Wati vs respond.io Pricing for WhatsApp Campaigns: Which Costs Less per Message
Wati marks up every US utility message by 80 percent. respond.io passes Meta's fee through untouched but meters monthly active contacts at $12 per 100. Which one costs less depends on how many people you message, not how many messages you send.
Wati and respond.io both sell a WhatsApp inbox with a campaign tool bolted on, and both quote a plan price that is not what you will pay. The real bill comes from a second meter that sits under the plan cards. On Wati that meter is a markup on every message. On respond.io it is a charge per contact you touch in a month. Once you know which meter is running, the cheaper choice for your business is usually obvious, and it is not the one with the lower headline price.
Here is the short version, from both vendors' own price lists checked on September 10, 2026. Wati starts at $59 a month on annual billing and charges $0.00612 for every utility or authentication message to a US number, which is 80 percent above the $0.0034 Meta charges. respond.io starts at $79 a month but does not include broadcasts until its $159 Growth plan, passes Meta's $0.0034 through with no markup, and bills $12 for every 100 monthly active contacts past the first 1,000. If you send a few messages each to a large list, Wati is cheaper. If you send many messages each to a small list, respond.io is cheaper. If you only need to send campaigns and never staff an inbox, neither is the right tool, and we will get to that.
The two price lists side by side
Wati prices by region and loads its dollar figures from its billing system after it detects where you are, so copies of its page and older comparison posts show a range of numbers. These are the prices Wati's billing system returns for a US visitor, and respond.io's published plans, with annual billing in the first column and monthly billing in brackets.
| Plan | Per month, annual (monthly) | Users included | Extra user | Campaign sending | Message metering |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wati Growth | $59 ($69) | 3 | Not allowed | 15,000 broadcasts a month | $0.00612 per US utility message |
| Wati Pro | $119 ($149) | 5 | $39 | Unlimited | $0.00612 per US utility message |
| Wati Business | $279 ($349) | 5 | $89 | Unlimited, volume discounts | $0.00544 per US utility message |
| respond.io Starter | $79 ($99) | 5 | $12 | No broadcasts | Meta's $0.0034, no markup, unlimited contacts |
| respond.io Growth | $159 ($199) | 10 | $20 | Included | Meta's $0.0034, plus $12 per 100 contacts past 1,000 |
| respond.io Advanced | $279 ($349) | 10 | $24 | Included | Meta's $0.0034, plus $15 per 100 contacts past 1,000 |
Two things in that table are easy to miss. respond.io's Starter plan has no broadcasts at all, so anyone comparing it with Wati Growth on price is comparing an inbox with a campaign tool. The cheapest respond.io plan that can actually send a campaign is Growth at $159, which is $100 more than Wati Growth. And Wati Growth allows no additional users, full stop, so a team of four has to buy Pro at $119. Both vendors offer a 7 day free trial.
Where the money actually goes
Meta's fee for a utility or authentication message to a US number is $0.0034, and it is the same whichever platform you use, because it is billed against your own WhatsApp Business Account. What differs is what each vendor adds on top.
Wati adds it to the message. Its US dollar rate card, a PDF linked from a small tooltip on each plan card, lists $0.00612 for utility and authentication messages on Growth and Pro and $0.00544 on Business. That is 80 percent and 60 percent above Meta. The rate card also lists marketing messages at $0.04, but Meta has not delivered marketing templates to US numbers since April 2025, so for a US list that row is academic. We take the whole card apart on our Wati pricing breakdown.
respond.io adds it to the contact. Its pricing page states that WhatsApp fees are not included in any subscription and that it is an official WhatsApp partner with no usage markups. What it meters instead is the monthly active contact, which it defines as anyone who sent you a message or received one from you during the month. Growth and Advanced start with 1,000, and every further 100 costs $12 on Growth and $15 on Advanced. That is $0.12 to $0.15 per contact per month, regardless of whether you sent that contact one message or forty.
So the question that decides the bill is not how many messages you send. It is how many different people you send them to.
Three volumes, worked through
All three scenarios use US utility messages only, since marketing templates do not currently reach US numbers, and Wati Pro against respond.io Growth, the cheapest plans on each side that allow a team of five to send campaigns. Meta's $0.0034 is included on both sides.
| Scenario | Wati Pro (annual) | respond.io Growth (annual) | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 messages to 1,000 contacts (10 each, order updates) | $119 + $61.20 = $180.20 | $159 + $34 = $193.00 | Wati by $13 |
| 10,000 messages to 5,000 contacts (2 each, reminders) | $119 + $61.20 = $180.20 | $159 + $480 + $34 = $673.00 | Wati by $493 |
| 30,000 messages to 1,000 contacts (30 each, two way support) | $119 + $183.60 = $302.60 | $159 + $102 = $261.00 | respond.io by $42 |
The crossover is easy to state. At exactly 1,000 contacts, respond.io Growth costs $40 more in subscription than Wati Pro and $0.00272 less per message, so it overtakes Wati at about 14,700 US utility messages a month. Every extra 100 contacts on respond.io costs $12, which is the markup Wati collects on about 4,400 messages. A business that messages a large list infrequently, which is what a broadcast is, pays far less on Wati. A business that runs long two way conversations with a small customer base pays less on respond.io. That is the whole comparison, and it is why the two vendors' own comparison pages reach opposite conclusions while both being arithmetically right.
