Quick Answer
Meta charges per delivered message based on conversation category and window; MyOperator converts those charges into credits, checks your balance twice and refunds any failed messages.
Billing moved from a 24-hour conversation fee to a per-message model. Four conversation categories exist:
- Marketing – promotions, product launches
- Utility – post-purchase updates, invoices
- Authentication – OTPs, login codes
- Service (Customer Service Window – CSW) – user-initiated free-form support within 24 h of the customer’s message
Free Entry Point (FEP) windows: reply within 24 h to a Click-to-WhatsApp Ad or Facebook Page CTA and you get 72 h of free messages of any type.
2. Billing Matrix
| Message type | Message category | Delivered outside CSW* | Delivered inside CSW* | Delivered inside FEP** window |
|---|
| Template messages | Marketing | Yes | Yes | No |
| Authentication | Yes | Yes | No |
| Utility | Yes | No | No |
| Non-template (free-form) messages | Service | N/A | No | No |
*CSW = Customer Service Window **FEP = Free Entry Point
3. MyOperator Credit Integration
- Usable Credit Banner on the Campaigns dashboard shows real-time funds = total credit – reserved for scheduled jobs.
- Balance Check #1 – Scheduling: system multiplies template price by audience size. Low funds trigger a recharge prompt and block scheduling.
- Balance Check #2 – Execution: re-validated just before send; if empty, status = Failed and no messages are attempted.
- Reserved Balance Return: cancelling a campaign (≥5 min before run) unlocks the held credits instantly.
- Partial Refunds: after a successful run, credits are deducted only for Sent rows. Failed rows are automatically refunded after 24 h.
- Common Failure Reason: “Low balance” is the top cause; others include Meta outages or MyOperator downtime.
4. Cost Estimator on Schedule Screen
The “Approx. Cost” line updates live from the template and audience count so you can see charges before committing.
5. Best Practices to Avoid Billing Surprises
- Top-up credits before large sends; one run cannot exceed 10,000 recipients.
- Use customer-initiated CSW replies or FEP windows for free interactions when possible.
- Monitor the dashboard credit banner after every schedule/cancel action.
Keywords
WhatsApp billing, per-message pricing, marketing conversations, utility conversations, authentication conversations, customer service window, free entry point, MyOperator credits, refunds, low balance