Meta updated their WhatsApp template classification system last week. We've already adjusted Voxys to handle the change transparently — but since the underlying billing changes, here's the summary.
What Meta changed
WhatsApp templates are now classified into three categories instead of the previous two:
- Marketing — promotional content, offers, announcements. Same as before, mid-tier pricing.
- Utility — order updates, reminders, alerts that the customer explicitly opted into. Same as before, cheaper than marketing.
- Authentication — OTPs and verification codes specifically. New dedicated category, cheapest of the three.
Previously, OTPs were billed at the Utility rate. The new Authentication category is ~40% cheaper per message than the old Utility rate for OTP use cases.
What we updated in Voxys
Template editor. When you create a new template in Voxys, you now pick from three category options instead of two. Our editor warns you if your content doesn't match the category you chose (e.g. promotional language in a Utility template gets flagged before submission to Meta).
Auto-recategorization. Your existing templates were reviewed automatically. Templates that look like OTPs (regex patterns: 4-8 digit codes, "verification", "OTP") have been resubmitted to Meta under the Authentication category — they'll start billing at the new lower rate from the next cycle.
Pricing page sync. Our public WhatsApp rate table now reflects the three-tier pricing across all 12 currencies. The numbers update on the next publish.
What you need to do
Nothing, in most cases. Auto-recategorization handles ~95% of existing OTP templates correctly.
For the 5% that need manual review (templates with mixed content, e.g. an OTP plus a marketing tagline), we've added an alert in your workspace under Templates → Review needed. Expected to be a small handful of templates per workspace.
If your monthly spend is heavy on OTP volume, expect a noticeable drop in your WhatsApp bill starting next cycle.