Gupshup Pricing vs Wati, Interakt, AiSensy: Per Message 2026
Founder & Lead Developer, Codingclave · 200+ projects since 2017
Gupshup pricing vs WATI, Interakt and AiSensy: the per-message numbers
Gupshup charges $0.001 (about ₹0.09) per WhatsApp message on top of Meta's rate, with no monthly subscription. WATI starts at ₹4,999 a month plus its own per-message rate card, Interakt at ₹2,799 a month plus ₹0.970 per marketing message, and AiSensy at ₹1,500 a month plus ₹1.09 per marketing message. Underneath all of them sits Meta's India rate: ₹0.86 per marketing message and ₹0.115 per utility or authentication message, before GST. If you want to skip the subscription and still get a campaign tool and inbox, PayPerWA, our own product, charges a flat ₹0.20 per message and nothing else.
I'm Ashish Sharma, founder of Codingclave in Lucknow. I checked every price below on the vendor's own pricing page on 4 October 2026 and linked each page, so you can re-check them. All figures are before 18% GST unless I say otherwise.
Summary table: per-message and platform fees for 6 providers (checked 4 October 2026)
| Provider | Monthly fee | Fee per message on top of Meta | One marketing message to India, all in | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gupshup self-serve | ₹0 | $0.001 (about ₹0.09), charged on incoming messages too | about ₹0.95 | gupshup.ai/pricing |
| WATI | Growth ₹4,999 (₹3,749 billed yearly), Pro ₹9,999, Business ₹24,999 to ₹29,999; ₹999 one-time pay-as-you-go pack | Rate card shown only inside the account; our estimate ₹0.17 to ₹0.51 | about ₹1.03 to ₹1.37 | wati.io/pricing |
| Interakt | Starter ₹3,499 a quarter; Growth ₹2,799; Advanced ₹3,799 (20% off yearly) | ₹0.11 marketing, ₹0.035 utility (lists ₹0.970 and ₹0.150) | ₹0.97 | interakt.shop/pricing |
| AiSensy | Basic ₹1,500, Pro ₹3,200 (10% off yearly) | ₹0.23 marketing, ₹0.03 utility (lists ₹1.09 and ₹0.145) | ₹1.09 | aisensy.com/pricing |
| PayPerWA (ours) | ₹0 | ₹0.20 flat, failed messages refunded to the wallet | ₹1.06 | PayPerWA product page |
| Meta Cloud API direct | ₹0 | ₹0 | ₹0.86 | Meta pricing docs |
Three notes on the table:
- Meta's rates are published as a downloadable rate card, so the ₹0.86 and ₹0.115 figures are the ones Interakt, AiSensy and Gupshup bill against (their listed price minus the markup they state). Meta's marketing rate for India rose about 10% on 1 January 2026, from ₹0.7846 to ₹0.8631.
- WATI's INR prices moved. On 30 September our WATI vs Gupshup comparison recorded Growth at ₹2,999 a month; on 4 October the same page showed ₹4,999. Treat WATI's price as whatever you see at sign-up.
- Service messages are no longer free past 1,000 a month. Since 1 October 2026 Meta charges for replies to customers beyond the first 1,000 per number per month. Gupshup's pricing page states the change, Interakt lists ₹0.129 and AiSensy ₹0.145 per service message.
Gupshup pricing in 2026: $0.001 per message and no subscription
Gupshup's self-serve WhatsApp API has the simplest price list of the four: Meta's fee "at actuals" plus a Gupshup fee of $0.001 per message, paid from a prepaid dollar wallet (Gupshup pricing). At about ₹88 to the dollar that is ₹0.09. The fee applies to template messages and to session messages in both directions, so a customer's reply costs you ₹0.09 as well. Voice calls are $0.0001 a second. There is no subscription, setup fee or volume commitment on self-serve; enterprise and managed plans with account management and SLAs are quoted by sales.
What a typical month costs, before GST:
- 10,000 marketing + 5,000 utility messages, 2,000 incoming replies: Meta ₹8,600 + ₹575, Gupshup ₹1,350 on outgoing + ₹180 on incoming. About ₹10,700.
- 1,000 marketing messages: Meta ₹860 + Gupshup ₹90 = ₹950.
The catch is that self-serve is an API. You bring your own campaign tool, inbox and developer, or buy them from Gupshup's managed tiers at a quoted price. My Gupshup WhatsApp pricing breakdown walks through the wallet, the enterprise tiers and the fees on media and voice; the Gupshup SMS pricing post covers the SMS side, which many searchers land here for.
