What kinds of template are there?
Updated 1 September 2026
The Short Answer
There are two kinds, Marketing and Utility, and they differ in what a message costs to deliver — about 4.5 times. You do not choose: Meta decides from what your template actually says, at approval. Your credit cost is the same either way, at 1 credit per person.
Two kinds, one decision that is not yours, and one number that is not your credit cost.
What are the two kinds?
Marketing and Utility. There is no third.
Broadly: Utility is a message that responds to something that has already happened between you and that person. Marketing is everything else — anything that opens a subject rather than continuing one.
Where do I see which one mine is?
In Extensions → Templates, on the row itself. The word sits on one line with the delivery cost under it.
It only appears on rows that are Approved for Use — which is deliberate, and the next answer is why.
Why is it blank before approval?
Because the category is Meta's answer, not PropKaki's guess, and before review there is no true one.
Showing you a category that later turns out to be wrong would be worse than showing you nothing — so the column stays empty until Meta has actually reviewed it.
Can I choose which one I get?
No. Meta re-categorises on content at review, so what your template actually says is what decides it.
Writing Utility on a promotional message does not make it one. The wording is the whole input.
What makes a template Utility?
It continues something rather than starting it. The ones PropKaki sets up as Utility all do this:
- Confirming a viewing you arranged.
- Replying about a document they sent.
- Telling them a valuation came back.
- Confirming a time.
- Following up on a CPF statement they asked about.
A message that announces a new launch to forty people is Marketing, however politely it is phrased.
What is the price difference?
In Singapore, Marketing is about S$0.094 a message and Utility about S$0.021 — roughly 4.5 times apart.
That is what the message costs to deliver through WhatsApp, and it is the reason two templates on the same screen show different figures.
Does the category change what I am charged in credits?
No. A send costs 1 credit per person whether the template is Marketing or Utility.
The figure on the row is the delivery cost, not your credit cost. Do not read the two as one — a Marketing template does not take more credits out of your balance.
Why does PropKaki assume Marketing before review?
Because Meta only ever moves a template up in price, never down.
So PropKaki declares the dearer one for anything you wrote yourself. If Meta comes back with Utility, the figure you see gets cheaper — it can never surprise you by getting more expensive.
Should I try to write Utility templates?
Only where the message genuinely responds to something. Bending a message to chase the cheaper bucket usually produces a worse message and gets categorised as Marketing anyway.
Write the message that works. The arrangement-type templates you need are Utility because of what they are, not because of how they were worded.