WhatsApp Business API, explained
The WhatsApp Business Platform — still widely called the WhatsApp Business API — is how a business connects its own WhatsApp number to software, so that a team can answer from one place and a system can send a message without anyone picking up a phone. This page is the short, current version.
Last verified 2026-10-03 — against Meta’s developer documentation.
What it is, in one paragraph
An interface to your own number.
Meta operates a cloud service — the Cloud API — that receives messages sent to your business phone number and delivers messages you send from it. You authorise an application to use that interface on your behalf. The WhatsApp Business Account and the number stay in your own Meta business portfolio, and Meta bills you directly for the messages.
There is no app to install on a handset and no device to keep online. The number lives on Meta’s servers, which is why several colleagues can answer it at once and why a system can send on it at three in the morning.
What it is not
Three things it is routinely confused with.
Not the WhatsApp Business app
The free app on a phone is a separate product. It has no multi-user inbox, no API and no automation, and a number cannot be on both at the same time — which is why most businesses move the platform onto a dedicated number.
Not a bulk-messaging tool
Every message outside a 24-hour service window must use a template Meta has approved in advance, in a declared category. Meta reviews those templates, and a number’s quality rating falls if recipients block or report it.
Not a separate WhatsApp account
It is your existing business number, moved onto Meta’s interface. Your customers see the same number and the same display name, and your WhatsApp Business Account remains yours throughout.
How a number gets onto it
Three steps, and one of them is Meta’s.
Authorise with your own Facebook sign-in
You sign in to Meta, choose (or create) your business portfolio and pick the phone number. In ChatBridge24 that is one dialog — you never paste a token, an ID or a webhook URL, because the authorisation hands them over directly.
Verify the number and set a PIN
Meta sends a one-time code to the number by SMS or by voice call and then registers it on the Cloud API with a two-step PIN. A landline cannot receive the SMS, so for a fixed line you choose the voice call.
Meta reviews your display name
The name your customers see is reviewed by Meta against the business it belongs to. Approval is usually quick; until it lands the number works and the name shows as under review.
The 24-hour service window
The single most useful rule to understand.
When a customer messages you, a 24-hour service window opens, and inside it you may reply in free text — anything you like, no template, no approval. The window is measured from the customer’s last message; your own replies do not extend it.
Once it closes, reaching that person again needs a template Meta has approved, in one of three paid categories. That is the mechanic the whole platform turns on: inbound conversations are cheap and easy, and reaching out first is deliberate and charged.
It is also why a good inbox tells you the window’s state before you type rather than after Meta refuses the message. How ours does it.
Templates, and the four categories
What you may send, and when.
A template is a message you register with Meta in advance and then send with values filled in. Meta reviews it and assigns it a category, and the category decides the price:
- Marketing — offers, news, re-engagement. The dearest, and the most carefully reviewed.
- Utility — an order update, an appointment reminder, a receipt: something the customer transacted or asked for.
- Authentication — one-time passcodes.
- Service — a free-text reply inside the window. No template needed.
A template can carry a text or media header, numbered or named values in the body, buttons that open a link or copy a code, a carousel of cards, and a limited-time offer. Each of those is a shape Meta validates at submission, which is why a tool that lets you build one correctly the first time saves days. How ours works.
What it costs in 2026
Per message, since July 2025.
Meta charges per message, by category and by the recipient’s market. Conversation-based pricing — the model almost every article on the subject still describes — was deprecated on 1 July 2025.
Two dates decide most invoices. Service conversations became free for everyone on 1 November 2024, which is when the old "1,000 free conversations a month" allowance stopped existing. And from 1 October 2026 every business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month, charged from the 1,001st, with no rollover — the same figure as the dead tier, in a different unit and at a different grain.
Questions people actually ask
Short answers, current as of the date above.
Do I need my own WhatsApp Business Account?
Yes, and that is the right way round — it stays yours. You authorise an application to use it and you can withdraw that authorisation at any time, keeping the number and the account.
Can I keep using the number in the WhatsApp app?
No. A number registered on the WhatsApp Business Platform cannot also be registered on the consumer WhatsApp app or the WhatsApp Business app. Most businesses connect a number they keep for this.
Can I message someone who has never messaged me?
Yes, with an approved template in a paid category, and only if you have a lawful basis and their consent. There is no way to send free-form text to someone outside an open service window.
How many people can answer one number?
As many as you like — that is the main reason to be on the platform at all. ChatBridge24 does not charge per seat.
Does it support group chats?
The Cloud API has no group messaging at all. That is an absence in Meta’s interface rather than a setting, so no vendor on the official platform can offer it.
What is a quality rating?
Meta watches how recipients react to your messages and gives each number a quality rating and a messaging tier that caps how many unique people you may start conversations with in a day. Blocks and reports lower it; good targeting raises it.
Where to go next
Four pages, in the order most people read them.
What Meta charges in 2026
The three dates, the four categories, and the allowance that is not the old allowance.
A shared inbox for a team
One number, several colleagues, and read state in both directions.
Templates, built in one place
Submit, track and send every template shape Meta supports.
WhatsApp inside Bitrix24
Open Channels, the CRM tab on every record, and an automation robot.
Put it on your own number
Connect your WhatsApp Business Account with your own Facebook sign-in. Nothing to host, nothing to paste.