Meta's 24-hour customer service window, explained

When a customer messages you, a 24-hour window opens. Inside it you reply with any ordinary message, no template needed. Those replies are free until 30 September 2026; from 1 October each number's first 1,000 a month are free and the rest are charged. Once it closes, anything you start must be a template Meta approved, and it is charged.

There is a second window, and almost nobody uses it

If the customer reached you through a Click-to-WhatsApp ad on WhatsApp's Android or iPhone app, and you reply inside the 24-hour window, a free entry point window opens from your reply and can stay open for up to **7 days** — and inside it you can send any type of message at no charge, before 1 October 2026 and after it. It is the most under-used lever on this platform: a company spending on Click-to-WhatsApp ads and paying for messages that could have been free, because its system does not tell the two windows apart.

What is charged and what is not

• Service messages — your replies inside the 24-hour window — are free until 30 September 2026. From 1 October 2026 each business number's first 1,000 a month are free, and the rest are charged.
• Utility templates are charged outside the window. Inside it they are free until 30 September 2026 and charged from 1 October 2026.
• Marketing templates are charged from the first delivered message.
• The exception to all of the above is the free entry point window: inside it every message is free, before 1 October 2026 and after it.
• Since 1 July 2025 billing is per delivered message rather than per conversation, and the old allowance of 1,000 free conversations is gone.

What it means for how you work

1. Answering quickly is not a courtesy, it is money. A reply inside the window needs no template, and it is free until 30 September 2026 (from 1 October, while the number is within its first 1,000 of the month); the same message after it closes is a charged template.
2. Your system has to know which window each conversation is in. Without that you cannot tell a customer why their bill moved.
3. If you run Click-to-WhatsApp ads, that window of up to 7 days is a real difference in cost. Ask your provider whether they track it.

Not the same as our reply time

This 24-hour window is a Meta rule about billing and templates. The reply time this site promises is a different thing entirely: it is our own commitment that your enquiry gets an answer. Both happen to be 24 hours, and they have nothing to do with each other.