Are email notifications free while WhatsApp costs credits?

Yes — email notifications are part of the standard platform features with no per-message credit charge mentioned anywhere, while WhatsApp is the metered channel because of the Cloud API costs. So there's a natural strategy hiding in that asymmetry: use email as your always-on baseline for every guest, and spend WhatsApp credits where they'll move the needle most — the big-ticket events where a WhatsApp ping gets opened in seconds and an email sits unread for three days.