List with prices
The WhatsApp Business API is how Meta lets a business connect WhatsApp to software: a shared inbox for your team, broadcasts, chatbots, or an AI agent that answers customers by itself. A business reaches it through a provider, and the provider charges a monthly fee for its software.
For a South African business, three things change the real price: whether it is in rand or dollars, whether VAT is included, and whether automatic replies are in the plan or sold on top. This list puts rand prices first, then dollar prices, and each entry says what its company writes about VAT and about AI. Every price has the address of the company's own pricing page and the date we checked it.
Build my free agent previewNo contract and no setup fee. You connect the WhatsApp number you already use.
Short answer
For a business in South Africa, the providers that publish rand prices are BizAI (R500 a month ex VAT, based in Midrand), Go4whatsup (R699 a month on its South Africa page), ReachMax (R2,000 a month on its pricing page, "from R1,800" on its South Africa page) and GotBot (R6,980 a month plus message fees). In US dollars: Chakra Chat ($12.49), AiSensy ($45), Zoko ($49.99), YCloud ($52), Wati ($69 for South Africa, where Kenya pays $49), respond.io ($99, or $79 paid yearly) and CertuAI ($120 on the official API, with the AI agent included).
Who wrote this list. CertuAI wrote it, and CertuAI is on it, at number 11. The order comes from the rule explained under "How we checked", not from a judge outside the company. Every other price comes from that company's own pricing page, with the address and the date we checked it right next to it. Check them and decide for yourself.
11 options, with the price each company publishes.
| # | Name | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BizAI | R500 ex VAT (Comms) | A South African business that wants a rand bill, local hosting and a month-to-month plan it can try for 30 days. |
| 2 | Go4whatsup | R699 (Standard) | A small business that wants AI replies on the official API for a rand price under R1,000. |
| 3 | ReachMax | R2,000 (or from R1,800) | A business with a team that sends many messages and wants one flat rand fee for everyone. |
| 4 | GotBot | R6,980 (40 MPS) | A larger business that sends high volumes and needs a guaranteed sending speed. |
| 5 | Chakra Chat | $12.49 (Starter) | A small business that wants the official API at the lowest dollar price and is fine setting up its own replies. |
| 6 | AiSensy | $45 (Basic) | A business that mainly sends broadcasts and order updates, and may add a bot later. |
| 7 | Zoko | $49.99 (Starter) | An online store that wants order updates and product questions answered on WhatsApp. |
| 8 | YCloud | $52 (Growth) | A business that sends many template messages and wants them passed through without a markup. |
| 9 | Wati | $69 (Growth) | A business that wants a proven shared inbox and broadcasts, paid month to month. |
| 10 | respond.io | $99 (Starter) | A support or sales team of several people sharing one number, with rules for who answers what. |
| 11 | CertuAI | $120 (Pro, official API) | An owner in South Africa who wants customers answered by AI day and night on the official API, with a CRM that fills itself and no team to build bots. |
On a phone, swipe the table sideways. Prices change: each entry below has the address and the date we checked it.
Comms Platform R500 a month ex VAT: WhatsApp and a shared inbox for several channels, 3 users and 1 WhatsApp number; each extra user R99 a month, each extra number R50 a month. Smart CRM plans: Starter R599, Growth R1,850, Business R3,400 and Enterprise R7,500 a month, all ex VAT. AI credits are sold on top at R299, R399 or R799. The page says Meta message fees apply on top, billed by Meta and not marked up. No contracts; 30-day free trial with no card, and the page says nothing auto-bills.
Price published at https://www.bizai.co.za/pricing, checked on 2026-09-11.
Standard R699 a month on its South Africa page, which calls the plan "AI included" and mentions 15% VAT for South African customers. The page says every paid plan includes AI auto-replies, drafted replies for agents, AI-generated campaign copy and language detection, and that the first 1,000 conversations "are on us". Yearly prepayment is "typically" 15 to 20% off, with no figure. There is a free plan. The company's global pricing page lists Standard at $39 a month.
Price published at https://www.go4whatsup.com/south-africa/whatsapp-business-api-pricing/, checked on 2026-09-11.
ReachMax Platform R2,000 a month on the pricing page, with up to 15,000 messages a month and unlimited contacts and team members. Its South Africa page says plans start at R1,800 a month; we show both because both are on ReachMax's own site. Chatbots are add-ons, each per platform: Self-Serve Chatbot R900 a month and Custom Chatbot R1,900 a month, the second with "optional AI for intelligent responses". Support tiers cost R5,000 and R15,000 a month. The pricing page also shows the platform at EUR 130 or $140.
