There are two bills, from two different companies, and it is worth being clear about which is which.

What we bill

Your ServiceHQ subscription covers the add-on: the integration, the hosting, the support, and the Chat Assistant if you have it. We bill it through Stripe, and you manage or cancel it yourself from the Account tab in WhatsApp Settings. No phone call, no notice period, no asking us. Managing your subscription.

The trial is seven days, everything switched on including the Chat Assistant, and your card is not charged until it ends.

The Chat Assistant is a separate line on the same subscription, not a different plan. Add it or remove it from the Account tab whenever you like; it is charged pro rata from the day you add it, and removing it leaves the rest of your subscription untouched.

If you stop paying, sending stops. Receiving does not: messages still arrive and are still there when you come back. We never lose a customer’s message because of a billing problem.

What Meta bills

WhatsApp messaging is billed separately by Meta, directly to your own WhatsApp Business account, on your own card, at their published rates. You can check the rates for your country and message type on Meta’s pricing page.

It does not come through us and we do not mark it up. We never see the money. That is deliberate: it means we have no reason to want you sending more messages than you need, and you never pay a middleman margin on top of Meta’s rates.

You will need to add a payment method to your WhatsApp Business account, or Meta will stop your messages going out. That is a common first-week surprise and it has nothing to do with your ServiceHQ subscription being fine.

What changes on 1 October 2026

Today, replying within the 24-hour window costs nothing. Templates sent outside the window are already charged.

From 1 October 2026, Meta begins charging for those replies too, at the same rate as a utility template. If you send a lot of messages, budget for it.

On the “keep my app” route, replying from the WhatsApp Business app on your phone stays free, which becomes more useful than it is today.

We will say more closer to the date. We would rather tell you now than have it appear on a bill.