What actually costs money when you run DM automations at volume?

Four things meter, and only one of them is the plan.

1. The plan. Capacity: how many channels, how many contacts, which features. This is the fixed line in your spreadsheet.

1. Flow runs beyond what the plan includes. A run is one execution of an automation for one person. A post that produces ten thousand comments produces ten thousand runs, and that is the number that moves, not the number of automations you built. Runs beyond the plan draw on the flow wallet.

1. Per message costs that are not ours. WhatsApp conversations are billed by Meta. SMS is billed by the carrier. Email has a provider cost. Instagram and Messenger DMs have none.

1. AI, if you use it. Model calls run on your own provider key, so that cost lands on your provider bill rather than ours, and you set the cap.

The line that surprises people is the second one. A flow with twelve steps costs the same as a flow with two, because the unit is the run, not the step. So optimising for fewer steps saves nothing, while a trigger that fires on the wrong posts costs real money.

The practical control is scoping: post filters, keyword modes that do not over match, and a condition that ends a run early when the contact has already been through it.

The Flow wallet and top-ups article explains how the balance is drawn down and what happens when it runs low.