Updated WhatsApp Message Template Categories & Pricing
Release date: 17 April 2023
Available on all packages.
Changes to Template Categories
WhatsApp recently simplified its template categories. Previously, when adding new WhatsApp message templates, you could select from a great variety of categories. Now, all message templates fall into one of only three categories:
Utility – 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.
Marketing – Include promotions or offers, informational updates, or invitations for customers to respond/take action. Any conversation that does not qualify as utility or authentication is a marketing conversation.
Authentication – Enable businesses to authenticate users with one-time passcodes (e.g., account verification, account recovery, etc.).
Authentication template categories are not currently supported by Clickatell.
Marketing and Utility template categories are supported.
The Clickatell Portal now reflects these new category changes implemented by WhatsApp. Going forward, when adding a new open 2-way conversation template, you can select either the Marketing or Utility category only.
Pricing Changes
Meta also introduced a new pricing strategy. The category of the template message used also defines the conversation category. Businesses are charged per 24-hour conversation, with different rates by conversation category.
There are three business-initiated conversation categories (all of which require customer opt-in):
Utility conversations – Facilitate a specific, agreed-upon request, transaction, or update to a customer about an ongoing transaction, including post-purchase notifications and recurring billing statements.
Authentication conversations – 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) (Not supported by Clickatell currently.)
Marketing conversations – Include promotions or offers, informational updates, or invitations for customers to respond/take action. Any conversation that does not qualify as utility or authentication is a marketing conversation.
The fourth category is service conversations – all user-initiated conversations will be categorized as service conversations, which help customers resolve queries.
For more information, see Meta's documentation here.
Rates for business-initiated and user-initiated conversations vary by country or region. See here for rate cards.
In general, prices were impacted as follows:
User-initiated: Service messaging rates will remain the same.
Marketing: Generally increasing from today's business-initiated rate.
Utility: Generally decreasing from today's business-initiated rate.
See examples in Meta's pricing explainer document for more details.
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