Understanding WhatsApp messaging

Starting June 1st 2023 WhatsApp will switch to a use case based pricing model for all businesses globally sending WhatsApp messages. Price changes will only apply to WhatsApp fees. There will not be any changes to Vonage platform fees. Information on the WhatsApp Business Platform pricing changes, can be found on the WhatsApp website.

WhatsApp Business Solution messages can only be sent by businesses that have been approved by WhatsApp. This business profile will also have a green verified label to indicate that it is a legitimate business.

The advantage of WhatsApp is that the identifier of users on the platform is their mobile phone number.

NOTE: WhatsApp is in Limited Availability and Vonage cannot guarantee you will receive a WhatsApp account.

To get started with the WhatsApp messaging read Getting started with WhatsApp.

Rules for Messaging Customers

WhatsApp has a concept of a 24 hour customer care window, during which a business can freely message an end user. The 24 hour window can be initiated in two ways:

An end user sends a message to the business
A business sends a templated message to the end user. The 24 hour window starts as soon as the end user replies.

Templates must be approved by WhatsApp before they can be used to send messages to an end user. When the 24 hour window expires, a new 24 hour customer care window must be initiated again. It is important to be aware that 24 hour customer care windows are not the same as the 24 hour billable conversation window.

WhatsApp Message-Based Pricing

Vonage now offers Per-Message Pricing (PMP) for WhatsApp messaging, following Meta’s latest billing changes. This model replaces the earlier Conversation-Based Pricing (CBP) approach.

Effective July 1, 2025, Meta charges for template messages on a per-message basis, rather than per conversation. This means that each business-initiated template message is billed individually, based on its template category.

How does Vonage price messaging? The Vonage pricing for WhatsApp messaging is made up of two components:

A Vonage platform fee - this is priced per message.
A WhatsApp fee - this is priced per template message. There are now three template message categories, each of which are charged at different rates:
- Utility templates - Enables the completion of a particular, agreed-upon request or transaction, or provides a customer with an update about an ongoing transaction, including post-purchase notifications and regular billing statements.
- Authentication templates - Enables businesses to utilize one-time passcodes to verify users at various login stages, if necessary (e.g. account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges).
- Marketing templates - Business-initiated messages to market a good or service to customers, such as sending pertinent offers to customers who have opted in. This would also include any business-related interaction that is not an authentication or utility conversation.

For more information on Vonage WhatsApp pricing, see the Messages API pricing page. Further information on the Message-Based Pricing model can be found in the WhatsApp developer documentation.

WhatsApp message types

There are a number of different WhatsApp message types:

Message Type	Description
Text Message	A plain text message. This is the default message type.
Media Message	A media message. Types are: image, audio, document and video.
Message Template	Message Templates are created in the WhatsApp Manager. Outside of the Customer Care Window messages sent to a customer must be a Message Template type. Only templates created in your own namespace will work. Using an template with a namespace outside of your own results in an error code 1022 being returned.
Media Message Templates	Media message templates expand the content you can send to recipients beyond the standard message template type to include media, headers, and footers using a `components` object.
Contacts Message	Send a contact list as a message.
Location Message	Send a location as a message.
Interactive Message	The Vonage Messages API v1 supports two types of WhatsApp Interactive Messages: List Messages, Reply Buttons, and Product Messages. Read more

How WhatsApp works

A business can start a conversation with a user and a user can start a conversation with a business.

WhatsApp has a core concept of Messages Templates (MTM). These were previously known as Highly Structured Messages (HSM).

IMPORTANT: WhatsApp requires that a message that is sent to a user for the first time, or that is outside the Customer Care Window, be an MTM message. WhatsApp also requires that you obtain opt-in from your customers prior to sending them a message, this may be obtained on your website, IVR, or other standard means see Facebook's docs for more details.

The MTM allows a business to send only the template identifier along with the appropriate parameters instead of the full message content.

NOTE: New templates need to be approved by WhatsApp. Please contact your Vonage API Account Manager to submit the templates. Only templates created in your own namespace are valid. Using an template with a namespace outside of your own results in an error code 1022 being returned.

NOTE: Templates are subject to a restriction of 60 characters in their header and footer, and 1024 characters in their body.

MTMs are designed to reduce the likelihood of spam to users on WhatsApp.

For the purpose of trying out WhatsApp, Vonage provides the Messages API Sandbox.

WhatsApp deterministic language policy

NOTE: WhatsApp deprecated the "fallback" locale method when sending template messages on January 1st 2020. As of April 8, 2020, messages bearing the "fallback" policy will fail with a 1020 error in your message status webhook.

When a message template is sent with the deterministic language policy, the receiving device will query its cache for a language pack for the language and locale specified in the message. If not available in the cache, the device will query the server for the required language pack. With the deterministic language policy the target device language and locale settings are ignored. If the language pack specified for the message is not available an error will be logged.

Further information is available in the WhatsApp documentation.

WhatsApp Template Management API

The WhatsApp Template Management API allows you to programmatically list existing WhatsApp templates, create new templates, delete templates, and upload media for use in templates.

You can read more in the WhatsApp Template Management API guide.