup and Twilio charge no monthly fee at all, only a fee per message on top of Meta's rates. They sell an API without an inbox, so they suit companies that build their own tools.
• Platforms missing from the table do not publish every line of the sum. Several of them score well: ask for the per-message price and the number of agents included, then do the same calculation.
• Setup fees and annual discounts change the first-year cost. The platforms list shows the setup fee next to each price and can be sorted by price.

How to compare two offers

Ask every provider the same questions, in writing:

1. Who invoices Meta's fees: Meta directly, or the provider? In reais or in dollars?
2. What is the price per delivered message for marketing, utility, authentication and service, and does it change on 1 October 2026?
3. Are incoming messages charged?
4. How many agents does the plan include, and what does each extra one cost?
5. What is the minimum contract term, and how do you cancel?
6. Is there a setup or activation fee, and is it mandatory?
7. How are AI replies priced?
8. If you leave, do your WhatsApp Business account and number stay yours?

With the answers, fill in the same scenario for each offer. If one provider will not tell you its per-message price, you cannot compare it, whatever the headline plan says.

Common pitfalls

The annual toggle. Several pricing pages in the catalog open on annual billing. Huggy's page shows its plans with the annual option selected and the note "Economize 20% com o plano anual"; RD Station Conversas and respond.io also show a lower monthly figure for yearly payment. The price you pay month to month is higher. The catalog compares month-to-month prices wherever the vendor offers them.

Minimum terms. A monthly price does not always mean a monthly contract. Kommo's minimum subscription is six months, and its FAQ says the subscription is not paid monthly (it can be split into installments); RD Station Conversas and Poli Digital plans run for 12 months. Zenvia's general terms set a 12-month term with automatic renewal, which either side may end with 30 days' notice.

Yearly price adjustments. Look for a reajuste clause in the contract. Zenvia's general terms adjust prices at least every 12 months by IGP-M or IPCA, whichever is higher. Budget the second year accordingly.

"A partir de". A starting price is the smallest tier with the fewest agents and the lowest volume. Weni's price per conversation applies from 1,000 conversations a month, so the smallest bill is the whole minimum.

Prepaid credits that expire. Some providers sell message credits up front. RD Station Conversas requires a credit wallet paid separately from the plan, in reais, with a minimum top-up and 12-month validity.

Fees on incoming messages. A per-message fee applied in both directions roughly doubles the provider's message charge for a support team that receives about as many messages as it sends.

Template categories. A utility template that Meta recategorizes as marketing multiplies the cost of every send. Review the category of each template after approval.

Offers with no per-message fee at all. Tools that connect WhatsApp through a QR code and WhatsApp Web do not use Meta's Business Platform and do not pay Meta's rates, which is why they look cheaper. The official vs unofficial API guide explains the risks.

For platforms with the fewest unknowns, see the ranking of WhatsApp platforms for Brazil and filter by price on the platforms list.

Related guides

• The WhatsApp Business API in Brazil: complete guide
• What a WhatsApp BSP is and how to choose one
• WhatsApp Cloud API explained
• WhatsApp message templates: categories and approval
• Official vs unofficial WhatsApp API
• WhatsApp CRM guide for Brazil
• WhatsApp chatbots in Brazil

About this guide

This guide is written by the editorial team of WABA Index, an independent catalog of WhatsApp Business platforms for companies that sell to customers in Brazil. No platform pays for its position in the catalog or in this guide, and the page carries no affiliate links. Platforms are named because their public pricing illustrates a pricing structure, not as recommendations.

Methodology

On 24 September 2026 we read Meta's pricing documentation for the WhatsApp Business Platform, including the BRL rate card in force since 1 July 2026, the October 2026 card that Meta published on 1 September 2026, the section on service rates from 1 October 2026 and the page on service and utility pricing updates, respond.io's help article on the same change, Meta's partner documentation, the Banco Central do Brasil PTAX data, and the pricing pages of the providers named above. Meta's rates, platform prices, setup fees, exchange rates and monthly totals on this page are rendered from the catalog's data and update when the data changes; the calculation rules are on the methodology page. The scenario volumes are model values chosen by the editors. Nothing was tested hands-on: we used public documentation and pricing pages only.

Last updated

24 September 2026. Checked Meta's rates for Brazil for July and October 2026, the service message allowance and the conditions of the 1 October change, PTAX for the dollar and the euro, and the pricing pages of the providers named in this guide.

FAQ

Is the WhatsApp Business API free?

No. Meta charges for delivered template messages and, from 1 October 2026, for service replies above 1,000 per number per month. Meta's pricing page lists charges per message only, with no subscription for the Cloud API itself, but most companies also pay a provider for the software around it.

How much does one marketing message cost in Brazil?

Meta charges R$0.3217 per delivered marketing template to a Brazilian number, under both the July and October 2026 rate cards. A provider with bundled rates charges its own price instead, which includes Meta's fee.

Are replies to customers still free after 1 October 2026?

Only up to 1,000 delivered service messages per business phone number per month. After that each reply costs R$0.0350. Replies within a 72-hour free entry point window from a Click to WhatsApp ad stay free.

Does each phone number get its own free service allowance?

Yes. Meta gives each business phone number its own monthly free tier; unused messages do not carry over to the next month.

Is it cheaper to connect to Meta's Cloud API directly?

For message fees, yes: you pay Meta's rate card with no markup. You then need your own inbox, automation and hosting, which is the cost a provider's plan covers.

Why is my provider's price per message different from Meta's?

Either the provider adds its own fee to Meta's rate, or it sells one bundled price that includes Meta's fee and its margin. Ask which, and in which currency it bills.