ManyChat pricing 2026, including WhatsApp costs

TL;DR

• ManyChat has five plans: Free, Essential, Pro, Business and Advanced. Paid plans cost $17, $39, $99 or $199 a month, or $14, $29, $69 or $139 a month billed yearly.

• Each plan includes a monthly allowance of Active Contacts (250 to 25,000). Above it you pay per extra contact, from $0.10 on Essential down to $0.004 on Advanced.

• WhatsApp needs Pro or higher, and Meta's message charges come on top, paid from your ManyChat Wallet. Since 1 October 2026 Meta also charges for service replies after the first 1,000 a month per phone number.

• ManyChat's blog says it adds no markup to Meta's rates, but its help centre rate card lists marketing and utility messages about 15% above Meta's own rate card. Check which applies before you budget.

ManyChat charges a plan fee based on how many people you talk to each month, and WhatsApp messages are billed separately on top. The cheapest plan with WhatsApp is Pro at $39 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly, with 2,500 Active Contacts included. Below are every plan and price as listed on 15 October 2026, how Active Contacts and overage work, what WhatsApp messages cost by market after Meta's October 2026 changes, and what a real month costs at different audience sizes. For features beyond price, see our ManyChat tool profile.

ManyChat plans and prices

The ManyChat pricing page lists five plans with a toggle for monthly or annual billing. Annual billing shows a "Save up to 30%" badge. Every plan includes a set number of Active Contacts a month, a channel limit, a number of users and a number of Inbox seats.

Figure: ManyChat plans, prices, Active Contacts and overage rates as listed on 15 October 2026.

• Free ($0): 25 Active Contacts a month, any 2 of Instagram, TikTok, Messenger and Telegram, up to 4 live automations, 1 user and "Powered by Manychat" branding. No card needed.

• Essential ($17/mo, or $168 a year): 250 Active Contacts, the same 2 channels, unlimited automations, tags, 2 users and 1 Inbox seat. No WhatsApp, SMS or email.

• Pro ($39/mo, or $348 a year): 2,500 Active Contacts, any 3 channels including WhatsApp, SMS and email, broadcasts, Manychat AI, 3 users and 2 Inbox seats.

• Business ($99/mo, or $828 a year): 7,500 Active Contacts, all channels, a shared team Inbox with assignments, priority support, 5 users and 3 Inbox seats.

• Advanced ($199/mo, or $1,668 a year): 25,000 Active Contacts and the same features as Business, with 10 users and 5 Inbox seats.

The annual discounts on the page are 18% for Essential, 25% for Pro and 30% for Business and Advanced. Essential and Pro have a 14-day free trial. Prices exclude tax, and ManyChat says the final price depends on your billing country and shows on the checkout page.

Figure: ManyChat pricing page on monthly billing, 15 October 2026.

One detail if you have an older account. ManyChat introduced this pricing model on 2 March 2026. Its help centre says the new plans apply by default to accounts created on or after that date, and that it is moving older accounts over country by country. Older accounts on the previous Pro plan pay a price that scales with the total size of their contact list instead.

How Active Contacts and overage work

ManyChat's unit of cost is the Active Contact. In its own words: "One person = one Active Contact for the month." A contact becomes active when messages are sent or received through ManyChat in that billing month, by automations, AI, broadcasts or the Inbox. Your follower count does not matter, and one person who messages you ten times still counts once.

When you pass your allowance, automations keep running and ManyChat charges for each extra Active Contact:

• Essential: $0.10 per extra contact, or $0.082 on annual billing

• Pro: $0.05, or $0.038 on annual billing

• Business: $0.025, or $0.018 on annual billing

• Advanced: $0.004, or $0.0028 on annual billing

On annual plans, Active Contacts are still counted monthly and overage is billed monthly. ManyChat sends warnings at 70%, 90% and 100% of your limit, and you can set an overage threshold to cap how many extra contacts you will pay for. If you upgrade within the same billing cycle, the overage so far is forgiven.

One inconsistency to know about: the pricing page lists Advanced overage at $0.004, but the Active Contacts help article lists Advanced as "Custom overage pricing". If you expect to run far beyond 25,000 contacts, get the rate in writing.

Figure: ManyChat's plan comparison table, overage rates and channels, 15 October 2026.

What ManyChat costs at your audience size

Because overage is cheaper on higher plans, the right plan depends on how many people you message each month, not on features alone. With WhatsApp in the mix, Pro is the entry point, and on annual billing it stays cheapest up to about 3,550 Active Contacts a month.

Figure: cheapest ManyChat plan with WhatsApp by monthly Active Contacts, plan fee plus overage, yearly billing. GROU calculation.

On annual billing the break-even points are:

• Pro to Business: about 3,550 Active Contacts a month. At 3,500 contacts Pro costs $29 plus 1,000 extra contacts at $0.038, so $67, against $69 for Business.

• Business to Advanced: about 11,400 Active Contacts a month. At 10,000 contacts Business costs $114, and at 15,000 it would cost $204, against $139 for Advanced.

