Meta is changing how WhatsApp Business messaging is billed. From 1 October 2026, service messages (free-form replies inside an open 24-hour window) and utility templates sent inside that window both become chargeable. Both have been free until now.

This is a Meta platform change and applies to every business on WhatsApp, on any provider.

Every WhatsApp Business Account still gets 1,000 free service messages a month. After that, service messages bill at the same rate as a utility template in your market, with no volume discount.

Independent of this change, Meta is extending the free click-to-message ads (CTWA) window from 72 hours to 7 days. The change is effective immediately.

Check your region's rate on the Wati pricing page, and read our optimization guide for ways to lower your message count before the change lands.

🆕 New Feature

✨ What's new

• Vibe now keeps a persistent memory of your business context, so a new session picks up where the last one left off instead of asking for the same details again.
• Shared across all your agents: business identity, universal boundaries (safety, privacy, and escalation rules), and brand communication defaults like tone, language, and phrases to avoid. Individual agents can override them.
• Per agent, Vibe remembers how each builder works: preferred workflow, work in progress and next steps, what the last change touched, and editing approaches to avoid repeating.
• View and edit everything anytime from the Vibe memory management UI.

💙 Why you'll love it

If you build and manage Astra agents — especially on teams where several people edit the same agent, or work stretches across days — no more re-briefing Vibe at the start of every session.

Available on: Growth, Pro & Business

🆕 New Feature

✨ What's new

• Wati Academy now lives right inside the product — no need to go hunting for help elsewhere.
• Click the new icon in the left nav to open guided demos for setting up Wati features, whenever you need them.

💙 Why you'll love it

Learning how to use a feature is now just a click away, right where you're already working — no tab-switching, no searching for the right help doc.

Available on: Growth, Pro & Business

🆕 New Feature

✨ What's new

• Facebook Page comments now show up right inside Team Inbox — no more switching between Wati and Facebook.
• Reply publicly to a comment, or send a private Messenger reply to the commenter, all from the same view.
• View posts, comments, and replies together, so the full context is right there when you respond.

💙 Why you'll love it

If you run Facebook posts for engagement, leads, or support, every comment is now a conversation you can act on immediately — without leaving Wati.

Available on: Growth, Pro & Business

📚 Learn more

How to manage Facebook Page comments from Team Inbox

🆕 New Feature

✨ What's new

• Your Google Sheet can now be your campaign list — no developer, no add-on, no API tokens.
• Connect Google from the Integrations page, pick the sheet, choose which WhatsApp number to send from, map every template variable to a column, and send.
• Rows missing a mapped value are flagged before sending, so the rest of the list still goes out on time.

💙 Why you'll love it

If your customer list already lives in a spreadsheet — whether you're a founder running things solo or an agency managing campaigns across clients — you can now message that list straight from Wati, and pick the right sending number for every send.

Available on: Growth, Pro & Business

📚 Learn more

How to send WhatsApp template messages from Google Sheets using the Wati integration

🆕 New Feature

✨ What's new

• Pick a data type when you create a contact attribute: Date, DateTime, Number, Decimal, Dropdown, Multi-Select, or Long Text (up to 2,000 characters).
• Attributes now behave like the data they hold: date pickers for dates, numbers that sort and calculate properly, and dropdowns that only accept what's on your list (up to 50 options).
• HubSpot dropdown, multi-select, date, and number properties now sync in both directions as the right type.
• Typed inputs appear wherever you edit: contact details, the Team Inbox side panel, Flow builder, and contact list filters.

💙 Why you'll love it

Whether you sync a CRM or collect delivery slots, appointment times, and preferences through your bots, your contact data stays clean and consistent — without anyone retyping values by hand.

Available on: Growth, Pro & Business

🆕 New Feature

✨ What's new

• Any AI agent connected through the Wati MCP Server — Claude, ChatGPT, or your own — can now see and act on Instagram, not just WhatsApp.
• It can find your highest-intent comments, reply to them publicly, or send a private reply to move the conversation into DMs.
• Existing tools for reading conversations, contact profiles, and sending messages now work across Instagram DMs too.

💙 Why you'll love it

If you run Instagram alongside WhatsApp — especially for social-led commerce — your AI agent can now triage comments, catch high-intent leads, and reply with full context, without you touching the Instagram app.

Available on: Growth, Pro & Business

📚 Learn more

How to manage Instagram posts and comments with the Wati MCP Server

How to manage your Wati workspace using the Wati MCP Server

⚡ Enhancement

✨ What's new

• More control over Round Robin: choose how new chats are distributed among your operators, with assignment rules that fit your team's workflow.
• New Away Mode: operators can mark themselves as away, and new chats skip them until they're back.
• Chats keep moving automatically to the right available agent, so your customers get faster replies.

💙 Why you'll love it

Your team decides how conversations are shared, and nobody gets chats while they're unavailable — so response times stay quick without any manual reassigning.

Available on: Round Robin enhancements on Business · Away Mode on Pro & Business

📚 Learn more

How to use Round Robin assignment for chats in Wati

How Away Mode works in Wati

🆕 New Feature

✨ What's new

• TikTok conversations can now run on automation, not just manual replies in Team Inbox.
• Trigger flows the moment a TikTok message comes in, filter by keywords, working hours, or chat status, and send automated replies.
• Launch existing Wati chatbot flows, assign chats to agents or teams, and update tags, status, and contact attributes automatically.

💙 Why you'll love it

If TikTok is one of your conversation channels, your team no longer has to handle every message by hand — automation now covers TikTok the same way it already does WhatsApp.

Available on: Growth, Pro & Business

📚 Learn more

How to automate TikTok conversations in Wati

⚡ Enhancement

Three small upgrades that add up to a lot less manual work — cancel campaigns from your own tools, richer webhook data, and one less tap for your customers logging in.

✨ What's new

🛑 Cancel scheduled campaigns via API
No more jumping into the UI just to stop a scheduled send.

🔘 Button data in your webhooks
Template-sent webhooks now include quick-reply and link-button text, so your systems know exactly what a customer tapped.

📲 Zero-tap authentication for Android
Verification codes now autofill inside WhatsApp — no copying codes, no leaving the app.

💙 Why you'll love it

Less manual babysitting, cleaner data, faster logins for your customers.

Available on: API items — Pro & Business · Zero-tap authentication — all plans, Android only

📚 Learn more: Cancel Campaigns via API · Webhook Button Data · Zero-Tap Authentication