Gupshup vs WATI: which is cheaper in 2026
Gupshup is cheaper at every volume on fees. WATI is cheaper on your team's time. The table shows the monthly bill for marketing messages to Indian numbers, Meta's ₹0.86 included, before GST. WATI's per-message rate is my estimate (₹0.17 to ₹0.51 over Meta) because WATI shows its rate card only inside the account, and its Growth plan lists a 15,000-broadcast cap, so the 20,000 and 1 lakh rows use Pro.
| Marketing messages a month | Gupshup self-serve | WATI (plan + estimated rate) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | ₹4,750 | ₹10,149 to ₹11,849 on Growth (₹4,999) | ₹5,400 to ₹7,100 |
| 20,000 | ₹19,000 | ₹30,599 to ₹37,399 on Pro (₹9,999) | ₹11,600 to ₹18,400 |
| 1,00,000 | ₹95,000 | ₹1,12,999 to ₹1,46,999 on Pro | ₹18,000 to ₹52,000 |
How to read the gap: at 20,000 messages WATI costs ₹11,600 to ₹18,400 more each month. If a developer would need more than a few days a month to run broadcasts, an inbox and a chatbot on Gupshup's raw API, WATI has paid for itself. If you already have that developer, or you only send transactional messages from your own software, Gupshup wins outright.
Pick WATI when a marketing or support team without developers needs a shared inbox, broadcasts and a no-code bot this week, with Zoho, HubSpot, Shopify and WooCommerce connectors ready. Pick Gupshup when you have developers, want the lowest per-message fee, or need SMS and RCS from the same vendor. The full feature-by-feature verdict is in WATI vs Gupshup 2026.
Cheapest WhatsApp API provider in India (by monthly volume)
There is no single cheapest provider; the answer flips with volume and with whether a developer is available. The table gives total monthly bills for marketing messages to Indian numbers, Meta's ₹0.86 included, before GST, each provider on its cheapest plan that can broadcast at that volume.
| Marketing messages a month | PayPerWA (₹0.20 flat) | Interakt Starter (₹3,499 a quarter) | AiSensy Basic (₹1,500) | WATI (Growth to 15,000, then Pro) | Gupshup self-serve | Meta direct (before build) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | ₹1,060 | ₹2,136 | ₹2,590 | ₹6,029 to ₹6,369 | ₹950 | ₹860 |
| 5,000 | ₹5,300 | ₹6,016 | ₹6,950 | ₹10,149 to ₹11,849 | ₹4,750 | ₹4,300 |
| 20,000 | ₹21,200 | ₹20,566 | ₹23,300 | ₹30,599 to ₹37,399 | ₹19,000 | ₹17,200 |
| 50,000 | ₹53,000 | ₹49,666 | ₹56,000 | ₹61,499 to ₹78,499 | ₹47,500 | ₹43,000 |
| 1,00,000 | ₹1,06,000 | ₹98,166 | ₹1,10,500 | ₹1,12,999 to ₹1,46,999 | ₹95,000 | ₹86,000 |
Bold marks the cheapest option that comes with a campaign tool and inbox, meaning no developer is required. The verdict by volume:
- Up to about 13,000 marketing messages a month: PayPerWA. The crossover with Interakt Starter is where ₹1,166 a month of plan fee equals the ₹0.09 per-message difference, around 12,960 messages.
- 13,000 to 2 lakh a month: Interakt Starter on quarterly billing, then Advanced at the top end. AiSensy's ₹1.09 per message makes it dearer than Interakt at every volume despite the similar plan fee.
- Any volume with a developer: Gupshup self-serve, and the direct Cloud API if you can build and host the software.
- Utility-heavy traffic (OTPs, order updates): not PayPerWA. ₹0.20 plus Meta's ₹0.115 is ₹0.315 per utility message against ₹0.150 at Interakt, ₹0.145 at AiSensy and ₹0.205 at Gupshup.
The longer version, with eight providers, GST, reply charges and hidden fees, is in Cheapest WhatsApp API provider in India 2026.
