Meta Business Agent is now paid, at about 4-5 cents a message

Meta Business Agent, announced for WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram in June, answers customer messages, product questions and appointment requests, qualifies leads and hands off to a human when needed. From August 1, 2026 Meta charges all businesses for its messages, invoiced monthly.

One global rate of $2 per million tokens. Meta says a typical message uses about 20,000 to 25,000 tokens, or roughly 4 to 5 cents. Ten thousand agent messages a month would cost about $400 to $500; the fair comparison is the cost of leads answered late or not at all.