Facebook introduced WhatsApp Business years ago to provide business and service owners with a better experience for communicating with their customers. This experience has remained since the time of launch a free trial like all that WhatsApp offers, but unfortunately it will not continue as well, as the American company plans soon to make money for the first time from the application that it acquired in 2014.
Meta (formerly Facebook) will finally monetize by charging for conversations that WhatsApp Business users have with a billing system based on the 'conversation' module, in exchange for a flat fee that varies from country to country. In the following lines, we will explain to you the new accounting method, and we will show you the fees imposed in all Arab countries and the date of their application.
WhatsApp Business accounting method
First, before we proceed to explaining the accounting method, we must confirm that all WhatsApp users will not pay any fees at all. If you talk to a WhatsApp Business account, you will not pay any money. The owner of the store, the company, or the service provider will pay. As for you, as a regular user, you will not pay anything.
WhatsApp Business account holders are charged per conversation. According to the new published policy, the conversation is a group of messages between the two parties, starting with the first message and continuing until 24 hours have passed since it was sent. Exchanging new messages 24 hours after the first message was sent means that you have started a new conversation. You will be charged for two conversations, not one.
For simplicity, it is more like a public parking lot accounting system. If you spend 46 minutes, for example, you will pay for an hour of waiting, if you spend 1 hour and 18 minutes, you will pay for two hours.
By the same logic if the conversation ends in less than 24 hours you will pay for one conversation. If it lasts for more than 24 hours, you will pay for two conversations, and so on.
The price of a conversation varies depending on which party initiated the conversation. If the user starts his conversation the price of the conversation will be lower, if the owner of the WhatsApp Business account starts the price of the conversation will be more.
The phone number used is also a factor in the tariff. For example, if you are a hotel owner in Egypt and you are talking to an Egyptian citizen residing in the Emirates who owns an Emirati line but is on vacation in Egypt and uses WhatsApp with the Emirati number. If you initiate the conversation, you will be charged the conversation rate for WhatsApp Business accounts in Egypt.
If he initiates the conversation, you will be charged the rate of an individual conversation in the UAE.
Free conversations
Fortunately, Facebook's plan to make money from WhatsApp won't work for everyone. Small business owners won't pay for the service since each account gets 1,000 free chats at the start of each month. These free chats can be initiated by regular users or WhatsApp Business account holders.
Free chats for advertisers on facebook
If you own a page on Facebook, you know that you can add a button to direct the user to talk via WhatsApp directly. The same thing can be done when creating an ad on Facebook.
In the event that the user presses the button in the advertisement and starts the conversation, the WhatsApp Business account holder will not pay for that conversation, and it will be free because he has used the Facebook advertising service. In the event that the exchange of messages continues for more than 24 hours, the owner of the WhatsApp Business account will have to pay the value of one conversation, which is the second conversation that started 24 hours after the first hour.
Other factors
Well, a logical question might come to your mind, how much would I pay if the average user started the conversation and our conversation ended before 24 hours had passed, but you, as the owner of the WhatsApp Business account, needed to respond to it after 24 hours had passed? Will you pay for 2 user-initiated conversations or will you pay for one user-initiated conversation and one user-initiated conversation for the WhatsApp Business account holder?
It sounds complicated, you are right but this is the new accounting system. The answer is that you will pay for a conversation initiated by the user and for a conversation initiated by the WhatsApp Business account holder. These rates may vary if the other party is from a country other than your own.
To make it simple, WhatsApp offers 5 imaginary scenarios that explain all possible differences in accounting methods. You can find it through this file .
WhatsApp Business fees
The following fees are the WhatsApp Business fees per conversation in Arab countries. If you want to calculate the actual cost, you must take into account all of the above factors.
| Country | The price of the conversation initiated by the business | The price of the conversation initiated by the user |
| Egypt | $0.1073 | $0.0644 |
| Saudi Arabia | $0.0325 | $0.0195 |
| The UAE | $0.0316 | $0.0190 |
| Qatar | $0.0727 | $0.0218 |
| Oman | $0.0727 | $0.0218 |
| Yemen | $0.0727 | $0.0218 |
| the two seas | $0.0727 | $0.0218 |
| Kuwait | $0.0727 | $0.0218 |
| Iraq | $0.0727 | $0.0218 |
| Syria | $0.0727 | $0.0218 |
| Lebanon | $0.0727 | $0.0218 |
| Palestine | $0.0300 | $0.0180 |
| Jordan | $0.0727 | $0.0218 |
| Sudan | $0.1208 | $0.0363 |
| Algeria | $0.1208 | $0.0363 |
| Libya | $0.1208 | $0.0363 |
| Morocco | $0.1208 | $0.0363 |
| Tunisia | $0.1208 | $0.0363 |
| Mauritania | $0.1208 | $0.0363 |
| Algeria | $0.1208 | $0.0363 |
| Somalia | $0.1208 | $0.0363 |
| Djibouti | $0.1208 | $0.0363 |
| Comoros | $0.1208 | $0.0363 |
When to apply WhatsApp Business fees
WhatsApp Business fees will apply starting February 1, 2022 to all users of the service in all countries of the world.