Bird Pricing
Bird offers flexible pricing plans designed to scale with your business needs. This guide explains how Monthly Targeted Contacts are calculated for pricing and clarifies the additional passthrough costs for WhatsApp and SMS messaging.
You can find the Bird Pricing details here:
https://bird.com/en-us/pricing
What are Monthly Targeted Contacts?
Monthly Targeted Contacts represent the number of unique contacts (based on contact ID) you send at least one message to on any channel during a billing month. This pricing model is available through Bird's Targeted Contacts Bundle plans, which starts at 50,000 contacts. These messages to contacts can be sent through any of the following methods:
- Sending via Campaigns
- Sending via Journeys
- Sending via Flows
- Sending via API (new update)
- Sending via Support Inbox (new update)
You can see your bundle under Settings > Billing > Overview > Bundles > Targeted Contacts
Click on Targeted Contacts to see your plan details:
- The tier which shows 0 unit price is included in your plan
- The tier above with unit price are your overrage charges if you exceed your plan limits
Unit type: Contacts is the monthly Targeted contacts bundle that you have subscribed to
Unit type: Messages is the monthly Message volume across any channel that you also get as part of your plan. Generally, it is 10 times the number of targeted contacts in your plan.
How Targeted Contacts are Calculated
A contact is counted as "targeted" when they are sent (NOT delivered) at least one message from your account on any channel during the monthly billing period. Here's what you need to know:
- Unique Count: Each contact is counted only once per month, regardless of how many messages they receive
- Monthly Reset: The count resets at the start of each billing month
- Cross-Channel: A contact counts toward your total whether you reach them via email, SMS, WhatsApp, push notifications, Google RCS or multiple channels
- Any Message Sending Method Counts: All message types sent from campaign, journeys, flows, API or Support count toward your targeted contacts limit
Understanding Bird Processing Fees
Bird charges Bird Processing fees for a send attempt for all outbound messages. Even a failed attempt to send a message will result in a charge of Bird Processing Fees, as sending involves the usage of our APIs.
- For WhatsApp, this means for all template messages, including service (session) messages.
Understanding Passthrough Costs
Passthrough costs are fees charged by third-party carriers and platform providers that Bird passes directly to customers at cost. These costs are additional to your Targeted contacts subscription and it is applied based on usage.
WhatsApp Passthrough Costs
WhatsApp charges vary based on:
- Message Type: Marketing, utility, authentication, or service messages
- Country: Different rates apply per region
- Conversation Windows: 24-hour conversation sessions
Meta's Passthrough Fees: Variable by country and message type. This is based on WhatsApp message usage and it is additional to your subscription plan. It is charged to your wallet. The vendor fee is only charged when the WhatsApp message is processed/delivered.
To view current WhatsApp vendor fees, visit the WhatsApp Bird pricing page.
Service messages become chargeable on October 1st 2026. A service (session) message — any free-form reply sent inside the 24-hour customer care window — has carried no Meta passthrough fee since November 2024. From October 1st 2026 Meta charges for it, and a utility template delivered inside an open window loses its free rate at the same time. Both arrive as passthrough fees on your wallet. Bird's processing fee on these messages is unchanged.
Each business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages per calendar month. Meta counts that allowance across every provider sending on the number and marks each delivery as free or billable; Bird charges only what Meta reports as billable. The allowance does not roll over.
SMS Passthrough Costs
SMS costs include:
Carrier Fees: Charged by mobile network operators. This is based on SMS per message usage and it is additional to your subscription plan. It is charged to your wallet. The carrier fee is only charged when the message is accepted by the operator.
Important: SMS pricing is per segment. Messages longer than 160 characters may span multiple segments, with each segment charged separately.
To view current SMS carrier fees, visit the SMS Bird pricing page.
Note that there are no additional per message or pass-through costs for Email or Push notifications.
Viewing my usage and costs
You can go to Settings > Billing > Usage > Overall Usage to view your costs and usage
Note that the Targeted contacts is charged only after the billing month and you cannot view your ongoing usage for the current month.
You can go to Settings > Billing > Usage > Reports to generate downloadable itemized reports
Flow charges
We charge for every invocation, even if the invocation fails.
What about Pay as you Go?
For Pay as You Go bundle or trial plan, you do not purchase a Targeted Contacts subscription plan, hence all your spend is based on usage on a message level as defined in the below page: