WhatsApp is the highest-engagement channel available to Indian businesses, with open rates that make email look broken. But getting onto the official API involves a verification process that rejects a lot of first attempts.
Here's what's actually required, and where people get stuck.
What you need before you start
- A Facebook Business Manager account
- Business verification documents — GST certificate or certificate of incorporation
- A phone number not currently active on consumer WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business App
- A display name that matches your registered business name
- A website and business email on your own domain
The mistakes that cause rejections
The most common failure is a mismatch between the name on your verification documents and the name you're registering. Meta checks these against each other, and 'Sharma Traders' on the GST certificate will not pass as 'SharmaTrade India'.
The second most common is trying to register a number that's still active on the consumer app. It has to be freed first, and migrating deletes the chat history on that device.
How pricing works
Meta bills per 24-hour conversation window, not per message. Within an open window you can exchange as many messages as you like for one charge.
Categories matter. Marketing conversations cost the most, utility conversations (order updates, alerts) considerably less, and service conversations — ones the customer starts — are cheapest of all. Indian rates are among the lowest globally.
Design flows so routine notifications fall into the utility category rather than marketing. The saving across a year of order updates is substantial.
Templates and approval
Any message you send outside an open 24-hour window must use a pre-approved template. Approval usually takes minutes to hours, and rejections are typically about promotional content in a template submitted as utility.
Write templates with variables for anything that changes, and keep the promotional language out of anything you want approved as utility.
The rules that get numbers banned
Meta tracks a quality rating per number. It drops with blocks and reports, and a sustained low rating reduces your messaging limits and eventually blocks the number. Since you'll have built an audience on it by then, this is worth taking seriously from day one.
- Sending marketing messages without prior opt-in
- Ignoring opt-out requests
- High block or report rates from recipients
- Using unofficial APIs or automation libraries — this is an immediate and permanent ban risk
- Buying contact lists and messaging them