1. Meta's message fees
Charged by category and country. This layer exists whichever software you use, and it is the one most quotes leave out.
THREE BILLS, NOT ONE
WhatsApp chatbot pricing: what it really costs
A WhatsApp chatbot has three separate costs: what Meta charges for certain message categories, what the software charges, and what building and maintaining it costs you. Quotes that look wildly different usually just bundle those three in different ways.
Send your website. See Elily answer as your business.
The short version
- Meta bills by message category and by country, not by chatbot.
- Service replies inside the 24-hour customer service window are not charged under Meta's current published rules.
- Software is priced per conversation, per AI reply, per seat or per contact. The unit decides who is cheap at your volume.
- Elily's Free plan is 150 AI replies a month, with no expiry and no booking cap.
The three layers of the bill
2. The software fee
What the chatbot product charges, usually monthly. This is the number people compare, and the least comparable of the three.
3. Your own build and upkeep
Setup, content, integrations and the hours somebody spends fixing it. Invisible in every quote and rarely the smallest number.
Layer one: what Meta charges
Meta prices WhatsApp Business Platform messages by category, and the rate for each category varies by country. The categories are the important part for a chatbot budget, because inbound customer service behaves very differently from outbound marketing.
When a customer messages you first, a 24-hour customer service window opens. Under Meta's current published rules, replying inside that window is not charged. That covers most of what a front-desk chatbot does: answering questions, quoting published prices, offering times, confirming an appointment.
You meet Meta's fees when you start the conversation: a reminder the day before, a re-engagement message, a marketing broadcast. Those need an approved template and they cost money per message in most countries.
Layer two: how chatbot software is usually priced
Five pricing units dominate this market. Two vendors can be honest and still produce quotes that differ by a factor of ten, purely because of the unit.
| Pricing unit | What it means | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Per conversation | You pay for each customer thread in a period, however long it runs. | How a conversation is defined, when it restarts, and whether your own replies open a new one. |
| Per AI reply or message | You pay for each message the automation sends. | Whether menu clicks, confirmations and handover notices count, and what happens when the allowance runs out. |
| Per user or seat | You pay per member of staff with an inbox login. | Whether the owner needs a paid seat and whether part-time staff can share one. |
| Per contact | You pay by the size of your customer list. | Whether one-off enquirers count forever, and how contacts are removed. |
| Bundles and top-ups | An included allowance, then packs you buy when you exceed it. | The pack price, whether unused allowance rolls over, and what happens mid-month if it runs out. |
Ask every vendor to quote your real numbers: last month's inbound enquiries, not a round figure.
Layer three: the cost that never appears in a quote
Somebody has to write down your services and prices, check what the chatbot learned, connect the calendar, decide the handover rule and re-read the transcripts in week one. That is real time, and it is the same time whether the software costs nothing or a great deal.
For a DIY build, add the engineering: the webhook, hosting, conversation state, template submissions and the on-call rota. For a bought product, ask directly whether setup is something you do, something they do with you, or something billed as a project.
What a free WhatsApp chatbot really means
Four different things get called free in this market, and only one of them leaves you with a working front desk.
Free number one is the WhatsApp Business app. Genuinely free, genuinely not a chatbot: fixed greeting and away text that cannot read a question.
Free number two is Meta's Cloud API, where there is no charge for API access. You still pay Meta's message fees where they apply, and you build everything the API does not do.
Free number three is a trial. Useful for evaluating, but the clock is the product.
Free number four is a free plan you can stay on. Elily's is 150 AI replies a month with no expiry and no booking cap, which is enough to see whether customers actually use it before any money changes hands.
Eight questions that make two quotes comparable
Ask all eight of every vendor, in writing.
- Are Meta's message fees included in your price, billed separately, or paid by me directly to Meta?
- What exactly is one unit of your pricing, and what does not count as one?
- What is included at the lowest paid tier, and which of the things I just described are not?
- Is there a setup or onboarding charge, and is it optional?
- What happens when I exceed my allowance in the middle of a month?
- Is the WhatsApp number registered to my business, and what happens to it if I leave?
- Can I export my conversations and customer list, in what format?
- What is the notice period, and does the price change at renewal?
If you are searching in another language
The same three layers apply whatever you type. Searches for chatbot WhatsApp business precio, preço, barato or grátis all run into the same structure: Meta's per-message fees in your country, plus a software fee, plus the work.
Two things do change by country. Meta's rates differ per country, so the first layer is genuinely local. And software prices are usually shown in your own currency, which is why a price you saw quoted elsewhere may not be the one you are offered.
Elily's plans are shown in the currency of the country you are browsing from, so the pricing page answers this directly rather than making you convert.
Cheapest is whatever you actually keep using
Start on the free plan, send it your website, and watch a month of real customer messages. That is a better cost model than any spreadsheet built from list prices.
QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU START
Common questions
How much does a WhatsApp chatbot cost per month?
It depends on three separate layers: Meta's per-message fees for your country, the software fee, and your own setup time. Ask any vendor to quote against your real inbound volume from last month, and to state clearly whether Meta's fees are inside or outside their number.
Is the WhatsApp Business API free?
Meta does not charge for access to the Cloud API. It charges for messages by category and country, and under its current published rules a reply inside the 24-hour customer service window is not charged. Software, hosting and build time are separate costs.
What is the cheapest way to run a WhatsApp chatbot?
For most small businesses it is a free or low tier of a finished product, because the DIY route swaps a software fee for engineering hours that cost more. The cheapest option is whichever one is still running in six months without anyone maintaining it.
Do I pay Meta and the software vendor separately?
Sometimes. Some vendors bill Meta's message fees through to you on the same invoice; others require you to attach your own payment method to your WhatsApp Business Account. Both are normal. Not being told which one applies is not.
Does the Elily Free plan expire?
No. Free includes 150 AI replies a month, with no expiry and no cap on bookings. It is a plan you can stay on, not a trial that converts.
KEEP READING
Where this goes next
Rest of the WhatsApp chatbot guide
THE NEXT MESSAGE CAN BE HERS
Test the cost with real messages.
Start on Free, send Elily your website, and see how many of last month's questions she would have finished before you compare a single price list.
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