Message templates and costs
Every WhatsApp message your store sends belongs to a category that Meta prices differently. Messages you start, such as order updates, abandoned cart reminders and campaigns, use templates that Meta approves in advance. Replies to a customer who wrote to you are support messages, which need no template. This page explains the categories, how messages use your points, and how to get your templates approved.
Message categories
| Category | What it covers | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing | Offers, promotions, new products, and reminders that encourage a purchase, such as campaigns, abandoned cart and purchase reminders, and retargeting. The highest price. | "A special offer for you: 20% off your next order" |
| Utility | Updates about something the customer did, such as order confirmation, shipping, delivery and refunds. Cheaper than marketing. | "Your order #12345 is confirmed" |
| Authentication | One-time verification codes, with no other content. | "Your verification code is 4521, valid for 10 minutes" |
| Support | Free-form replies within 24 hours of the customer's last message, from live chat, the automatic reply or reply flows. No template is needed. | A reply to a customer's question in live chat |
Marketing messages need the customer's prior agreement to receive your messages. Meta reviews them and can reject exaggerated promotional wording.
Utility messages must stay free of marketing content, or Meta reclassifies them as marketing and charges more. Avoid emojis and promotional wording in them too.
Authentication templates aren't available in Zid WhatsApp. They can't include images, links or emojis.
The Category column of the Message template history table on the WhatsApp page shows how each of your templates is classified. Zid creates a template for each automation, such as order confirmation, shipping or abandoned carts, and the order status update templates are ready as soon as you activate WhatsApp. You can turn these automations on from the Message automations card on the WhatsApp page.
How messages are charged
Charges come from your points balance.
You pay only for messages that reach the customer. When a message fails, its points return to your balance, and the message log marks the cost Refunded.
The price follows the category and the country code of the customer's number, not where the customer lives. A customer in Riyadh with a UAE number is charged at the UAE price.
Meta updates its prices about every quarter, so the points a message uses can change. Expand a row in the message log to see what a message cost.
Promotional content, such as a discount code, turns an order update into a marketing message, charged at the marketing price.
Prices by country
These are the points each delivered message uses, as last updated on 1 October 2026:
| Country of the customer's number | Marketing | Utility |
|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | 7.20 | 1.23 |
| United Arab Emirates | 6.62 | 1.81 |
| Qatar | 3.92 | 1.38 |
| Kuwait | 9.11 | 5.06 |
| Bahrain | 4.51 | 1.05 |
| Oman | 3.92 | 2.84 |
Support messages beyond your free monthly allowance use the Utility price.
Support messages and the 24-hour window
When a customer messages you, a 24-hour window opens, and every new message from the customer restarts it. For example, if a customer writes at 10 am on Sunday, the window stays open until 10 am on Monday; if they write again at 6 pm on Sunday, it stays open until 6 pm on Monday.
Inside the window you can reply freely with text, images, files and voice notes. No template is needed.
Outside the window you can send only an approved template, charged by its category.
Messages customers send you are never charged.
When a customer reaches you from a Click to WhatsApp ad or the WhatsApp button on your Facebook page, what you send them stays free for 72 hours.
Free support messages
Each WhatsApp number gets 1,000 free support messages a month. The Free support messages card on the WhatsApp page shows how many are left.
Each message counts on its own: five replies to one customer count as five.
Every reply your store sends inside the window counts, whether a team member writes it in live chat or the automatic reply or a reply flow sends it.
All your staff share the number's allowance.
The allowance renews at the start of each calendar month, and unused messages don't carry over.
Only replies that reach the customer count.
Template messages, such as order updates, abandoned cart reminders and campaigns, never use the free support messages. Each one is charged by its category, even while the customer's window is open.
Once the free messages run out, each reply uses points at the Utility price for the customer's country code. If your balance is also empty, replies stop until you top up.
For example, if your store sends 1,400 replies to customers with Saudi numbers in one month, the first 1,000 are free and the other 400 use 1.23 points each: 492 points in total.
To make the free messages last longer:
Write one complete reply instead of several short messages.
Review your reply flows and remove steps that don't help customers.
If your number also runs on the WhatsApp Business app, replies you type in the app on your phone don't count. See WhatsApp number and connection types.
Get your templates approved
Zid turns the WhatsApp message you write for each automation, such as order notifications, abandoned cart reminders or a campaign, into a template and sends it to Meta for review. Templates you register in live chat are submitted in the Marketing category. Meta reviews every new template and every edit to one; until Meta approves the new text, it can't be sent.
Meta usually reviews a template within minutes, but a review can take up to 48 hours, longer for new or unverified accounts. Meta alone decides, and Zid can't change the result.
Fix the alerts in the message editor
The WhatsApp message editor checks your text as you type and shows an alert for each problem Meta is likely to reject. Fix every alert before you save:
| Alert | Fix |
|---|---|
| Back-to-back variables without separator text | Put text between the variables. |
| Template starts or ends with a variable | Add text before the first variable or after the last one. |
| Too many variables compared to text length | Add more fixed text around the variables. |
| Message text cannot contain only parameters. | Add fixed text to the message. |
| Mismatched or incomplete braces | Put double braces around every variable, as in {{customer_name}}. |
| Excessive or irregular spaces | Use a single space between words. |
| Consecutive blank lines | Use one blank line between paragraphs. |
| Repeated punctuation found | Use a single punctuation mark. |
| Message text cannot contain more than 10 emojis. | Use 10 emojis or fewer. |
What else gets a template rejected
Marketing content, such as an offer or a discount code, in a utility message.
Pushy or exaggerated wording, such as "last chance before we close".
Text that repeats a template you already have.
Shortened or suspicious links.
Content that breaks Meta's commerce policies.
When Zid's permissions are removed from your Meta account, or Meta restricts your business portfolio, Meta rejects new templates automatically. See Troubleshoot Zid WhatsApp.
If Meta rejects a template, edit the message to remove the cause and submit it again.
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