All you need to know about WhatsApp Business API Price Change 2023

With the mobile messaging space continuing to rapidly expand, staying up-to-date on changes happening with WhatsApp Business API Price Change is a must for any customer engagement custodian. In this blog post, we’ll discuss all the details regarding the price change set to take effect on 1st June 2023 and provide an overall informational guide so you can plan ahead and ensure your company remains competitive. The good part about the price change is that WhatsApp Business Messaging API is all geared to get more precise and ROI-focused and topped with new and updated platform features of Gupshup.io, we’re all set to deliver even better customer experiences.

New WhatsApp Business Messaging Categories:

The conversation based pricing model will cover four types of conversations instead of the current two – User initiated and Business Initiated Conversations starting June 01, 2023.

Let’s take a look at the 4 new categories:

Gupshup.io brings all the information you need about the new WhatsApp Business Conversations

Summarising the 4 new conversation categories offered by WhatsApp Business API:

1. Service Conversations: Formerly known as UIC (User initiated conversation) All user-initiated conversations will now be categorized as service conversations, which help customers resolve enquiries. Encourage more engagement with high returns on investment
2. Utility Conversations: Templates that facilitate a specific, agreed-upon request or transaction or update to a customer about an ongoing transaction, including post-purchase notifications and recurring billing statements.
3. Authentication Conversations: Templates that enable businesses to authenticate users with one-time passcodes, potentially at multiple steps in the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges)
4. Marketing Conversations: Templates that include promotions or offers, informational updates, or invitations for customers to respond / take action.
   

The new WhatsApp Business API Pricing:

The rate card for all 4 conversation categories will change from region to region. You can learn more about WhatsApp Business API’s updated pricing on their official website. Here’s an overview of the updated to conversation-based pricing: Effective June 1, 2023

META’s Updated Pricing in USD ($) – Effective from 01/06/2023

Please note: This is just the WhatsApp’s Conversation Based Charges and is not inclusive of the Gupshup’s fee.

How WhatsApp is aligning pricing with value:

Businesses world over have benefited from connecting with their customers over WhatsApp with higher open rate, higher engagement rate, and also offering conversational support. Below, we’re highlighting the value that we’re driving with Conversations over WhatsApp for each of the 4 categories:

The value driven by each of the categories for WhatsApp Business Conversations are:

• Marketing Conversations:
  • ~2X ROI for Sales & Commerce and 67%  lift in Conversion rate
  • Enriched engagement features coming up making marketing interactive and delightful
    
• Utility Conversations:
  • 93%  reduction in query volume across human-intensive channels 
  • New WhatsApp Price for Utility templates  is lower on avg (varies by Geo)
• Authentication Conversations:
  • Higher Open rate than traditional channels
  • Lower pricing than all other messaging category
• Service Conversations:
  • Driving high ROI at lower support costs
  • Price is unchanged

Preparing for the change:

Migration of existing templates

Meta will start migrating all the existing templates from 27th March through 1st April 2023. This would mean that all your existing templates will be re-categorized in one of the three buckets: Marketing, Utility, Authentication*.

Starting 29th Mar 2023, you will start seeing both new as well as old categories for your templates auto-migrated by Meta on the Gupshup template list interface.  If you do not agree with  the categorization done by Meta, you can change the category to your desired state and resubmit the template for approval.

Creating new templates

Starting 29th Mar 2023, you will be required to submit any new template from the Gupshup interface as per the three new categories (Marketing, Utility, Authentication*) only. You will be able to view the approval status within the interface.

Managing rejected templates

If the template gets rejected due to an incorrect category, users can either edit the template and resubmit from the Gupshup interface or they can log an appeal to Meta by reaching out to our support team at whatsappsupport@gupshup.io.

To avoid template rejection due to incorrect category, users can allow for automated category change by Meta directly from the Gupshup interface.

Note on billing: Please note that all the above changes will have no bearing to your billing till 31st May 2023.

WhatsApp’s Business API’s New Richer Experience:

In addition to the updated value-based pricing model, there are also a lot of new promising features that will deliver richer conversational experiences for your business. Here’s a highlight of what’s coming:

Business search and directory will help customers discover your business from right within WhatsApp, by simply typing what they’re looking for. Customers may also look for businesses near them, based on their location and can easily and quickly find grocery stores, restaurants, salons, service stations and more. If you’re in Brazil, you might’ve already experienced this feature. In addition to search, customers may also find your business through ‘See more businesses like this’ while on a business profile, increasing the visibility of your business.

And if you ever wanted a bespoke app-like experience within WhatsApp, that’s coming soon in the form of Extensions. The Extensions feature allows businesses to create a custom form with drop downs, radio buttons or check-box lists to guide customers through a journey. Think of it as an extension to a standard catalog, with use cases expanding to appointment booking, reward points redemption, feedback programs, gamification and more.