Meta's WhatsApp rates in India in 2026: what every BSP passes through
Meta switched from per-conversation to per-message billing on 1 July 2025, and you are charged only when a template message is delivered (Meta pricing documentation).
| Message category | Meta's India rate | When it is free |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing | ₹0.86 | Inside a 72-hour free entry point window after a click-to-WhatsApp ad or Page CTA |
| Utility | ₹0.115 | Inside an open 24-hour customer service window |
| Authentication | ₹0.115 | Never (volume tiers lower the rate at high volume) |
| Service (replies to a customer) | about ₹0.115 to ₹0.145 at BSPs | First 1,000 a month per number; free without limit until 30 September 2026 |
Two consequences for your bill. First, order updates sent as a reply to a customer's message are free, so a store that gets customers to message first pays Meta nothing for the confirmation. Second, the 1 October 2026 change to service messages hits support-heavy accounts: a helpdesk sending 10,000 replies a month now pays about ₹1,000 to ₹1,300 to Meta, plus the BSP's fee on each one at Gupshup and PayPerWA.
WATI pricing India 2026: ₹4,999 to ₹29,999 a month plus a rate card
WATI's pricing page on 4 October 2026 listed three plans in INR (WATI pricing):
| WATI plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | Users | Extra user |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growth | ₹4,999 | ₹3,749 a month | 3 | not listed |
| Pro | ₹9,999 | ₹7,499 a month | 5 | ₹1,799 a month ($24 on the USD view) |
| Business | ₹24,999 (one load showed ₹29,999) | ₹18,749 a month | 5 | ₹5,199 a month ($69 on the USD view) |
| Pay-as-you-go | ₹999 one-time | returned as ₹999 of credit, about 500 messages |
The page promises "7 days free trial, zero setup fees", loaded in INR for me on two tries and in USD on a third, and showed Business at ₹24,999 on one load and ₹29,999 on another, so read the price at checkout. Growth caps broadcasts at 15,000 a month; Pro and Business are unlimited. Every plan adds "additional charges for template messages", and the rate card sits behind a link you can read only inside the account. Estimates on our site put the marketing markup between about 20% (₹0.17) and ₹0.51 over Meta's ₹0.86, which is why the tables above give WATI a range. Business-plan customers get a 5% discount on that card.
What you buy for the fee: the most finished shared inbox of the four, broadcast scheduling, a no-code chatbot builder and connectors for Zoho, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, WooCommerce and Razorpay. If you are already on WATI and want it wired into your stack, that is what our WATI integration service does.
Interakt pricing India 2026: ₹2,799 a month and ₹0.970 per marketing message
Interakt, the Haptik (Reliance Jio) brand for D2C, publishes both its plan fees and its per-message rates (Interakt pricing):
| Interakt plan | Price | Marketing | Utility | Authentication / service |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | ₹3,499 a quarter (the ₹999 monthly Starter is Instagram-only) | ₹0.970 | ₹0.160 | ₹0.129 |
| Growth | ₹2,799 a month, 8% off quarterly, 20% off yearly | ₹0.970 | ₹0.150 | ₹0.129 |
| Advanced | ₹3,799 a month, same discounts | ₹0.958 | ₹0.140 | ₹0.128 |
| Enterprise | On request | ₹0.949 | lower | ₹0.127 |
Service messages are charged after the 1,000 free ones each month. Interakt's markup over Meta is the smallest of the subscription BSPs, about ₹0.11 on marketing, which is why it wins the volume table above from 13,000 messages up. Its strength is the native Shopify app: abandoned cart, COD confirmation, order and shipping updates and review requests are switched on, not built. Stores on other platforms usually need our Interakt integration or a custom webhook layer. Plan-by-plan detail is in Interakt pricing India 2026.
AiSensy pricing India 2026: ₹1,500 a month and ₹1.09 per marketing message
AiSensy changed its prices on 1 July 2025, so the ₹999 Pro plan you still see quoted around the web is gone for new sign-ups. Current prices (AiSensy pricing):
| AiSensy plan or add-on | Monthly | Billed yearly |
|---|---|---|
| Forever Free | ₹0, cannot broadcast | |
| Basic | ₹1,500 | ₹1,350 a month |
| Pro | ₹3,200 | ₹2,880 a month |
| Chatbot flows (first 5) | ₹2,500 | ₹2,250 a month |
| AI agent builder (1,000 AI replies) | ₹1,350 | ₹1,215 a month |
| Extra agent | ₹750 |
Messages to Indian numbers are charged from a prepaid wallet at ₹1.09 per marketing message and ₹0.145 per utility, authentication or service message (after the free 1,000 service messages). AiSensy's page says it adds nothing for procuring the API; the ₹0.23 gap to Meta's ₹0.86 is still what you pay. AiSensy's strengths are click-to-WhatsApp ad tracking inside Meta Ads Manager and a quick setup; our AiSensy integration connects it to CRMs and stores. Real bills at three volumes are in AiSensy pricing India 2026.
