Payment for Dialogue Sessions
Starting Feb. 1, 2022, WhatsApp will switch from a notification-based pricing model to a dialog session-based pricing model. Companies will now pay not for HSM messages sent, but for dialog sessions, which include all messages delivered during a single session.
Dialogue Sessions
Dialog sessions are 24-hour intervals (hereinafter referred to as dialog sessions) that begin when the first message is delivered by the company. The first message can be sent by the company or can be a response to an incoming message from a user.
The user is a person or organization with whom the company corresponds.
The price per dialog session includes all messages delivered during the 24-hour period, regardless of the number of messages.
Dialogue sessions in WhatsApp Business API
WhatsApp Business API dialog sessions can be divided into two categories with different prices.
User-initiated dialog sessions, such as customer service calls and general inquiries.
Company-initiated dialog sessions, such as notifications after a product purchase
Session is priced by the user's phone number. Company initiated and user initiated dialog sessions rates depend on the market (country or region).
Free dialog sessions
The first 1,000 sessions per month are free
Your company can start building relationships with customers without any payment. Each WhatsApp Business account is entitled to 1,000 free dialog sessions. The free sessions can be initiated by the company or the user.
Free dialog sessions from specific entry points
There is no charge for sessions when a user sends the company a message by clicking the call to action button in the ads with a transition to WhatsApp and calls to action on the Facebook Page. Free dialog sessions from these entry points can only be initiated by users. Only the first session starting from such an entry point is free. All subsequent sessions with the same user are paid.
There are standard rates for ads that go to WhatsApp. Free is the dialog session initiated from the ad, but not the ad itself.
1,000 free conversation sessions are given to the company. If your company has 2 numbers or more, there will still be 1000 free sessions
Examples
The examples below involve imaginary user Anna Bodelak, a customer of imaginary airline Commercial Air and imaginary online shoe store Kicks.
User-initiated dialog session
📄Scenario: a customer service call or general inquiry in one 24-hour session.
Our user, Anna, sends Commercial Air a question about a flight she has booked. When Commercial Air's reply message is delivered, a 24-hour session begins.
In this scenario, all additional messages during that 24-hour session are free. This encourages Commercial Air to process the request as quickly as possible, and users can send as many messages as they need to resolve the issue during the 24-hour session.
If Commercial Air continues to correspond with Anna after the initial 24-hour session, the company is charged for starting a new dialog session. In addition, if more than 24 hours have elapsed since Anna's last message, the company will have to send a template message to resume correspondence. This will be charged at the price of the dialog session initiated by the company.
In this scenario, Anna gets all the information she needs about the booked flight, and Commercial Air pays for the dialog session initiated by the user.
📄 Scenario: User-initiated dialog session leads to two separate sessions, with a message template required.
Anna wants to check out her order at Kicks, an online shoe store. She sends a message at 1:13 p.m.
Kicks has a bot that answers simple questions about orders. It provides Anna with the shipping information she's interested in at 1:13 p.m.
The next day, the Kicks bot tells Anna that her order has been delivered. This happens at 3:45 p.m.
Responding to Anna more than 24 hours after the first delivery info message, the Kicks bot starts a new dialog session. Kicks also uses a message template, since more than 24 hours have passed since Anna's last message.
In this scenario, Kicks pays for one user-initiated dialog session and one company-initiated dialog session.
Dialog session initiated by the company
📄Scenario: The company initiates the delivery of a template message.
When a flight is delayed or its status changes, Commercial Air notifies customers who have signed up for notifications by sending them a template message.
Two template messages sent within a single 24-hour session are billed as one company-initiated dialog session.
In this scenario, Commercial Air tells Anna that her flight is delayed by 30 minutes.
Commercial Air will pay for one company-initiated dialog session in which two template messages were delivered to Anna during a 24-hour session.
📄Scenario: Company-initiated dialog session and user response, billed as one dialog session.
When a customer places an order with Kicks, the online store sends them a text message confirming receipt of that order and asks them if they want to be notified when their purchase is shipped.
The customer selects "Yes" and agrees to receive additional notifications about the order.
In this scenario, Kicks pays for one company-initiated dialog session. If the user responds more than 24 hours after the delivery of the initial message from the company, and the company in turn responds to that message, it will be considered a new user-initiated dialog session.
The form of payment for the service is a deposit, which you replenish in advance. As you use the services, the deposit will be deducted from their cost. The deposit can be spent either for a month or for the whole period of work. It is deducted on a monthly basis.
Minimal deposit is $300
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