360dialog only charges a monthly license fee per hosted number for unlimited access to the WhatsApp API with respect to Meta's policies. All customers must also pay for conversation fees which are re-billed by Meta as per their pricing rates. We do not charge any markup or commission or Meta's conversation fees.
We never charge any extra cost per conversation or message, the Conversation fees are only passed through. These costs are also paid to 360dialog, and 360dialog pays Meta. If the number is registered for any other 360dialog products such as Measurement, these will be paid separately.
Meta Pricing: Conversation-based Pricing
You only pay for the conversation and can send as many messages as you want in a 24-hour session, even if the customer doesn't respond.
Following the Conversation-Based Pricing model, WhatsApp API conversations fall into one of the following categories, which are priced differently:
Marketing — Marketing conversations include promotions or offers, informational updates, or invitations for customers to respond or take action.
Utility — Utility conversations facilitate a specific, agreed-upon request or transaction, or update a customer about an ongoing transaction. These may include transaction confirmations, transaction updates, and/or post-purchase notifications.
Authentication — Authentication conversations enable you to authenticate users with one-time passcodes, potentially at multiple steps in the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges).
Service — Service conversations help you resolve customer inquiries.
See below for Meta's documentation on the topic.
Understanding 360dialog's fixed monthly fee
Our pricing is based on the monthly license fee per hosted number. Incoming & outgoing WhatsApp Session Messages are always free and unlimited - we never charge any extra cost per session message.
Messaging throughput
Under ideal conditions, accounts with Cloud API hosting can handle up to 80 messages per second. Ideal conditions include your webhook responding in less than 200ms and having sufficient technical resources to ensure optimal performance.
Higher throughput with Cloud API
If you need to process over 80 messages per second, we offer an upgrade option. When upgraded to High Throughput Plan, a number can process up to 1000 messages per second. For this upgrade, your number needs to already be in the Premium Plan. Please contact our support team for more information, as well as price.
Please note that this upgrade will only be applied to the processing capacity of 360dialog. For a number to be able to process up to 1000 messages per second, the limits also need to be raised on the Meta setup.
We strongly advise businesses expecting peaks of messages or planning campaigns to upgrade to High Throughput Plan immediately, even if the number hasn't reached the criteria below.
Eligibility Requirements on Meta Setup (360dialog upgrade required on top of this)
The number will be automatically upgraded on the Meta infrastructure upon meeting the following criteria:
The business phone number must be able to initiate conversations with an unlimited number of unique customers in a rolling 24-hour period.
The business phone number must be registered for use with Cloud API. If the number is registered for use with On-Premises API, it must be migrated to Cloud API first.
The business phone number must have a Medium quality rating or higher.
If a business requires higher throughput and has not reached the unlimited tier, please follow the existing quality messaging process to increase the limit and thus achieve higher throughput. See Messaging Limits for more details.
Note that to upgrade messaging throughput after Meta's approval, changes on the 360dialog infrastructure are necessary. If you are planning a messaging campaign that requires higher throughput, please contact our Support Team.
API Rate limit per WABA
Each WABA has an API call count rate limit. Each API call made to any of WABA Phone number (i.e. the WhatsApp Management API, or any of its edges, such as the /messages endpoint) counts against this limit.
The current limit 11,880,000 API calls per rolling-hour for a given WABA. However, that this is a maximum threshold; actual capacity may be less due to additional request types (e.g. mark as read or media requests) that can add on top of this limit.
That means, a single WABA could only hold 3 high throughput phone numbers, if the phone numbers fully utilize their high throughput (sending 1k m/s). For a WABA managing 50 numbers, for example, this allocation translates to no more than 66 requests per second per number.
It's important to note that API call distribution operates on a first-come, first-served basis. Consequently, some phone numbers may consume more resources, while others receive fewer or none, particularly during periods of high demand. For this reason, we advise separating high volume phone numbers in different WABAs. Refer to our documentation to learn how to Migrate a phone number to a new WABA.
If you reach the limit, the API will respond with error code 400 Bad Request including error code 80007. See Error Codes.
When the limit has been reached:
Stop making API calls. Continuing to make calls will continue to increase your call count, which will increase the time before calls will be successful again.
Switch to other WABA and come back to this account later.
Spread out queries evenly between two time intervals to avoid sending traffic in spikes.
Use filters to limit the data response size and avoid calls that request overlapping data.
[Will be deprecated] On-premise hosting
Meta has made the Cloud API the standard WhatsApp Business API version. It is a more scalable and reliable option than the legacy one (On-premise API).