PayPerWA: ₹0.20 a message and no subscription (our product)
Disclosure first: PayPerWA is built and run by Codingclave. It is a campaign tool, two-way inbox and chatbot builder on Meta's Cloud API that charges ₹0.20 per message as its only fee: no subscription, no setup fee, no minimum, and failed messages are refunded to the wallet. Meta's rate is passed through unchanged, so a marketing message costs ₹1.06 and a utility message ₹0.315. The head-to-head with AiSensy, the closest low-entry alternative, is in our PayPerWA vs AiSensy comparison.
Where it wins, using the volume table above:
- Under about 13,000 marketing messages a month, it is the cheapest option that comes with a sending tool. At 1,000 messages you pay ₹1,060 against ₹2,136 at Interakt Starter and ₹6,029 or more at WATI.
- Seasonal or lumpy volume. A brand that sends 30,000 messages in October for Diwali and 2,000 in February pays for exactly that. Subscription plans bill the quiet months too.
- Testing the API. 100 messages cost about ₹106. No trial that converts to a plan.
Where it loses, and I would rather you hear it from me:
- Order updates and OTPs. ₹0.315 per utility message is more than double Interakt's ₹0.150. A store sending mostly utility traffic should use Interakt or AiSensy.
- Above 13,000 marketing messages a month, Interakt Starter is cheaper, and above 50,000 Gupshup or the direct API is cheaper still if you have a developer.
- Large support teams. WATI's inbox has more agent-management depth.
See PayPerWA pricing and request a demo.
Direct Meta Cloud API: ₹0 platform fee, but you build the software
Connecting to Meta's Cloud API without a BSP removes every platform fee: ₹0.86 per marketing message, ₹0.115 per utility message, nothing else. At 1 lakh marketing messages a month that is ₹86,000 against ₹95,000 at Gupshup, ₹98,166 at Interakt and ₹1,06,000 at PayPerWA.
What you take on instead:
- Template creation and approval tooling, webhook handling, a sending queue with retries, opt-in storage, an inbox and reporting. Built properly this typically runs ₹1.5 lakh to ₹5 lakh up front, then hosting and a few developer hours a month.
- Meta Business verification, phone number and display-name approval, and quality-rating management with no BSP support desk to call.
The break-even is simple: the saving over the cheapest BSP is ₹9,000 a month at 1 lakh messages and ₹2,000 a month at 10,000. Below roughly 50,000 messages a month the build never pays back; above it, with developers in-house, direct is the right call. We ship these builds when the numbers work, and our WhatsApp Business API guide explains the setup steps.
Twilio for Indian businesses
Twilio bills in dollars and adds its own per-message fee on top of Meta's rate, with SMS, voice and email on the same account. It suits Indian SaaS companies serving customers abroad who want one vendor for every channel. For an India-only business it is dearer than every option above and lacks INR invoicing with GST, UPI collection and the Indian CRM connectors the local BSPs ship.
Setup fees and hidden costs across BSPs in India
Searchers often ask for a comparison that includes setup fees and message rates, so here is the setup side in one place:
| Cost | Who charges it |
|---|---|
| Setup or onboarding fee | None listed by Gupshup self-serve, Interakt, AiSensy or PayPerWA; WATI states "zero setup fees"; Meta charges nothing |
| Business verification and green tick | Free from Meta; 4 to 8 weeks of review with a GST certificate and domain proof |
| GST | 18% on every plan fee; check whether message rates are quoted with or without it |
| Agent seats | WATI ₹1,799 a month per extra user on Pro, ₹5,199 on Business; AiSensy ₹750 |
| Chatbot add-ons | AiSensy ₹2,500 a month for five flows; included at WATI, Interakt and PayPerWA |
| Incoming messages | Gupshup $0.001 each; Meta's new service-message charge past 1,000 a month applies everywhere |
| Custom integration to your store or CRM | ₹40,000 to ₹2 lakh of development on any BSP once you go past the built-in connectors |
The costs that are not on any price list are in time, not rupees: 5 to 15 days for number and display-name approval, 24 to 72 hours per template review with a 20% to 30% first-submission rejection rate, and a quality-rating drop if you import an old SMS list without fresh opt-in, which caps your daily sends. For transactional traffic, compare WhatsApp utility at ₹0.115 against SMS at ₹0.10 to ₹0.30 through MSG91 before you move OTPs over; many teams keep SMS as the fallback.
