Welcome to our latest blog post, where we unpack the impact of Meta’s recent price adjustments for enterprises leveraging WhatsApp as a channel of business-to-customer communication. 

WhatsApp Conversation Categories Affected by the Price Change

Conversations are 24-hour message threads between you and your customers. The session is opened and charged when messages you send to customers are delivered. The criteria that determines how the messages are categorized is explained below:

• Marketing — Enables you to achieve a wide range of goals, from generating awareness to driving sales and retargeting customers. Examples include new product, service, or feature announcements, targeted promotions/offers, and upsell/cross-sell campaigns.
• Utility — Enables you to follow-up on user actions or requests. Examples include opt-in confirmation, order/delivery management (e.g., delivery update); account updates or alerts (for example., payment reminder); or feedback surveys.
• Authentication — Enables you authenticate users with one-time passcodes, potentially at multiple steps in the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges).

Highlights of the WhatsApp Business Price Change

Meta’s pricing adjustments bring notable shifts: the cost for Utility and Authentication messages are decreasing, whereas Marketing message costs are rising. The strategy behind these changes is multifaceted. By slightly increasing the cost of marketing messages, Meta is nudging businesses towards more thoughtful and targeted communication which drives higher value (ROI) that is commensurate with the new pricing. The goal is to reduce the volume of untargeted, bulk messages that often lead to poor user experience and lower ROI.

This pricing strategy also encourages businesses to create more interactive and engaging content, aligning with Meta’s recent initiatives such as template pacing and frequency capping. The modest price increase for marketing messages in India is carefully calibrated to improve message quality without significantly burdening businesses, especially in a price-sensitive market like India. Additionally, by making untargeted messaging costlier, the idea is to combat spam and improve the overall user experience on the platform.

Gupshup has anticipated and prepared for this massive shift towards conversational customer experience. Way ahead of the market, we have built the Gupshup Conversation Cloud to help enterprises segment their audience, initiate a conversation with the right customer at the right time, and engage in rich two-way conversations, powered by AI. Our platform empowers enterprises to initiate meaningful conversations with the right customers at the optimal moments, across channels like WhatsApp, Google’s RCS, and even SMS. It also enables enterprises to create sophisticated multi-channel workflows to suit their reach, engagement, and cost goals.

These changes mark a pivotal transition towards prioritizing quality and interactivity in business messaging. Here’s an in-depth look at the specifics and how they align with the future of intelligent conversational CX.

Core Principles Driving the Change

1. Enhanced Targeting and Interactivity The recent adjustments in pricing, along with template pacing and frequency capping, clearly signal the need for high-quality targeting and interactivity. Messages lacking these elements contribute to a poor user experience and are increasingly flagged as spam.
2. Value in Utility Messaging Utility messages, which offer direct, tangible benefits to customers through advanced and interactive journeys, are now more cost-effective. This pricing strategy encourages businesses to focus on delivering high-value interactions.
3. Discouraging Ineffective Marketing Brands persisting with “dumb” marketing messages—those that are untargeted and non-interactive—will face higher costs and penalties, driving the need for smarter, more strategic communication efforts.

What’s Changing?

1. Utility Messages: A More Accessible Cost: Utility messages, that deliver direct and meaningful value to customers, will see a decrease in unit costs. These messages often involve advanced, interactive journeys, such as transaction notifications, delivery updates, and customer support interactions. This change underscores the importance of enriching the customer experience with valuable, timely information.
   The utility message price will reduce across markets. The price reduction is to the tune of 67% in India, 77% in Brazil, 62% in Mexico, 54% Saudi Arabia and 21% in the UAE.
   The utility messages on WhatsApp price change will be live with effect on 1st August 2024.
2. Marketing Messages: A Call for Higher Standards: On the other hand, the unit cost for Marketing messages will increase. This adjustment emphasizes the need for targeted, interactive messaging. Untargeted and non-interactive marketing messages are no longer sustainable; they suppress delivery rates, diminish read rates, and heighten the risk of being marked as spam. The price increase in marketing messages varies from country to country and it will increase to the tune of 8% in India, 12% in Saudi Arabia, and 13% in the UAE.
   The marketing messages price change will be live with effect on 1st October 2024
3. Authentication Messages: Higher read rate delivered at an efficient cost: Authentication messages are time-sensitive and high-priority business messages which can deliver a higher read rate on WhatsApp. And now, it comes at a lower cost to the business as well. All messages that desire a higher and immediate read rate such as OTPs, account verification, account recovery; fall under this category of messaging. The authentication message prices have lowered across major regions. The price reduction is to the tune of 7% in India, 71% in Brazil, 62% in Mexico, and 17% in Indonesia. The authentication messages on WhatsApp price change has been live with effect from 1st July, 2024.
   
   Please see the meta rate card to see the region wise prices for all message types.

Gupshup: Your Partner in Intelligent Conversational Engagement

We’re working closely with our top customers to continuously deliver intelligent and effective CX by:

1. Driving more conversation, per message: Every message sent is an opportunity to build a conversation with your customer. With every message sent to your customer, a 24-hour session window starts ticking. Some of our most successful customers have gone beyond optimizing the message to optimizing the 24-hour session. We’ve seen brands globally drive 6X revenue with a conversational approach and change the perception of the Conversational stack from being a cost-centre to a revenue centre, all of this while improving the overall customer experience.
   
   
2. Precisely segment your audience: The Conversation Cloud’s Campaign Manager module provides insights to brands on which audience is most likely to engage and complete the intended message goal, thereby providing more predictability of the outcomes they can drive, with every message.
3. Intelligent Channel failover: The platform’s Smart CPaaS module goes beyond one channel and empowers brands to initiate meaningful conversations with the right customers at the optimal moments, across channels like WhatsApp, Google’s Messages, and even SMS.
   
   
4. Powered Conversations with AI: The rise in conversational CX is increasing month on month. And many businesses did not foresee the burgeoning inflow of conversations across the customer journey. With Gupshup’s Conversational AI module, we’re making it easy for brands to engage in rich, two-way interactions powered by advanced AI.

We are enthusiastic about these advancements and the opportunities these changes present for enhancing the quality and effectiveness of business messaging. 

Strategic Insights for Enterprises Leveraging WhatsApp Business API:

1. Cultivate Interactive Conversations: The shift from one-way broadcasts to dynamic, two-way conversations is imperative. Engaging customers in meaningful dialogues not only adds value but also builds lasting relationships.
2. Prioritize Targeting and Personalization: Effective communication hinges on precise targeting and personalization. Understanding and segmenting your audience accurately allows for delivering messages that resonate on a personal level.
3. Intelligent Marketing Optimization: Harness capabilities to avoid dormant users, optimize conversion rates, and time your messages optimally for maximum impact. Intelligent optimization is key to driving better engagement and achieving higher ROI.

The Path Forward

Business Service Providers (BSPs) relying on outdated, one-way messaging practices will struggle to adapt, jeopardizing the effectiveness of their customer’s campaigns and their marketing budgets. Enterprises dependent on such BSPs will not only face diminished ROI but also penalties for subpar messaging practices.

Meta’s directive is clear: intelligence in messaging now trumps sheer volume. By segmenting, targeting, and personalizing your conversations, you ensure the delivery of the right message at the right time to the right audience.

We are enthusiastic about these advancements and the opportunities these changes present to enhance the quality and effectiveness of business messaging. Talk to us about how Gupshup can help your brand go beyond one-way messages and drive conversations that power growth!