A plain guide to the WhatsApp Business API
What the WhatsApp Business Platform actually is, how a business gets onto it, and the rules worth knowing before your first campaign.
API, app, or Business app?
There are three different WhatsApp products and they are easy to confuse. The consumer app is the one on your phone. The WhatsApp Business app is a free app for very small businesses, run by hand from a single device. The WhatsApp Business Platform — the API — is what lets software send at scale, with approved templates, delivery receipts and multiple team members. A number can only be on one of the three at a time.
Getting onto the API
Create a Meta Business account
Everything on the WhatsApp Business Platform hangs off a Meta Business account. If your business already has one for Facebook or Instagram ads, use that — you do not need a second.
Connect and verify a number
Pick the number you want to send from. It must not be active on the WhatsApp consumer or Business app. Meta verifies it by SMS or call, then issues the credentials that let a platform send on your behalf.
Register the number with a PIN
Meta requires two-step verification before a number can send. Set a 6-digit PIN once and the number is ready. Skipping this is the single most common reason a first campaign fails.
Get a template approved
Write the message you want to send, pick its category, and submit it. Meta reviews it — usually within minutes. Only approved templates can start a conversation with a customer.
Import contacts and send
Upload a CSV with name and phone columns, organise contacts into groups and tags, then send your campaign to the audience you choose.
The three template categories
Meta prices and reviews templates by category. Picking the wrong one is the most common reason a template is rejected.
Utility
Follow-ups to something the customer did — order confirmations, shipping updates, appointment reminders, payment receipts. Cheapest to send and the most reliably approved.
Marketing
Promotions, offers, announcements, re-engagement. Priced higher, reviewed more strictly, and the category most likely to affect your quality rating if overused.
Authentication
One-time passcodes and login verification only. Strict formatting rules and no promotional content of any kind.
Quality rating and messaging limits
Meta scores every number green, yellow or red based on how recipients react to it. Blocks and reports push the score down; a sustained red rating reduces your messaging limit or gets the number restricted. Separately, each number has a messaging limit — how many unique customers you can start a conversation with in a rolling 24 hours. New numbers start low and Meta raises the limit on its own as you send quality traffic over time. You cannot buy your way up; you earn it by not annoying people.
Five mistakes worth avoiding
- Putting promotional wording in a Utility template — the fastest route to a rejection.
- Messaging people who never asked to hear from you, which drives blocks and drops your quality rating.
- Forgetting to register the number with a PIN, then wondering why every send fails.
- Submitting a template with variables but no example values, which Meta rejects automatically.
- Sending one large campaign to a brand-new number before Meta has raised its messaging limit.
WhatsApp broadcasting for businesses — templates, campaigns, and delivery reporting on Meta's official Cloud API.