How WhatsApp works (Templates, Phone Numbers, Prices)

What you need to know

WhatsApp can be a bit tricky, so please take a moment to read this carefully.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how messaging works:

1. Message Types: There are two kinds of WhatsApp messages:

1. Template Messages – These are the first messages you send to a contact. They need to be pre-approved by WhatsApp, which usually takes just a few minutes. You’ll need to use a template message if the person hasn’t messaged you in the last 24 hours. (Note: Templates must be in one of the languages listed here.)
2. Regular Messages – These are any messages exchanged within 24 hours of the contact’s last message to you. They don’t need WhatsApp’s approval and work just like a normal chat.

2. Subscription Plan: You must be on one of our plans: https://www.engagespark.com/plans

3. WhatsApp Fees: WhatsApp Pricing is based on 24-hour conversations. Here’s how it works…

- We charge $0.015 per WhatsApp message you send and $0.015 per WhatsApp message you receive.
- In addition to these fees, there is a country-specific marketing conversation fee. This is the fee charged on a business-initiated marketing message sent outside the 24-hour window from when you last received a message from the contact.
  - The country where you plan to send WhatsApp messages to: $[COUNTRY COSTS] per 24-hour conversation.
  - You can check the rates per country directly on Meta’s website, scroll down to find the “Rate Cards” section, and download the Rates in USD pricing sheet. Here’s an example (using Kenya pricing):
    - Day 1, 10am: You send an initial survey invite message with an image. This must be a pre-approved Template Message. It is a new Marketing convo and a content message. It is charged $0.0375 ($0.0225 convo fee + $0.015 message fee)
    - Day 1, 3pm: Contact replies/consents to take the survey – message fee of $0.015 is charged
    - Day 1, 3pm: You send q1 – message fee of $0.015 is charged
    - Day 2, 11am: Contact replies – this is a new convo because it is more than 24 hours after the start of the previous convo, and it is treated as a Service convo, as it is user-initiated because they sent the message. It is charged $0.015. All service conversations (user-initiated) are charged $0.015.
    - Day 2, 11am: You send q2 – message fee of $0.015 is charged
    - Day 3, 9am: Contact replies – message fee of $0.015 is charged
    - Day 3, 9am: You send q3 – message fee of $0.015 is charged
    - Day 3, 11:01am: You send a follow-up/reminder message – this is a new convo because it is more than 24 hours after the start of the previous convo, and it is counted as a Marketing convo because you sent the message. It is charged $0.0375 ($0.0225 convo fee + $0.015 message fee)
    - Day 4, 9:01am: You send another follow-up reminder – this is not a new convo because it is less than 24 hours after the last convo started, so the message fee of $0.015 is charged. However, this will need to be a pre-approved Template Message because you are sending this more than 24 hours after the last message you received from the contact

In total, this 3 question survey with an invite and a few follow-ups costs you $0.18 for 1 contact.

4. WhatsApp Phone Number: There are 2 options for your WhatsApp number:

Bring Your Own Number (BYON) – If you are bringing your phone number (e.g., buying a new SIM card), the number must not have been previously set up as a WhatsApp number on a phone. During the Meta integration process with your FB Business Manager (BM) account admin, Meta will send a one-time password to the SIM as part of the verification process. So make sure the sim card is inserted into the phone at that time and the FB BM admin has access to it.
We purchase a virtual number for you – If you can’t get a local sim card, a US and a UK number are readily available. Other phone numbers from other countries are also available depending on the country. You can let us know which country you want the number from so we can check for availability.

How to connect your Facebook Business Manager account with engageSPARK

To Set Up WhatsApp, you need to have a Facebook Business Manager (BM) account that is already business verified with Facebook. Please note that an FB BM account is different from a Facebook Page. You (or whoever is your FB BM account admin) can check if your BM account is verified by going here: https://business.facebook.com/settings/security. If it’s not verified, you need to go through the process to get it verified (this takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, so if it isn’t business verified yet, you should get on this ASAP).

The admin of your FB BM will be the one who will go through the process of connecting your FB BM account to your engageSPARK account. You will need to add them as a user to your engageSPARK account and we will guide them through the process.

Refer to the photos below for the steps for connecting your FB BM account to your engageSPARK account.

1. The FB BM admin will need to provide your business name and website. Then tick the box to agree to Insights ToS.

2. Choose whether to create or select an existing WhatsApp Business Account. If you already have an existing WhatsApp Business account, you can select that. If none, create one.

3. Your FB BM admin needs to know what business account name and WhatsApp business display name you want to show on WhatsApp. This is very important because it will be difficult to change it later on. So you need to coordinate with your admin on the exact display name you want to use. The display name is the name that your contacts will see on their WhatsApp app when you send them messages.

4. Add your WhatsApp phone number. The FB BM admin needs to know the exact phone number you want to be registered. You can refer to #4 WhatsApp Phone Number to know how you can get a WhatsApp number.

5. Meta will send an OTP to the number you used to verify the number. So your FB BM admin needs to have access to this number to see the OTP or you can coordinate and send it to them when you receive it.