On monthly billing the switch points move slightly, to about 3,700 contacts for Pro to Business and 11,500 for Business to Advanced. If you do not need WhatsApp, SMS or email, Essential at $14 a month billed yearly is cheapest up to about 430 contacts a month.

Add-ons: AI, Inbox seats and users

ManyChat bundles most add-ons into the plans now:

• Manychat AI: included in Pro, Business and Advanced. The pricing page shows no separate AI price. AI features include AI replies from your saved knowledge, AI comment replies and the AI Step for qualifying leads.

• Inbox seats: each paid plan includes 1, 2, 3 or 5 seats. On Pro, Business and Advanced you can add seats at $25 each, up to a maximum of 3, 5 or 10 seats in total, per the full comparison table.

• Users: login access is capped at 1, 2, 3, 5 or 10 users including Inbox seats.

Older accounts on the separate Manychat Inbox product pay differently: the Inbox pricing article lists $99 for 3 seats and $39 for each extra seat.

ManyChat WhatsApp pricing: two bills, not one

Using WhatsApp through ManyChat means two charges. The ManyChat plan (Pro or higher) covers the automation and counts each person as an Active Contact. Meta then charges per delivered message on the WhatsApp Business Platform, and ManyChat collects that through your ManyChat Wallet. Per ManyChat's WhatsApp pricing guide, funds are deducted from the Wallet as soon as a billable message is delivered.

Meta moved from conversation-based pricing to per-message pricing on 1 July 2025. The rate depends on two things: the message category and the country code of the recipient's phone number. Messages from users to you are always free.

The four categories that matter for ManyChat users:

• Marketing templates: pre-approved messages for promotions, offers and re-engagement. Always charged, and the most expensive category.

• Utility templates: confirmations, reminders and account updates. Charged, with lower rates as your monthly volume grows.

• Authentication templates: one-time passcodes. Charged. ManyChat's guide lists only marketing and utility as supported template categories.

• Service messages: free-form replies sent inside the 24-hour window that opens each time a customer messages you.

What changed on 1 October 2026

Meta's pricing page now says two kinds of message that were free are charged again. Service messages, free since 1 November 2024, are charged from the 1,001st message each month: every business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month, which reset monthly and do not roll over. Utility templates sent inside the 24-hour window, free since 1 July 2025, are charged again from the first message.

Meta also moved nine markets out of their regional "Rest of" groups into their own rates, including Kuwait, Morocco, Oman and Ukraine, and raised marketing rates in Mexico. If you send WhatsApp messages to customers in several countries, your bill now varies more by market than it did in the summer.

Two things stay free. Messages from users never cost anything, and when someone messages you from a Click to WhatsApp ad on the Android or iOS app and you reply within the window, Meta opens a free entry point window that can stay open for up to 7 days, during which marketing, utility and service messages are not charged.

WhatsApp rates by market

Germany and the Netherlands are among the most expensive markets for marketing messages, at $136.50 and $159.70 per 1,000 on Meta's rate card. India is among the cheapest at $11.80. Service replies cost the same as utility templates in every market below.

Figure: WhatsApp cost per 1,000 delivered messages from 1 October 2026, Meta's USD rate card with ManyChat's help centre rates in brackets.

Here is the part to check before you budget. ManyChat's blog post on the October changes says: "Manychat does not add a markup to Meta's messaging rates." Its help centre rate card, updated 14 October 2026, lists marketing and utility rates 11% to 16% higher than Meta's own USD rate card in all 47 markets it covers, about 15% in most, while service rates match Meta's exactly. Germany marketing, for example, is $0.1365 on Meta's card and $0.1569 on ManyChat's. We could not find an explanation on either page. Ask ManyChat support which rate your Wallet is charged, and check your Wallet usage history after the first broadcast.

Figure: the top of the rate table in ManyChat's WhatsApp pricing guide, 15 October 2026.

Two more WhatsApp details:

• United States marketing: ManyChat's guide notes that Meta "temporarily paused the ability for businesses to send Marketing template messages to users in the United States starting April 1, 2025." Utility and service messages still go through, so plan US campaigns around those.

• AI agents: Meta charges its own Meta Business Agent at $2.00 per 1 million tokens, which Meta says is about 4 to 5 cents per message. This is separate from Manychat AI, and Meta has a separate pricing policy for AI providers that does not apply to ordinary businesses.

What a WhatsApp month costs: an example

To show how much the market matters, take one illustrative month: 2,000 marketing templates (one broadcast to 2,000 people), 1,000 utility reminders sent outside the 24-hour window, and 3,000 service replies, of which 1,000 are free. At ManyChat's rate card the same month costs $31.60 in India and $524.70 in the Netherlands.

Figure: one illustrative WhatsApp month by market at ManyChat's rate card, with Meta's list price for comparison. Plan fee not included. GROU calculation.

Add the plan fee to get the full bill. For a business messaging 5,000 people a month in the UK, that is $69 for Business on annual billing plus $215.30 in WhatsApp messages, so about $284 a month. In every market above, the marketing templates make up 64% to 87% of the WhatsApp cost, so the fastest way to cut the bill is to send fewer, better-targeted broadcasts and do more of the work inside the free service window.