Which WhatsApp BSP to pick, by business type
- Shopify D2C store: Interakt. Native cart recovery and order updates, and the cheapest subscription per marketing message.
- WooCommerce or custom store with a support team: WATI for the inbox and connectors, or PayPerWA if volume is under 13,000 a month.
- Coaching institute, clinic, real estate, restaurant with seasonal campaigns: PayPerWA. Pay for the months you send.
- Click-to-WhatsApp ad campaigns: AiSensy, or PayPerWA at low volume.
- Bank, NBFC, fintech or anyone with developers and SMS plus RCS needs: Gupshup.
- Global customers from India: Twilio.
- 50,000+ messages a month with an in-house team: direct Cloud API.
Whichever you choose, the AI layer is a separate line: a chatbot on OpenAI or Claude sits on top of any BSP, and our AI chatbot cost guide prices that part. For the marketing side of the bill, see WhatsApp marketing cost in India 2026 and how brands cut acquisition cost with WhatsApp.
How Codingclave helps with WhatsApp API pricing and integration
Codingclave Development LLP has shipped 200+ projects from Lucknow since 2017, rated 4.9 on Google across 76 reviews and Top Rated on Upwork. We do not resell BSP licences. We help you pick the provider whose fee structure fits your volume, then build the integration: BSP setup and templates, store and CRM connectors, Razorpay payment flows inside WhatsApp, multi-language broadcast systems and direct Cloud API builds. And when the maths says PayPerWA is the wrong tool for you, I will say so.
Get your WhatsApp API bill estimated
Send me your industry, monthly message mix (marketing versus utility) and current platform, and I will reply with the cheapest provider for your volume and the total monthly bill, GST included.
WhatsApp Ashish for a free pricing estimate
About the author
Ashish Sharma is the founder of Codingclave, a Lucknow development agency founded in 2017 with 200+ shipped projects, and the maker of PayPerWA. He works with Indian D2C brands, EdTech, fintech and SaaS founders on WhatsApp integrations across Gupshup, WATI, Interakt, AiSensy and Meta's Cloud API. Reach him on LinkedIn, Upwork or WhatsApp.
Related reading:
- Gupshup WhatsApp pricing India 2026
- Gupshup SMS pricing India 2026
- WATI vs Gupshup 2026
- Cheapest WhatsApp API provider in India 2026
- WATI vs Interakt vs AiSensy 2026: feature comparison
- WhatsApp marketing cost India 2026
- WhatsApp Business API guide India 2026
- Reduce CAC with WhatsApp marketing
- AI chatbot development cost India 2026
- WATI integration services
- Interakt integration services
- AiSensy integration services
Frequently asked questions
Gupshup's self-serve WhatsApp API charges a flat $0.001 per message, about ₹0.09, on top of Meta's rate, with no monthly subscription and no setup fee. The fee applies to template messages and to session messages in both directions, so incoming replies cost ₹0.09 too. You prepay a wallet in dollars. A marketing template to an Indian number therefore costs about ₹0.95 before GST (Meta ₹0.86 plus Gupshup ₹0.09), and a utility message about ₹0.205. Enterprise and managed plans with account management are quoted by Gupshup's sales team. Prices checked on gupshup.ai/pricing on 4 October 2026.
On fees alone, Gupshup is cheaper at every volume. For marketing messages before GST, Gupshup self-serve costs about ₹4,750 at 5,000 messages a month, ₹19,000 at 20,000 and ₹95,000 at 1 lakh, with no subscription. WATI costs roughly ₹10,100 to ₹11,800 at 5,000 on its ₹4,999 Growth plan, ₹30,600 to ₹37,400 at 20,000 on Pro (₹9,999) and ₹1.13 to ₹1.47 lakh at 1 lakh, because its plan fee and per-message markup stack. WATI is the better buy when a non-technical team needs a shared inbox, broadcasts and a no-code chatbot today; Gupshup needs a developer before it is usable.
It depends on volume and on whether you have a developer. Without one, PayPerWA (our product, ₹0.20 a message, no subscription) gives the lowest bill up to about 13,000 marketing messages a month: ₹1,060 at 1,000 and ₹5,300 at 5,000, Meta's rate included. Above 13,000, Interakt's Starter plan (₹3,499 a quarter plus ₹0.970 a message) is cheaper: ₹49,666 at 50,000. With a developer, Gupshup self-serve at ₹0.09 over Meta beats both, and connecting to Meta's Cloud API directly removes the platform fee entirely. For utility-heavy traffic such as OTPs and order updates, Interakt and AiSensy at ₹0.145 to ₹0.150 a message are the cheapest.
