Who charges whom. Meta charges your own WhatsApp Business account, per delivered message, at the rate of the customer's country — the country code of the number you write to, not of yours. SIPmind does not resell messages and adds no markup: the plan covers the AI and the CRM, Meta's fee goes straight to Meta. Add a payment card in Meta Business Suite → Billing & payments → your WhatsApp Business account; without one Meta accepts a paid message and never delivers it.

What is free. Everything customers send you. Your replies within 24 hours of the customer's last message — the replies the AI writes — up to 1,000 a month per WhatsApp number (since 1 October 2026; the thousand resets each month and does not carry over). Calls customers start in WhatsApp.

What is paid, per delivered message.

• Replies beyond the free thousand in the 24-hour window — Meta calls them «service» messages.
• Utility templates — a reminder, a confirmation, «your order is ready», a question about an existing booking. The cheapest template category.
• Authentication templates — one-time codes.
• Marketing templates — offers, news, «come back to us»; roughly three times a utility message, and the category Meta polices hardest.

Orders of magnitude (Meta's rate card, autumn 2026; check the live card before budgeting): in Kazakhstan a service or utility message is about $0.018 and a marketing one about $0.06; in Russia a service message is about $0.04; Europe and the US sit higher for marketing and lower for utility. The full table: WhatsApp Business Platform pricing.

Where SIPmind spends your messages. AI replies in chats (free up to the thousand); appointment reminders and the «write to the customer» action of automations outside 24 hours — utility templates; campaigns — the template you chose, utility or marketing. The campaign page shows the category and asks Meta before Start whether the number can send at all.

How to spend less. Answer inside the 24-hour window — a reply there costs nothing until the thousand is used; keep automatic messages short and without duplicates (each counts); write reminders as utility, not marketing — a template with a promotion in it becomes marketing at Meta's review; and remember that a template a customer answers opens a free window for the next 24 hours.