What WhatsApp costs: Meta bills you directly
Who pays for WhatsApp messages (Meta directly, not Xentra), why there is no WhatsApp credit and how AI credits differ from it.
Updated on November 6, 2026
What WhatsApp costs
Xentra charges nothing extra for WhatsApp
The WhatsApp connection through your own Meta account is included in your Xentra subscription. We charge no extra fee for setup or operation, and we also add nothing on top of the message costs.
Meta bills you directly for message costs
You connect your own WhatsApp Business account (Meta Cloud API). Every message then runs through your Meta account, and Meta bills you for it directly. Xentra does not pay your messages and does not advance them either.
Which messages Meta charges for, and which it does not
Whether a message costs money is decided by Meta's 24-hour window:
- The guest last wrote less than 24 hours ago: you reply with free text. Meta does not charge for these replies under its terms. This is how most conversations in the inbox run.
- The window is closed, or the guest has never written: then only a template approved by Meta can go out, and Meta charges per message for it. This affects everything Xentra sends on its own, that is, check-in reminders, the guest guide and every automation before arrival.
Meta sets the price per template message. It depends on the country of the guest's number and on the type of template. Your amounts and running costs are in your Meta Business account, under billing for your WhatsApp account, not in Xentra. If no payment method is stored there, your replies within the 24-hour window still arrive, but the automatic template messages do not.
The same applies to SMS via Twilio: there you store your own Twilio access data, and Twilio bills you. WhatsApp via Twilio no longer exists.
There is no WhatsApp balance in Xentra
You do not need to top up anything for WhatsApp. Xentra has no message or WhatsApp credits, and your WhatsApp messages do not stop because a balance has run out.
The AI credits you come across under Open billing are something else: they apply to the AI features (text suggestions, translations, assistant) and have nothing to do with sending WhatsApp messages.
What you need before the first send
- a connected WhatsApp Business account, see Set up WhatsApp Business
- a payment method stored with Meta. If it is missing, replies to guests within the 24-hour window still go out, but Meta does not deliver templates and automations outside the window. The WhatsApp card then shows “A payment method is missing at Meta” with the Add a payment method button.
- templates approved by Meta for messages outside the 24-hour window