One more line for high volume senders: Wati Business drops the message rate to $0.00544, a saving of $0.00068 per message over Pro, and costs $160 a month more on annual billing. The discount pays for the upgrade at about 235,000 US utility messages a month. Below that, buy Business for its 4,000 messages a minute sending speed or its Salesforce integration, not for the rate.
What the plan price buys that a campaign sender will not use
Both platforms are priced as conversation workspaces. Wati's tiers scale on seats, automation triggers (1,000, 2,000 and 5,000 a month), AI co-pilot credits and API calls. respond.io's scale on seats, contacts and workflow automation. A support desk that lives in the inbox all day uses those things. A business whose WhatsApp job is uploading a list, merging first names into an approved template and pressing send does not, and on either platform it is paying for an inbox in order to get a broadcast button.
The cost of that is visible in the first scenario above. The campaign itself, 10,000 messages, costs $34 at Meta's rate. On Wati the business pays $180, on respond.io $193, and $146 to $159 of that is the workspace. If your reason for looking at these two is campaigns, a tool built for campaigns is the fairer comparison. WaBulkSend sends bulk template campaigns from your contact lists on plans from $29 a month, or $14.50 a month billed yearly, and the cheapest WhatsApp API provider guide runs the same crossover arithmetic across Twilio, 360dialog and the rest.
If you do run click to WhatsApp ads into either inbox, it is worth putting ad spend, the per contact or per message bill and the revenue it produced into one marketing dashboard, because the contact meter on respond.io means an ad that brings in 500 new conversations also adds $60 to next month's bill before anyone has bought anything.
Seats, numbers and the small print
Wati Growth's three user cap with no extras is the most common reason a Wati quote jumps from $59 to $119. On respond.io the equivalent jump is the broadcast gate between Starter and Growth, $79 to $159. Extra users are cheaper on respond.io at every tier, $12 to $24 against Wati's $39 and $89, so a team of eight on respond.io Growth costs nothing extra while the same team on Wati Pro pays $117 a month for the three additional seats.
Extra WhatsApp numbers cost $29 a month each on Wati Pro and Business. Wati's page also lists a $50 one time fee for a custom subdomain and a $4.99 a month Shopify add on. respond.io's pricing page does not list a per number charge. Neither vendor charges a setup fee, and Wati's help center notes that service messages, which are free at Meta since November 2024, are still charged beyond 1,000 a month on its legacy Standard, Professional and Enterprise plans. If your Wati account predates the current lineup, check the invoice.
Both are more expensive than they look and both publish enough to work it out, which is more than can be said for most of the category. If you have already decided Wati is not the right fit, the Wati alternative comparison and the respond.io alternative comparison lay out the options for each.
Frequently asked questions
Is Wati cheaper than respond.io?
For campaigns to a large list, yes. Wati Growth sends up to 15,000 broadcasts a month for $59 on annual billing, while the cheapest respond.io plan with broadcasts is Growth at $159 plus $12 per 100 contacts past 1,000. For heavy two way messaging with under about 1,000 contacts, respond.io is cheaper above roughly 14,700 US utility messages a month because it adds no markup to Meta's fee.
Does respond.io charge for WhatsApp messages?
Not on top of Meta. respond.io's pricing page states that WhatsApp fees are not included in any subscription and that there are no usage markups, so you pay Meta's rate, $0.0034 for a US utility message, through a WhatsApp credit balance. What respond.io meters is monthly active contacts: 1,000 are included on Growth and Advanced, then $12 or $15 per 100.
What is a monthly active contact on respond.io?
respond.io defines a monthly active contact as someone who either sent you a message or received one from you during the month. A contact counts once no matter how many messages are exchanged, so a customer you message thirty times costs the same as one you message once, and a broadcast to 3,000 people makes all 3,000 active for that month.
What does Wati charge per message?
For US recipients, Wati's own rate card lists $0.00612 per utility or authentication message on Growth and Pro and $0.00544 on Business, against Meta's $0.0034. Marketing messages are listed at $0.04 and $0.0355 but do not currently deliver to US numbers. Service conversations are free on Wati's current plans.
Do Wati and respond.io have free plans?
No. Both offer a 7 day free trial and then require a paid plan. respond.io's trial gives access to the Growth plan for 5 users and 1,000 contacts, but without broadcasts. Wati's pricing page advertises a 7 day free trial with zero setup fees.