Instagram, Messenger, SMS and email costs

• Instagram, Messenger, TikTok and Telegram: the pricing page lists no per-message charge for these channels. Your cost is the plan fee and any Active Contact overage.

• Email: available from Pro. The comparison table says you can send up to 10,000 emails on Pro, 30,000 on Business and 100,000 on Advanced. ManyChat's Wallet article says emails beyond your free allowance cost $0.003 each from your Wallet.

• SMS: available from Pro, but sent through your own Twilio account, so Twilio bills you directly. Twilio's US list price is $0.0083 per outbound SMS segment, plus carrier fees of $0.0035 to $0.005 depending on the carrier. ManyChat's SMS guide notes a segment is 160 characters, or 70 with emojis, so a 480-character message is billed as three.

Contract, cancellation and refunds

ManyChat's terms are among the friendlier ones in this category:

• Upgrades take effect immediately, and the unused part of your current plan is credited.

• Downgrades apply at the next billing period on monthly plans. Annual plans cannot be downgraded until the term ends, and you cannot switch from annual to monthly mid-term.

• Refunds: ManyChat says that if it has been under 30 days since you bought your plan, you can cancel and get a refund through support.

• Wallet balance: the Wallet article says you can request a refund of unused balance from support. If the balance runs out, automations that send email or WhatsApp templates pause, so turn on auto-refill with a daily cap.

ManyChat vs the alternatives on price

ManyChat is built for social DMs first, with WhatsApp, SMS and email added on. If your main goal is B2B lead capture from social and ads, it is usually cheaper than a full customer service suite. If you need an email-first marketing platform, tools like Brevo or HubSpot price by contacts and email volume instead, and both connect to ManyChat. For the wider picture, see our guides to AI-powered customer service platforms and B2B marketing automation.

Who ManyChat pricing suits

ManyChat is good value if you:

• Get most of your leads from Instagram, Facebook or TikTok comments and DMs

• Run Meta ads for B2B or Click to WhatsApp ads, where replies sit in Meta's free entry point window

• Use DM automations to deliver lead magnets or webinar registrations

• Message a predictable number of people each month, so you can pick the plan at the right break-even

Be careful if you plan heavy WhatsApp broadcasts into Western Europe. The message charges can easily cost more than the plan, and the October 2026 changes made service replies billable at volume. For LinkedIn-led B2B, DM automation tools work differently: see our LinkedIn DM scripts and best LinkedIn automation tools.

FAQ

How much does ManyChat cost per month?

ManyChat's paid plans cost $17 (Essential), $39 (Pro), $99 (Business) or $199 (Advanced) a month on monthly billing, or $14, $29, $69 or $139 a month billed yearly. There is also a free plan with 25 Active Contacts a month. Prices exclude tax.

Is ManyChat WhatsApp free?

No. WhatsApp needs Pro or higher, and Meta charges per delivered message on top, paid from your ManyChat Wallet. Messages from customers are free, the first 1,000 service replies per phone number each month are free, and replies to Click to WhatsApp ads can be free for up to 7 days.

How much does a WhatsApp message cost on ManyChat?

It depends on the category and the recipient's country. On Meta's rate card from 1 October 2026, a marketing message costs $0.025 in the US, $0.0635 in the UK, $0.1365 in Germany and $0.0118 in India. ManyChat's own rate card lists marketing and utility rates about 15% higher.

What is an Active Contact in ManyChat?

A real person you interact with through ManyChat during your monthly billing period, by automations, AI, broadcasts or the Inbox. One person counts once a month, however many messages you exchange.

What happens if I go over my ManyChat contact limit?

Your automations keep running and ManyChat charges per extra Active Contact, from $0.10 on Essential to $0.004 on Advanced on monthly billing. You can set an overage threshold, and if you upgrade in the same billing cycle the overage is forgiven.

Can I get a refund from ManyChat?

Yes, within 30 days of buying a plan, through ManyChat support. Unused Wallet balance can also be refunded on request.

Bottom line

ManyChat pricing has two layers. The plan fee is low and predictable: $29 a month billed yearly gets you Pro with WhatsApp and 2,500 Active Contacts, and Business at $69 becomes cheaper from about 3,550 contacts a month. The WhatsApp layer is where budgets go wrong: Meta charges per message by category and country, service replies became billable at volume on 1 October 2026, and ManyChat's own rate card sits about 15% above Meta's for marketing and utility messages. Price your WhatsApp plan by market before you launch a broadcast, and check your Wallet history after the first send.

If you want help turning social and WhatsApp conversations into qualified B2B pipeline, book a call with GROU.

About this guide

We are GROU, a B2B pipeline agency that runs lead generation, outbound and LinkedIn content for B2B companies. Plan prices in this guide come from ManyChat's public pricing page and help centre, and WhatsApp rates from Meta's developer documentation and rate cards, checked on 15 October 2026.

Some links in this article are affiliate. We may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.