Meta has billed per delivered template message since 1 July 2025. In India the rates are about ₹0.86 for a marketing message, ₹0.115 for a utility message and ₹0.115 for an authentication message, before GST. Utility templates sent inside an open 24-hour customer service window are free. Replies to a customer within that window were free until 30 September 2026; from 1 October Meta charges service messages beyond the first 1,000 a month per number, at roughly the utility rate. Volume tiers lower utility and authentication rates at high monthly volumes. Every BSP adds its own fee on top of these numbers.
Interakt's Starter plan is ₹3,499 a quarter (about ₹1,166 a month); the ₹999 monthly Starter is Instagram-only. Growth is ₹2,799 a month and Advanced ₹3,799, both 20% cheaper billed yearly, plus 18% GST. Messages to Indian numbers are billed at ₹0.970 per marketing message on Starter and Growth (₹0.958 on Advanced), ₹0.150 to ₹0.160 per utility message and ₹0.129 per authentication or service message, after 1,000 free service messages a month. That is a markup of about ₹0.11 on marketing over Meta's ₹0.86. Interakt's native Shopify integration is the reason D2C stores pick it. Prices from interakt.shop/pricing, 4 October 2026.
AiSensy's current plans are Basic at ₹1,500 a month (₹1,350 billed yearly) and Pro at ₹3,200 (₹2,880 yearly), plus GST, with a Forever Free plan that cannot broadcast. Messages to Indian numbers cost ₹1.09 per marketing message and ₹0.145 per utility, authentication or service message after the free 1,000 service messages, which is about ₹0.23 over Meta's marketing rate. Add-ons: chatbot flows ₹2,500 a month for five, AI agent builder ₹1,350 a month, extra agents ₹750 each. The ₹999 Pro price quoted on many sites ended with AiSensy's 1 July 2025 pricing update. Prices from aisensy.com/pricing, 4 October 2026.
On 4 October 2026 WATI's pricing page listed Growth at ₹4,999 a month (₹3,749 billed yearly) with 3 users, Pro at ₹9,999 (₹7,499 yearly) with 5 users and ₹1,799 per extra user, and Business at ₹24,999 (₹18,749 yearly; a second load of the page showed ₹29,999). A ₹999 one-time pay-as-you-go pack gives ₹999 of message credit, about 500 messages. Template messages are charged on top at a rate card shown only inside your account; estimates on our site put the marketing markup between ₹0.17 and ₹0.51 over Meta's ₹0.86. Four days earlier, on 30 September, the same page showed Growth at ₹2,999, so confirm the price at sign-up.
Per message, yes: the direct Cloud API has no platform fee, so you pay Meta's ₹0.86 marketing and ₹0.115 utility rate and nothing else. At 1 lakh marketing messages a month that is ₹86,000 against about ₹95,000 on Gupshup, ₹98,000 on Interakt and ₹1.06 lakh on PayPerWA. The catch is the build: template management, webhooks, opt-in storage, a sending queue, an inbox and reporting, which typically costs ₹1.5 lakh to ₹5 lakh up front plus hosting and maintenance. At 10,000 messages a month the saving over PayPerWA is ₹2,000, so payback takes years. Direct makes sense above roughly 50,000 messages a month with developers in-house.
Gupshup's SMS pricing in India works out to about ₹0.10 to ₹0.18 per transactional or promotional SMS, before GST and DLT registration costs, with volume rates quoted by sales. That is cheaper per message than its WhatsApp utility cost of about ₹0.205 (Meta ₹0.115 plus ₹0.09), but WhatsApp carries rich media and read receipts, while SMS needs a registered DLT header and template. For OTPs many teams run both: WhatsApp authentication first, SMS as fallback. Our separate Gupshup SMS pricing post has the per-route breakdown; this guide covers WhatsApp only.
Meta charges nothing for onboarding, business verification or the green tick, and I found no setup fee on the pricing pages of Gupshup, WATI, Interakt, AiSensy or PayPerWA. The one-time and recurring extras that do appear are WATI's ₹999 pay-as-you-go pack (returned as message credit), agent seats (WATI ₹1,799 a month per extra user on Pro, AiSensy ₹750), chatbot add-ons (AiSensy ₹2,500 a month for five flows) and 18% GST on every plan fee. The real setup cost is time: 5 to 15 days for number and display-name approval and 24 to 72 hours per template review, plus any custom integration with your store or CRM.