How Credits Work
To understand how credits work, it’s important to be familiar with concepts such as conversation categories, conversation windows, and customer chat windows. This help document provides an overview of these concepts and includes a simple scenario to illustrate how credits work.
Conversation Categories
You can send three types of messages to your customers through your WhatsApp business account:
1. Utility Messages - These messages allow you to follow up with your customers through requests or confirmation messages. This includes sending reminders for invoices and payment thank-you messages. To categorise such messages, create a template and select Utility as the Template Category.
2. Marketing Messages - You can send marketing messages to promote your products, services, or provide offers to increase sales. This includes customer notifications sent from Zoho Books about various discounts. To categorise such messages, create a template and select Marketing as the Template Category.
3. Service Messages - These are the messages that you send to your customers from the chat window without using the pre-defined templates.
The cost deducted to send a notification from each conversation category varies.
Conversation Window
When you send a marketing or utility template notification to a contact person, a new conversation window for that category will open and remain active for 24 hours.
If you send another notification of the same category within this period, it will continue in the existing conversation window.
If you send a template of a different category, a new conversation window for that category will open for the next 24 hours.
Customer Chat Windows
When a contact person sends you a message, a new customer chat window opens for 24 hours. If you reply, a new service conversation window opens for another 24 hours. During this time, you can chat with your customer without using any predefined templates.
If an active conversation window of any category with the same contact person already exists, no new service conversation window will be opened. You can send service messages only when the customer chat window is active, else you can only send predefined template messages to them.
Free Tier Conversations
Currently, Meta provides 1000 free service conversations for each WhatsApp Business Account every month. This will be applicable for all the phone numbers under the account.
Note: The number of service conversations does not apply to utility and marketing conversations. This count resets each month according to the time zone of the WhatsApp Business Account.
Cost Deduction Scenario
When you send a utility message to a contact person, the cost is deducted from your credits. You can then send multiple utility messages to the same contact person within the next 24 hours without any additional costs.
If you send a marketing message to the same contact person during this period, a separate cost will be deducted. After that, you can send multiple marketing messages to the same contact person within the next 24 hours without any additional cost deduction.
No cost is charged to send service messages or chat with the same contact person for 24 hours after sending a utility or marketing message.
The following table explains how cost deduction works when a WhatsApp notification is sent to a contact person.
| Date | Notification Time | Message Type | Cost Deduction |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10th of May | 10 a.m. | Utility Message | Cost is deducted for the first WhatsApp notification you send. No cost is applied if another utility message is sent to the same contact person in the next 24 hours. |
| 10th of May | 11 a.m. | Marketing Message | Cost is deducted for the first WhatsApp notification you send. No cost is applied if another marketing message is sent to the same contact person in the next 24 hours. |
| 10th of May | 12 p.m. | Service Message | No cost is deducted if you chat with the same contact person for the next 24 hours after sending a utility or marketing message. |
| 11th of May | 10 a.m. | - | Utility message expires after 24 hours. |
| 11th of May | 11 a.m. | - | Marketing message expires after 24 hours. |
| 11th of May | 1 p.m. | Service Message | Cost is deducted as there is no active conversation window. No additional cost is deducted for the future service messages sent to the same contact person in the next 24 hours. |
| 11th of May | 2 p.m. | Utility Message | Cost is deducted as there is no active utility conversation window. |
Each time a conversation with a new template category is opened, a certain number of credits will be reduced from the available credits. The cost deducted is based on the following factors:
1. Currency Associated with the WhatsApp Business Account
The cost deducted for your conversations depends on the currency associated with your WhatsApp Business Account. To view the currency:
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Log in to facebook.business.com.
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Go to Settings.
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Navigate to Accounts and click WhatsApp Accounts.
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Select the WhatsApp account that you’ve connected with Zoho Books.
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You can view the currency in the Business Information section.
Meta provides different rate cards according to the WhatsApp Business Account’s base currency. Download the rate card for your WhatsApp Business account’s currency.
2. Message Category
The cost deducted varies based on the Message Category.
In the rate card that you’ve downloaded, the Marketing, Utility, and Service columns consists of the rate that is charged for a single message sent to a contact person.
3. Recipient’s Country
The rate also depends on the country of the contact person’s phone number to whom the message is sent.
Example: If you are sending a utility message to a contact person with an Indian phone number, the cost deducted is 0.0042 USD.
In Zoho Books, your credits will be reduced according to the rate that is charged. For instance, one credit costs 2.06 USD, and sending a utility message costs 0.0042 USD. Therefore, on an average, you can send around 490 WhatsApp utility messages for just one credit to this contact person.
Note: No cost will be deducted when the contact person messages you. It will be deducted only for the messages that you send.
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