# What it costs

> Two separate bills — ONPAD's subscription and Meta's per-message charges — and how each one works.
> Source: https://onpad.in/docs/what-it-costs

There are **two separate bills**, and confusing them is the most common billing question we get.

| Who charges | For what | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| ONPAD | The software — inbox, campaigns, automations, API, team seats | ONPAD, as a subscription |
| Meta | The WhatsApp messages themselves | Meta, billed to your own WhatsApp Business Account |

ONPAD does not collect Meta's charges, does not add a markup to them, and cannot refund them. Meta bills you directly.

This also means **a payment method has to be set up on the Meta side too.** An active ONPAD plan does not keep messages flowing if Meta has no way to charge you — Meta will stop delivering.

## The ONPAD subscription

Every new account starts on a **7-day free trial**, and the trial is one per person, not one per workspace — creating a second workspace does not reset it.

Plans, prices and limits live in the app, because they change: open **Plans & billing** inside your workspace for the current list. Deliberately, they are not printed here, so this page cannot go stale and quote you a price that no longer exists.

What differs between plans is broadly: how many contacts you can store, how many messages you can send through campaigns and the API, how many team members can sign in, and which features are switched on.

## Meta's message charges

Meta charges **per message**, not per conversation. This replaced the older conversation-based model, where one price covered 24 hours of back-and-forth. Now, one reply costs one message, and five replies cost five.

What you pay for depends on the category:

- **Marketing templates** — always charged.
- **Utility templates** — charged when sent outside an open customer service window.
- **Authentication templates** — charged when sent outside an open customer service window.
- **Free-form messages inside an open 24-hour window** — not charged as template messages.

There is also a **free entry point window**: when a customer reaches you through a Click-to-WhatsApp ad or a Facebook Page call button, a 72-hour window opens during which messages to that customer are free.

Rates differ by country and by category, and Meta changes them. **Meta's own pricing page is the only accurate source**, and it is linked at the bottom of this page. Any rate you see quoted on a third-party blog may already be out of date.

Utility and authentication messages get cheaper at higher monthly volumes, through tiers Meta aggregates across all the business accounts in your portfolio.

## If you are in India

Meta localised billing for India on **1 January 2026**. Eligible businesses must migrate their WhatsApp Business Account to **INR billing by 31 December 2026**. Accounts that have not migrated can see message delivery disrupted from **1 January 2027**.

Check this in Meta Business Manager, under your WhatsApp Business Account's billing settings. ONPAD cannot do the migration for you and does not get told whether you have done it.

## How to keep costs down

**Reply inside the 24-hour window.** A free-form reply to a customer who just messaged you costs nothing as a template. The same information sent tomorrow needs a template, which is charged.

**Do not send marketing when utility would do.** An order update genuinely is a utility message, and utility rates are lower. But write it as a utility message — if it carries an offer, Meta will re-categorise it as marketing anyway.

**Keep your lists clean.** Every message to a wrong or dead number is still a delivery attempt. [Import problems](https://onpad.in/docs/create-an-account) and bad data cost money as well as quality rating.

**Watch your quality rating.** It is free to keep it green and expensive to lose it — a red rating can pause your number, and a paused number sends nothing at any price.

## Where to check the real numbers

- **ONPAD plans** — Plans & billing inside your workspace
- **Meta's rates** — [Pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform](https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/business-messaging/whatsapp/pricing)
- **Your Meta bill** — Meta Business Manager, under your WhatsApp Business Account

> Meta's pricing rules have changed more than once, most recently in 2025 and 2026. If what you read here and what Meta's page says ever disagree, Meta's page is right — tell us and we will fix this page.