WhatsApp in Shopify Messaging: Pricing, Features and Limits

How does Shopify's price compare with Meta's list rate?

Meta charges for WhatsApp business messages itself: a rate per delivered message that depends on the message category and on the country calling code of the recipient's number, according to Meta's pricing documentation (rate card effective October 1, 2026). Both price lists are in US dollars, so the two figures can be set side by side. The Meta rates below come from Meta's rate calculator, read on October 7, 2026.

The last two columns are our calculation: the difference is Shopify's price minus Meta's list rate, and the ratio is Shopify's price divided by Meta's list rate, rounded to two decimals.

A worked example, also our calculation: 10,000 marketing messages for the United Kingdom come to 10,000 × $0.106 = $1,060 at Shopify's price and 10,000 × $0.0635 = $635 at Meta's list rate, a difference of $425.

Three points help you read these figures:

• Shopify publishes one price per message and adds it to your Shopify bill. Its page shows no breakdown of that price.
• Meta's list rate is what Meta charges for the message. It does not include the subscription of the WhatsApp tool you send from, when that tool has one.
• For service messages, Shopify's price is the same as Meta's list rate in the four markets we checked: United Kingdom ($0.0220), Canada ($0.0034, Meta's North America rate), Germany ($0.0550) and France ($0.0300).

Our WhatsApp Business pricing guide explains how Meta's per-message billing works.

What are the requirements and limits?

To send WhatsApp campaigns with Shopify Messaging, Shopify asks for the following:

• A paid Shopify plan. Shopify Messaging is open to the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans (compared in our Shopify pricing guide). The store needs an active paid plan, the Online Store sales channel and a payment provider (requirements for Shopify Messaging). On a free trial or on the Pause and Build plan, you can create campaigns and send tests to yourself, but you can't send messages to your subscribers.
• Shopify Network Intelligence. It must be enabled in the store's privacy settings (overview page).
• A WhatsApp Business Account connected through Meta's embedded signup. Shopify verifies your eligibility during onboarding. Your business must comply with the WhatsApp Business Solution Terms and the WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy, and the business entity can't be registered in China (WhatsApp requirements).
• A phone number. An existing number of your business, a number provided by WhatsApp (Meta then reviews your business and display name, in 5 business days at most according to Shopify) or a number bought from a third-party provider (setup page).
• A disconnection first, if your account is with another provider. Shopify asks you to disconnect the WhatsApp Business Account from that provider before connecting it. If the account connection has a payment method on file, it can't be connected to Shopify and you need a new WhatsApp Business Account. The calendar matters: a disconnection made in the first 4 days or the last 3 days of a month blocks WhatsApp marketing sends through Shopify Messaging until the first day of the following month (setup page, step 1).

The same WhatsApp requirements page sets these limits:

• A daily cap for new accounts. A new WhatsApp Business Account is capped at 2,000 messages per day until it moves through Meta's trusted-account tiers.
• Per-user limits. WhatsApp may limit the number of marketing messages a subscriber receives from businesses, based on factors such as that person's recent read rate for marketing messages.
• Formats. A message can include an image header, text or a product. Video headers and carousel cards aren't supported.
• The STOP instruction. It is included in every message by default and can't be removed or edited.
• Brazil and Indonesia. A store located in one of these two countries can message customers in its own country. To send marketing messages to other countries, it must first verify its business with Meta or reach the sending volume that Shopify specifies.

The sending limits depend on the quality rating Meta gives your number: our guide to the WhatsApp Business quality rating explains how it is calculated and how to recover it.

Can a US store use WhatsApp in Shopify Messaging?

Partly. Shopify's requirements page excludes customers located in the United States from WhatsApp marketing messages, and adds that a store located in the United States can still send them to its subscribers in other supported countries. Shopify's price list has no row for the United States.

The restriction comes from Meta. Its developer documentation says WhatsApp does not currently deliver marketing template messages to users with United States phone numbers, meaning a +1 dialing code with a US area code. It therefore applies to every tool that sends through the WhatsApp Business Platform. Our article on WhatsApp marketing in the USA covers what still works during Meta's pause.

Shopify also excludes customers in China and in the sanctioned regions it lists: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk.

What does the channel not cover, according to Shopify's own pages?

Each point below comes from the Shopify pages cited, as read on October 7, 2026.

• Automations on WhatsApp. The overview page says you can create marketing automations for email and SMS. On the automations page, the abandoned cart, abandoned checkout and browse abandonment automations list email and SMS as their available channels, and the other automations list email. WhatsApp is not among the channels listed.
• Transactional messages. The WhatsApp section covers marketing campaigns, and the price list has two message types, marketing and service. It has no utility price, the category Meta defines for transactional templates.
• Video and carousels. Video headers and carousel cards aren't supported.
• Some destinations. No marketing messages to customers in the United States, in China or in the sanctioned regions listed above.
• Conversations. The WhatsApp pages describe automated keyword replies and the billing of your replies as service messages. They do not describe a shared inbox or an AI agent for WhatsApp conversations. Shopify's own AI features are covered in our Shopify Magic guide.

Where does Kanal fit?

Kanal is a WhatsApp marketing app for Shopify with campaigns, abandoned cart recovery, order notifications, an AI agent and a team inbox. Kanal sends WhatsApp and SMS messages (it has a page on SMS campaigns for Shopify stores), so email stays in your other tools, Shopify Messaging included. Meta's pause on marketing templates to US numbers applies to Kanal as it does to every WhatsApp provider.

The pricing model differs from Shopify's price per message. Kanal charges a monthly subscription, listed on the pricing page, and, in the words of our FAQ, "WhatsApp message costs are passed through at cost". To compare the two for your store, start from your monthly volume by country: on one side Shopify's price per message, on the other a subscription plus Meta's rate per message. Since Shopify asks you to disconnect a WhatsApp Business Account from its current provider before connecting it to Shopify Messaging, decide as well which tool will hold your number.

Sources

All pages were read on October 7, 2026.

• Shopify Help Center: Multi-channel marketing with Shopify Messaging and requirements for using Shopify Messaging
• Shopify Help Center, WhatsApp section: requirements, setup, pricing, campaigns and deliverability
• Shopify Help Center: marketing automations in Shopify Messaging
• Shopify App Store: Shopify Messaging listing
• Meta: Pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform and the rate calculator
• Meta: Per-user marketing template message limits