What are conversations?

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This guide explains how conversations work with Cue. It's important to understand that WhatsApp treats conversations a bit differently which we'll explain below.

Cue conversations

When a contact sends a message to a channel in your workspace for the first time a new conversation is opened. That conversation then remains open until one of the following happens:

  • The contact is interacting with one of your flows and reaches the end of a flow.
  • The contact is interacting with one of your flows on WhatsApp and does not respond for 24 hours.
  • The contact is interacting with Live Chat, an agent closes the ticket and there is no resolution flow that is published.
  • The contact is interacting with Live Chat, an agent closes the ticket, the contact is then connected to a resolution flow and reaches the end of that flow.

If a contact sends a message after their previous conversation has closed due to one of the above reasons then a new conversation will be started. A contact can have multiple conversations with the Cue platform in a day. They are all treated and counted separately as individual conversations.

WhatsApp Conversations

WhatsApp counts and bills conversations a bit differently. There is no way to close a conversation, it just expires after 24 hours. A conversation can be initiated by either a user, referred to as a service type conversation or a business, which can be a marketing, utility or authentication type conversation.

Meta charges a different rates for service, marketing, utility and authentication conversations in different countries. See their rate card and below for more info.

User initiated conversations

User initiated conversations are referred to as 'service' conversations:

  • The first 1,000 service conversations are not billed for.
  • If a service conversation is started from a free entry point, which can be a Click to WhatsApp Ad or Facebook Page Call-to-Action button and you reply within 24 hours you are not billed for this conversation.
  • All other service conversations are billed for at the applicable rate for a service conversation in the appropriate country.

Business Initiated Conversations

Business initiated conversations can only be started by your business sending a pre-approved template that must be in one of the following categories:

  • Marketing
  • Utility
  • Authentication

Additional considerations

When a business conversation is initiated by a template being sent (i.e. Marketing template) it remains open for 24h from the time it was initiated. If you send a second marketing template within this window you won't be billed. If you send a different type of template (e.g. utility or authentication) you will be billed.

How you are charged for conversations

Because most customers pay for a certain amount of Monthly Active Contacts (MACs) and not per conversation you not billed for service conversations on WhatsApp. However, we do pass on the costs for WhatsApp business initiated costs to you.

Difference between Cue and WhatsApp conversations

On Cue we support multiple channel types, so we close a conversation as per the criteria at the top of the article. However, because WhatsApp only closes a conversation after the contact has not replied for 24 hours it may be possible for a contact to have multiple Cue conversations within a single WhatsApp conversation window.

This means that Cue's count of WhatsApp conversations will always tend to be higher than WhatsApp because we close at the end of an interaction and not only after a user has not replied after 24 hours.