New pricing policy for AI Providers leveraging the WhatsApp Business Platform | Developer Documentation

This is specific to “AI Providers” using the WhatsApp Business Platform, as defined in our Terms of Service⁠ updated on January 15, 2026: Providers and developers of artificial intelligence or machine learning technologies, such as large language models, generative artificial intelligence platforms, general-purpose artificial intelligence assistants, or similar technologies who provide certain services on WhatsApp Business Platform.

This does NOT change how or what Meta charges all other businesses using the WhatsApp Business Platform. They will continue to be charged as outlined in the pricing explainer. This includes not being charged for non-template messages sent in an open customer service window. This also does not change the mechanics of the customer service window.

Effective February 16, 2026 – Meta will charge for:

Markets and effective dates (as of January 28, 2026):

Effective February 16, 2026, this applies to Italy (+39).

Effective March 11, 2026, this applies to the following countries:

For example: If a user in Italy sends an AI Provider a prompt, and the AI Provider delivers three non-template message responses to the user over a span of 5 minutes, that will incur three charges.

The Pricing Analytics API will include a new <PRICING_CATEGORY> value of AI_BOT to reflect AI Provider traffic.

{
  "start": <START_TIMESTAMP>,
  "end": <END_TIMESTAMP>,
  "phone_number": "<BUSINESS_PHONE_NUMBER>",
  "country": "<COUNTRY_CODE>",
  "pricing_type": "REGULAR",
  "pricing_category": "AI_BOT",
  "volume": <VOLUME>,
  "cost": <COST>
}

The webhooks will reflect the <PRICING_CATEGORY> for these non-template messages from “AI Providers” as general_purpose_ai.

Billable messages have type set to regular in the pricing object of status messages webhooks:

"pricing": {
 "billable": true,
 "pricing_model": "PMP",
 "type": "regular",
 "category": "<general_purpose_ai>"
}