---
title: "Customer service window"
description: "The customer service window is the 24-hour period that starts when a WhatsApp user messages or calls a business. While it is open the business can send free-form (non-template) messages. Once it closes, only approved templates can be sent."
canonical: "https://omnichannels.ai/glossary/customer-service-window/"
language: "en"
updated: "2026-10-10"
publisher: "BroadNet Technologies"
brand: "OmniChannels.ai"
---

# Customer service window

Canonical: https://omnichannels.ai/glossary/customer-service-window/
Language: en
Publisher: OmniChannels.ai by BroadNet Technologies

**Definition:** The customer service window is the 24-hour period that starts when a WhatsApp user messages or calls a business. While it is open the business can send free-form (non-template) messages. Once it closes, only approved templates can be sent.

Meta's documentation describes the rule exactly: when a user messages or calls the business, a 24-hour timer starts, and each new message from the user resets it to 24 hours. Inside the window the business can send any message type, including text, media, interactive messages, locations and reactions.

When the window closes the business can send only pre-approved template messages, which are charged by category. This is why support teams try to resolve conversations quickly, and why automation such as chatbots is often used to answer within the window.

Pricing inside the window has changed several times. Under per-message pricing (from 1 July 2025), non-template messages and utility templates sent inside an open window were free. Meta's pricing documentation states that from 1 October 2026 it charges for service messages and for utility templates sent inside the window, with 1,000 free service messages per business phone number per month that reset monthly and do not roll over. Confirm current rates in Meta's rate card.

A separate free entry point (FEP) window applies when a user messages through a Click-to-WhatsApp ad on the Android or iOS app. If the business replies within the 24-hour window, the reply opens an FEP window that may remain open for up to 7 days, during which Meta does not charge for marketing, utility, authentication or service messages; Meta Business Agent messages remain charged.

## Sources

- [Send messages: customer service windows — Meta for Developers](https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/business-messaging/whatsapp/messages/send-messages)
- [Non-template messages (upcoming pricing updates) — Meta for Developers](https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/business-messaging/whatsapp/pricing/non-template-messages)