WhatsApp Business Updates- The company played a big bet against those who use third party AI.

Friends, the world’s most popular instant messaging app WhatsApp brings new features for its users, recently WhatsApp has announced a major change in its AI pricing policy for business accounts. The new pricing model may significantly increase the cost of using third-party AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, Mistral, Qwen and Kimi on WhatsApp Business.

The new prices will come into effect from October 1 and could make AI-powered customer support and automation significantly more expensive for those businesses. Let us know the complete details

Third-party AI models can cost nearly double

WhatsApp’s updated developer documentation released on July 1 reveals a big difference in pricing between Meta AI and third-party AI models.

Businesses using Meta AI may have to pay around $400–$500 (approximately ₹38,000–₹48,000) for every 10,000 AI-powered messages.

In comparison, businesses using third-party AI models like ChatGPT or Claude may have to pay up to $968 (approximately ₹92,000) for the same number of messages, depending on the token used.

Currently, WhatsApp doesn’t charge businesses anything to use AI agents, so this is a big change in policy.

New pricing may impact businesses and startups

Industry experts believe that the new pricing structure could have a negative impact on companies that have built customer support chatbots using AI models from providers other than Meta.

According to Aniket Jain, co-founder of enterprise messaging startup Fyno, this difference in pricing is more than just a discount for Meta AI.

He said the new model actually penalizes businesses that choose alternative AI platforms and could create additional challenges for Indian startups that rely on advanced third-party AI models.

Token-based pricing could increase bills

Another big concern is WhatsApp’s token-based pricing system, which can make costs difficult to estimate.

Businesses may face unexpected increases in their monthly bills as the complexity of AI interactions varies. Longer and more detailed conversations cost more tokens, resulting in higher fees. Companies need better cost management

Customer engagement platform CleverTap believes that companies will need strong governance and monitoring tools to properly manage AI spends.

According to experts, companies should do the following:

Constantly monitor the usage of AI tokens.

Set spending limits and cost alerts.

Create fallback rules for expensive AI requests.

Use intelligent routing to send only complex questions to AI.

Determine when AI automation is necessary and when simple workflows can achieve the same results at less cost.

What impact will this have on companies?

The new pricing model is expected to change how companies implement AI-powered customer service on WhatsApp. They will need to carefully assess their AI strategy, optimize usage, and control costs before the new pricing comes into effect from October 1.