Price published at https://www.reachmax.app/pricing, checked on 2026-09-11.
Platform fee R6,980 a month for 40 messages per second, R13,980 for 80, R27,980 for 160 and R55,980 for 320. On top, GotBot's own rates per message: R0.12 authentication, R0.94 marketing, R0.12 utility and R0.00 service. The page says rand rates are indicative and subject to exchange rate adjustments at invoicing time, and mentions 1,000 free conversations every month included with your WhatsApp Business Account.
Price published at https://www.gotbot.ai/whatsapp-pricing, checked on 2026-09-11.
Starter $12.49 a month, with 10,000 template messages, 3 users and 2 numbers. Growth $24.99 and Advanced $49.99 a month. There is also a free plan with 1,000 session messages and 2 users.
Price published at https://chakrahq.com/product/chakra-chat/pricing, checked on 2026-09-11.
Basic $45 a month, $128.25 a quarter or $486 a year. Pro $99 and Premium $299 a month. The AI Agent Builder is an add-on at $50 a month with 1,000 AI messages; the basic chatbot builder is $80 a month ($72 billed yearly). The page has a "Start for FREE" button but does not say how long the trial lasts.
Price published at https://aisensy.com/pricing/usd, checked on 2026-09-11.
Starter $49.99 a month, plus a markup of $0.015 per conversation. Plus $79.99 a month with 5,000 conversations and no markup. Each AI agent is an add-on from $24.99 a month. 7-day free trial, no card.
Price published at https://www.zoko.io/pricing, checked on 2026-09-11.
Growth $52 a month on monthly billing, or $39 a month billed $468 a year. Pro $118 a month, or $89 a month billed $1,068 a year. There is a free plan with no card. Growth lists 5 million "Generative AI credits"; the free plan lists 500,000.
Price published at https://www.ycloud.com/pricing, checked on 2026-09-11.
For visitors from South Africa: Growth $69 a month, $207 a quarter or $708 a year ($59 a month), with extra users at $19 a month each. Pro $149 a month ($1,428 a year), Business $349 a month ($3,348 a year). The list Wati's page loads for South Africa shows an "AI Operator" line at no charge on Growth, and paid add-ons: AI Copilot from $30 a month for 1,000, AI KnowBot Responses from $60 a month and Chatbot Sessions from $40 a month. 7-day free trial.
Price published at https://www.wati.io/pricing/, checked on 2026-09-11.
Starter $99 a month on monthly billing, or $79 a month billed $948 a year. Starter has AI Assist, AI prompts and chat summaries; AI agents start at Growth. The page says WhatsApp fees are not included in any respond.io plan. The 7-day trial has Growth features with 5 users, 1,000 contacts and no broadcasts.
Price published at https://respond.io/pricing, checked on 2026-09-11.
Start $75 a month: the AI agent on one WhatsApp number connected by scanning a QR code (like WhatsApp Web), up to 800 AI replies a month, with the CRM included. Pro $120 a month: the official WhatsApp Business API from Meta, up to 2,500 AI replies, a landing page and room for 5 people on the team (Start has 3). Monthly plans start with a 7-day trial on a card. The annual plan costs 10 months and has no trial.
Price published at https://certu.com.br/en/planos, checked on 2026-09-11.
The rule for the order. Rand prices first, cheapest first, because a rand bill does not move with the exchange rate. Then US dollar prices, cheapest first. We compare the monthly price of the cheapest paid plan that includes WhatsApp, as each company publishes it: BizAI publishes before VAT, and its entry says so. When one company shows two prices for its entry plan, the entry shows both and the lower one sets the place. On a tie, alphabetical order.
That rule puts CertuAI eleventh. This page is about official WhatsApp Business API providers, and CertuAI's $75 Start connects your number by QR code, not through the official API, so CertuAI is ranked at $120, the price of Pro, where the official API starts. CertuAI does not bill in rand, so BizAI, Go4whatsup, ReachMax and GotBot come first, and six dollar providers start cheaper. What differs is what the price includes: CertuAI's $120 includes the AI agent and up to 2,500 AI replies a month. Go4whatsup lists AI on its R699 plan; BizAI and ReachMax sell it on top; AiSensy and Zoko sell the AI agent as an add-on; respond.io has AI agents from Growth; and for GotBot, Chakra Chat, YCloud and Wati we could not confirm it.
This list has eleven entries, not ten: by this rule respond.io ($99) comes before CertuAI, and stopping at ten would have left one of them out.
We opened each company's own pricing page on 11 September 2026 and wrote down the price, the address of the page and the date. We did not use prices from review sites, from sales calls or from memory. We did not convert any currency: every price is shown in the currency the company shows it in, and $ always means US dollars.