Cloud API currently has 99.9% uptime and <5 seconds p99 latency. You can see the Cloud API latency directly on Meta Status Page.
Meta has announced a roadmap to sunset the WhatsApp On-Premise API. Therefore, we recommend to start changing the hosting type of numbers to Cloud as soon as possible.
From January 2024, all new features are now only launched in Cloud API. There will be no new features in On-Premise API versions, which will only contain bug fixes. This means that for any errors, using Cloud API will be the main solution.
From May 15, 2024, we will not allow new numbers to be registered for the WhatsApp On-Premise API.
Effective October 2025, Meta will be sunsetting access to the WhatsApp Business Platform using On-Premise hosting. By that date, all numbers registered with 360dialog should be using the Cloud API.
Message throughput with On-premise hosting
On-Premise accounts with a high volume of simultaneous messages need more complex infrastructure to allow for a seamless process of these messages. To increment an account's infrastructure, we can add more cores (or shards), which increases its capacity to process higher messages simultaneously. Please note that the standard setting does not prevent messages from being sent or received above its capacity - these messages will only take longer to arrive.
Regular and Premium accounts with On-premise hosting can process up to 25 messages per second.
We have two on-premise hosting plans for High volume accounts available: Half-scale with 16 Shard Multi-connect setup (which processes up to 120 messages per second) and Full-scale with 32 Shard MultiConnect setup (which processes more than 120 messages per second). These plans also include Premium Plan benefits.
On-premise WhatsApp Business API cannot process more than 250 messages per second by default, even with the full-scale setup. Here is the Meta documentation highlighting this information.
An account can only be upgraded and downgraded after a period of 30 days. If you are planning a high-volume campaign, for example, please note that you will need to request the upgrade at least 7 days before the campaign is active and will only be able to downgrade after a full month has passed. The upgrade and downgrade processes can generate downtimes, so please also prepare for that.
What is the difference between On-premise hosting in Regular and Premium Plan?
The Premium Plan offers a more stable server with higher SLAs.
Cost and Billing
Clients who opt to create an account directly with 360dialog, meaning without a Solution Partner, can choose between a 49,- EUR / USD and a 99,- EUR / USD plan.
Both plans offer direct access to the API and therefore unlimited possibilities regarding your implementation. Both plans also are eligible for chat support, whereas the 99,- EUR / USD plan will provide access to Premium support.
It is not possible to enroll for Premium Support without the Premium Plan.
All our plans are billed on a month-to-month basis.
How to check the current plan of a number
The subscription plan of a channel/number is shown in "Account Details" and further detailed under the "Billing Information" section in the 360dialog Hub.
How to upgrade
If you are enrolled for Direct billing, you will have the option to upgrade directly from the 360dialog Hub.
Once you request the update, you will receive immediate access to all upgraded plan features upon selection. The corresponding license fee will be charged to your attached payment method at the time of the upgrade.
Please note that after upgrading, you will only be able to downgrade after 30 days.
If you pay for your WhatsApp Business API account to your Solution Partner, please contact them to request the upgrade.
Webhook response
For the messages to be sent and received without delays, it is important to check how long it takes for your webhook to respond to requests. For responses above 80 milliseconds, there could be delays unrelated to 360dialog's structure.
If you can’t decrease the response time of your webhook, but are experiencing issues, please get in touch with our support team.
Billing start and end
License fee billing will begin as soon as the WhatsApp Business API stack is deployed. The stack is deployed immediately after the Signup is completed.
Cancelling your license will queue the number for deletion. Please note, it is not an instant deletion. The status of the number will be changed to “Pending deletion”, while the number is in the stage, it can still send and receive messages as normal. The number will be permanently deleted at the end of the notice period (at the end of the next month), and billing will stop at that point.
Payment options
We offer two payment options: Direct Payment or Partner Payment. The Partner option requires a signed contract between the Software Provider and 360dialog). All payments (both license and conversation fees) are made either only through a Partner for all Clients, or each Client separately and independently. It is not possible to use different types of payment for the license and conversation fees.
Direct Payment
With this option, each client pays license fees and conversations fees to 360dialog directly. A partner charges for their product/integration separately.
Please see details about Direct Payment options and management in this specific documentation.
Partner Payment
With this option, the partner pays for the license fees and conversation fees for the clients. Pricing policy of a partner is not regulated by 360dialog.
Please see details about Partner Payment options and management in our Partner's specific documentation.
