ManyChat WhatsApp pricing: the plans, who pays Meta, and four alternatives priced in rupees

Aarti Gaikwad bakes celebration cakes from her home kitchen in Kothrud, Pune, with one assistant, and almost every order starts on Instagram. ManyChat answers the comment “PRICE” under her reels with a DM and the menu. Now customers keep asking to confirm orders on WhatsApp, and she wants to know whether ManyChat’s WhatsApp plan is the sensible next step or whether an Indian tool would cost less. (Aarti and her bakery are invented for this guide.)

ManyChat’s own pages answer most of that, including what WhatsApp messages cost on top of the plan. The rest is arithmetic, done below for her month on ManyChat and on four rupee-priced alternatives read on 25 October 2026.

We make Conecxt, one of the products compared here.

What does ManyChat do on WhatsApp?

ManyChat runs WhatsApp automations and broadcasts, connected through Meta’s WhatsApp Business Platform, on its Pro plan and above. Its Pro plan page lists “Create WhatsApp broadcasts and automations, and move leads from Instagram or TikTok into WhatsApp to close sales”, along with AI-powered automation and access to the ManyChat API.

The Instagram side is where ManyChat started, and its help pages show it. The Free plan page describes automations that “Start a conversation when someone comments on a post or reel” and others that answer common DM questions. ManyChat also keeps a library of installable templates, which its help centre describes as “pre-built automations” for things like a giveaway or an interactive quiz.

You can connect a number already on the WhatsApp Business app, one used with another provider, or a fresh number, or buy a new number through ManyChat. Its connection guide warns that “Your chat history will not transfer to Manychat” and that some Business app features may not be available after connecting, and it mentions a Coexistence option for keeping the app alongside.

ManyChat also supports what Meta now calls Marketing Messages for WhatsApp, “formerly known as Marketing Messages Lite”. Its help page says you switch it on once, by accepting Meta’s terms in WhatsApp Manager, from the template editor, a new broadcast or the WhatsApp settings. Conecxt doesn’t offer the Marketing Messages API, so on this point ManyChat has something we don’t.

ManyChat pricing: which plan includes WhatsApp?

WhatsApp starts on Pro, at $39 a month on monthly billing or $29 a month billed yearly. The Free and Essential plan pages both say WhatsApp is “not available”.

ManyChat’s pricing page showed a security check to our headless browser and refused a plain fetch, so the figures below come from its help-centre plan pages, all updated 27 August 2026. Those pages describe a pricing model “introduced on March 2, 2026” and say “Plan availability may vary by region”. We couldn’t confirm whether visitors in India see different prices.

Plan	Monthly subscription	Annual, per month	Active Contacts a month	Users and Inbox seats	WhatsApp
Free	$0		25	1 user, 1 seat	No
Essential	$17	$14	250, then $0.10 each	2 users, 1 seat	No
Pro	$39	$29	2,500, then $0.05 each ($0.038 annual)	3 users, 2 seats, up to 3 at $25 a seat	Yes, within 3 channels
Business	$99	$69	7,500, then $0.025 each	5 users, 3 seats, up to 5 at $25 a seat	Yes, unlimited channels
Advanced	$199	$139	25,000, then $0.004 each	10 users, 5 seats, up to 10 at $25 a seat	Yes, unlimited channels

Essential and Pro include a 14-day free trial; the Business and Advanced pages say no free trial is available.

The unit that matters is the Active Contact. ManyChat’s page defines it as “a contact who has interacted with you through Manychat during your current billing month”, and one person messaging ten times counts once. Imported contacts count only once they send or receive something through an automation, ManyChat AI, a broadcast or live chat. Go over the limit and automations keep running while overage is added to the next bill; you can set a cap on how much overage you’ll pay for.

For Aarti, 2,500 Active Contacts is the number to watch. If one reel brings in a thousand new commenters, each one who gets the automated DM is active that month.

What does WhatsApp cost on top of the ManyChat plan?

WhatsApp messages are a separate charge, paid in US dollars from a prepaid ManyChat Wallet. ManyChat’s WhatsApp pricing guide, updated 7 October 2026, says it “charges businesses for each template message” delivered and, from 1 October 2026, for service messages, with 1,000 free service messages per business number each calendar month. Messages your customers send you are free.

Its rates for India sit above Meta’s own dollar rate card for marketing and utility:

Per delivered message to an Indian number	ManyChat’s guide	Meta’s USD list rate
Marketing	$0.0136	$0.0118
Utility	$0.0016	$0.0014
Service, after 1,000 free per number	$0.0014	$0.0014

The guide names two template categories ManyChat supports, marketing and utility; authentication isn’t listed. The Wallet page says funds are deducted after each send, that automations pause if the balance drops below the cost of one template, and that auto-refill is off by default. Turn it on before a festival send, or sends pause when the balance runs out.

Take Aarti’s example month: 800 order confirmations and pickup reminders as utility templates, and two offers to 700 opted-in customers, so 1,400 marketing templates. At ManyChat’s rates that is 1,400 × $0.0136 = $19.04 plus 800 × $0.0016 = $1.28, or $20.32. With Pro on monthly billing, the month is $59.32. The same messages at Meta’s USD list rate would be $17.64.