Some pricing pages change with the country you visit from. Wati's page loads its price list from Wati's own servers by country, and the list for South Africa is higher than the one for Kenya, Nigeria and the Philippines: Growth is $69 a month here and $49 there. We show the South African list. Go4whatsup has a separate South Africa page in rand and a global page in dollars, and we used the South Africa page.
Message charges are not in these prices. Several companies on this list say on their own pricing pages that WhatsApp message charges are billed apart from the plan, and some publish their own rate per message. Each entry quotes what the company writes. We did not add a message charge to any price here, and we do not describe how Meta bills businesses, because that is for Meta to say and it changes. Ask each provider what a message will cost you, who bills it and whether they add anything on top.
CertuAI's price comes from its plans page, which is the same price the checkout charges. There is no display price that differs from the price you pay.
Prices change. If you are reading this months from now, open the address under each entry before you decide anything.
Celcom Africa sells the WhatsApp Business API across Africa and says it can bill in rand, but publishes only Kenyan prices (from KES 15,000 a month), so for South Africa it is price on request.
Clickatell lists WhatsApp as a channel on its packages page, with no prices; its Prepaid package is pay as you go with "Try for free". Turn.io offers custom pricing based on volume, says its plans include WhatsApp Business API messaging, calling and AI, and has free "Chat for Impact" community access. Neither publishes a price we could check.
BizAI says all its prices are in rand and before VAT, so R500 is the figure before 15% is added. Go4whatsup's South Africa page mentions 15% VAT for South African customers without saying whether R699 includes it. ReachMax's pricing page does not say, and one block of its South Africa page says "VAT included". Ask every provider for a quote with VAT before you compare.
A rand price is not always a fixed price. GotBot writes that its rand rates are indicative and can change with the exchange rate when it invoices. The dollar plans on this list are paid by card; check that your card allows dollar payments and what your bank charges for them.
The entry price is often the plan without the bot. On BizAI, AI needs credits sold on top at R299 to R799. On ReachMax, the self-serve chatbot is R900 a month and the custom chatbot with optional AI is R1,900 a month, per platform. On AiSensy the AI Agent Builder is $50 a month extra, and on Zoko each AI agent is from $24.99 a month. Wati shows AI add-ons for South Africa from $30 a month.
Go4whatsup says AI replies are in every paid plan, and CertuAI includes the AI agent on every plan. Add the bot to the plan before you compare, then look at usage: a cheap plan that charges per message or per AI answer can cost more in a busy month than a flat one.
Several lists of South African WhatsApp providers are written by one of the providers on them. ReachMax's parent organisation, Local Pros, publishes a list of the best providers that ranks ReachMax. This list is written by CertuAI, and CertuAI is on it, at the place the note under the title gives.
That is not a reason to ignore any of these lists. It is a reason to open each company's own pricing page before you decide, which is why every entry here gives you the address and the date.
The provider's fee on this list goes from R500 a month ex VAT at BizAI to R6,980 a month at GotBot, or $12.49 to $120 a month at dollar-priced providers. Message charges usually come on top: GotBot, for example, publishes R0.94 per marketing message and R0.12 per utility message as its own rates.
BizAI, ReachMax and GotBot publish rand prices on their pricing pages, and Go4whatsup has a South Africa page in rand. Celcom Africa says it can bill in rand but does not publish a rand price.
Not always, and not always clearly. BizAI publishes before VAT. Go4whatsup mentions 15% VAT without saying whether R699 includes it. ReachMax's two pages disagree, and we did not find it on GotBot's page. Ask for a quote with VAT before you compare.
Wati's page loads a different price list for South Africa: Growth is $69 a month there, and $49 for Kenya, Nigeria and the Philippines. Its page does not say why. If the difference matters to you, ask Wati.
Usually yes, but the steps depend on the provider. With CertuAI you connect the number your business already uses: by QR code on Start, through the official API on Pro. Ask any provider on this list before you pay.
Usually not. Several companies on this list say on their own pages that message charges come on top of the plan, and each entry quotes what that company writes. We did not add message charges to any price. Before you sign, ask the provider what a message costs you, who sends you that bill and whether they add a markup.
No. Nobody paid to be on it, and no link on this page earns CertuAI a commission. CertuAI is on the list because CertuAI wrote the list, and the page says so right under the title.
Tell CertuAI about your business in a short chat and watch the agent answer a customer the way you would. The preview is free and needs no card. If you like it, you connect the WhatsApp number you already use.
Build my free agent preview