The short version
Facebook has started capping how many posts containing external links a business Page can publish for free. The cap is two link posts a month. If you want more, you pay for a Meta One subscription.
For a lot of New Zealand small businesses, posting links is the entire point of having a Page. A cafe posting its new menu, a retailer linking to a product, a tradie linking to a quote form - that is two posts and you are done for the month.
The rollout started in September 2026 and is still going, unevenly. Your Page might be capped while the business down the road is not.
What it costs
Meta One is sold in tiers. The New Zealand pricing, and what each tier buys you on Facebook:
| Plan | Cost per month | External links per month |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 2 |
| Essential | about NZ$26 | 2 |
| Standard | about NZ$88 | 8 |
| Premium | about NZ$265 | 20 |
| Max | about NZ$883 | Unlimited |
Read that table twice, because the first paid tier is the strange one. Paying about NZ$26 a month gets you the same two links you already had for free. Whatever else that tier includes, it does not include more links.
The jump that actually changes anything is the NZ$88 one, and eight links a month is still only two a week.
Instagram is capped lower than Facebook on the same plans. Where Facebook is unlimited on the top tier, Instagram is still capped.
What does not count toward the cap
This is the part that gets lost in the panic, and it matters:
Ads do not count. If you are paying to promote a post, the link in it is not counted against your two.
Links to Meta's own products do not count. A link to your Instagram, your WhatsApp, your Facebook Shop - those are free and unlimited.
Links in direct messages do not count. If someone comments and you send them the link privately, that is outside the cap.
Publisher Pages are exempt. News organisations are not affected the way a retailer is.
So the cap is specifically on organic posts that send people off Meta's platforms and onto your own.
Who this actually hurts
Not everyone equally. The businesses feeling this are the ones who built their customer route on Facebook posts carrying links - e-commerce stores, event businesses, anyone whose weekly rhythm is "new thing, post the link, take the orders."
If your Facebook presence is mostly photos, updates and replies, with people phoning or messaging you, very little changes.
The hardest hit are the micro-businesses and owner-operators for whom these amounts are not rounding errors. NZ$88 a month is $1,056 a year to keep posting links you used to post for nothing.
Why Meta is doing it
Links take people off Facebook. Every click away is attention Meta no longer sells. Capping free links and charging for more does two things at once: it keeps people on the platform, and it turns the Pages that most need to send traffic out into paying subscribers.
It is worth being clear-eyed about what that means. Your Page is not your asset. It never was. You rent it, the rent just went up, and the landlord can change the terms again whenever it suits.
What to do about it
Do not pay immediately. Check whether you are actually capped yet - the rollout is inconsistent. Count how many link posts you genuinely publish in a month. A lot of businesses who think they post constantly are posting links three or four times.
Move the link out of the post. Put it in your bio, in your pinned post, in your Shop, or in a reply. None of those are capped the same way.
Use the exemptions. If a launch matters, put spend behind it - as an ad, the link is uncapped, and you are reaching more than your existing followers anyway.
Get the people off the platform. An email list is the version of this you own. Nobody can cap how many times you email your own customers, or charge you more to include a link.
Make sure the destination is worth the trip. If you only get two free links a month, the page those links point at needs to convert. This is the moment to look at where you are sending people.
The bigger lesson
This is not really a Facebook story. It is a reminder of what happens when the route between you and your customers runs through someone else's property.
The businesses who shrugged at this change are the ones with their own website, their own email list, and their own search traffic. Facebook is one road into their business rather than the only one. The ones who are panicking are the ones for whom Facebook is the business.
If this change hurt, that is useful information about where you are exposed. The fix is not a better Facebook strategy. It is owning more of the path.
Sources: RNZ, 21 October 2026. Pricing and allowances confirmed against Meta One's published tiers. Rollout is gradual and the details may change.
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