Who holds the number and who pays Meta?

The WhatsApp account stays in your own Meta business portfolio, but the bill for Meta’s charges runs through ManyChat. Its transfer guide says the admin role must sit with “the business that will own the number”, and tells agencies to use the client’s business account.

The same page sets out what changes when you connect. The account’s currency “will change to USD after connecting to Manychat”. Its credit line should have “No payment method set” beforehand, and “After connecting, this switches to Manychat Inc.” So you don’t pay Meta directly; you pay ManyChat in dollars and ManyChat pays Meta.

That’s a common arrangement, and it gives you one invoice. The cost is that the per-message rate is ManyChat’s, and leaving later means moving the number and setting up your own billing with Meta. Our twelve questions for any provider cover both in writing.

The shared inbox and opt-in

Pro gives three users but only two Inbox seats, and a third seat, at $25, is the most Pro allows. Inbox seats are what let a team member answer live chats, so a bakery where three people reply would already be at Pro’s ceiling. Business allows up to five seats at $99 a month.

On opt-in, ManyChat’s broadcasting page says “You can send broadcasts only to those clients who opted-in”, and that the condition applies automatically in broadcast settings. What it can’t do is make an old list of phone numbers consented; the opt-in guide covers what to record.

When is ManyChat the better choice?

For an Instagram-first creator, often. ManyChat’s comment-to-DM and story-reply automations are the core of the product, Essential connects two channels, Instagram among them, for $17 a month, and its template library has ready-made automations, such as a giveaway or a quiz, to install. If you also sell on Facebook Messenger, TikTok or Telegram, ManyChat connects them; Conecxt doesn’t have those channels.

Pricing by Active Contacts also suits a small, steady audience. A coach with 400 engaged followers a month pays the same Pro plan price whether they message once or forty times.

Where it fits less well is a WhatsApp-first Indian business with a few people replying. Seats are tight on Pro, and both the plan and every template are billed in dollars, the templates at ManyChat’s rate. Our guides to WhatsApp automation and WhatsApp chatbots set out what a WhatsApp-first set-up needs.

ManyChat alternatives in India, priced in rupees

On Aarti’s example month, the four rupee-priced alternatives below came to between ₹3,142.00 and ₹4,568.58 before taxes, and Conecxt to ₹3,799.34. ManyChat Pro came to $59.32. Each figure is the plan from the tool’s own pricing page, read on 25 October 2026, plus 1,400 marketing and 800 utility messages at that tool’s published India rates.

Tool and plan	Plan as listed	Instagram on this plan	People	Aarti’s month, before taxes
AiSensy Basic	₹1,500 a month	Not mentioned on the pricing page	1 owner + 5 agents	₹1,500 + ₹1,526.00 + ₹116.00 = ₹3,142.00
Conecxt Basic	₹2,499 a month	DMs in every workspace; comment replies per workspace (rolling out soon)	5 team members	₹2,499 + ₹1,300.34 billed by Meta = ₹3,799.34
Interakt Growth	₹2,799 a month (+taxes)	Included with WhatsApp	Unlimited agents	₹2,799 + ₹1,341.20 + ₹120.00 = ₹4,260.20
Gallabox Basic	₹2,999 a month, billed quarterly	1 Instagram handle	3 users (hard cap)	₹2,999 + ₹1,389.64 + ₹105.84 = ₹4,494.48
Wati Growth	₹2,999 a month	Listed in the Growth inbox	3 users	₹2,999 + ₹1,449.98 + ₹119.60 = ₹4,568.58
ManyChat Pro	$39 a month, or $29 billed yearly	Yes, within 3 channels	3 users, 2 Inbox seats	$39 + $20.32 = $59.32

At an illustrative ₹90 to the dollar, ManyChat Pro’s month is about ₹5,340 on monthly billing, above all five rupee rows, and about ₹4,440 on yearly billing, which is below Gallabox and Wati. Check the rate your card actually charges.

Two notes on the rows. AiSensy’s pricing page doesn’t mention Instagram, so for Aarti it covers only the WhatsApp half. Interakt also sells an Instagram-only Starter at ₹999 a month, the closest rupee-priced match to ManyChat’s Instagram plans. The rest of each vendor’s plan is in our pieces on WhatsApp marketing software in India and Wati’s pricing.

What we’d do in Aarti’s place

Keep ManyChat for Instagram, where it’s doing the job, and put WhatsApp where the order conversation happens with two people replying. That means pricing the WhatsApp side on its own: a rupee plan with seats for both of them, at Meta’s rates or close to them.

Before choosing, she should count three things from last month: people who commented or DMed, orders confirmed on WhatsApp, and offers she’d have sent if she could. Those give the Active Contacts for ManyChat and the message counts for everyone else. Meta’s Instagram messaging rules are the same whichever tool sends the DM, and the glossary covers utility, marketing and service messages.