WhatsApp conversation pricing is the name of Meta's charging model for messages a business sends on the WhatsApp Business API. Until mid-2025 Meta billed per 24-hour conversation, opened by the first message in a category; since then it bills per template message delivered, with rates set by country and by category: marketing, utility and authentication. Replies to a customer inside the 24-hour customer service window are free, and utility templates sent inside an open window are free too. The term "conversation pricing" has stuck even though the unit is now the message.
Why it matters
For a food business the money question is simple: what does it cost to tell your customers something they did not ask about? In India, a marketing message costs well under a rupee per recipient on Meta's rate card at the time of writing, and a utility message such as an order update costs a fraction of that; check Meta's current rate card before you plan a campaign. Your ordering platform may add its own margin on top, so the price you pay per message can differ from Meta's figure. Because order chats are started by the customer, almost everything in the ordering flow itself is free; what you pay for is campaigns. The full breakdown is in WhatsApp Business API pricing in India.
Example
A restaurant sends a weekend biryani offer to 2,500 customers who opted in. At under a rupee per marketing message, Meta's charge for the send is under ₹2,500. If 3 percent of recipients order at an average of ₹450, that is 75 orders and ₹33,750 of revenue from a campaign that cost about the value of five or six orders. Order confirmations and out-for-delivery updates sent to those 75 customers while their chat is open cost nothing extra. How to choose between groups, broadcast lists and API campaigns is covered in groups vs broadcasts vs API campaigns.
On Tezzu, campaigns are sent from your own number and paid from a prepaid wallet in the dashboard.