The WhatsApp Business API, on one page.
What it is and how it differs from the free WhatsApp Business app. What Meta charges per message, market by market. And the fix for every error and account state we have seen stop a number sending.
What the WhatsApp Business API is
The WhatsApp Business API is the programmatic way for a business to send and receive WhatsApp messages. It has no app and no interface of its own. It is an endpoint that software connects to, whether that is a system you already run or a platform you buy, and what the customer sees at the other end is an ordinary WhatsApp conversation with your business number.
Almost every question about it starts from one confusion, which is worth clearing first: the WhatsApp Business app and the WhatsApp Business API are two different products, and a number can stay on the WhatsApp Business app and run on the API at the same time, within Meta's coexistence limits. Three things separate them.
The app runs on a phone. The API runs on a server. The WhatsApp Business app is installed, opened and typed into, with a limit of one phone plus four linked devices. The API has no interface at all, so a whole team works the same number from whatever software you point at it.
The app can only say what somebody wrote down first. A greeting, an away message and a list of quick replies is the whole of its automation. The API can be wired to the systems that hold the real answer, which is what makes a reply able to quote a live price, a free slot or an order status.
The app is free to send with. The API is billed per message. Meta charges nothing for API access itself and everything for the traffic across it, priced by the market your customer is in. That is the trade: the app costs nothing and cannot be automated properly, the API can be and is metered.
Using it therefore costs two things. The first is Meta's per-message rate, which Meta publishes on a card for each billing currency. On the US dollar card effective 1 July 2026, a marketing template to a Singapore number costs US$0.0732 and a utility message US$0.0160. The second is the software that sends them, and Meta bills your own WhatsApp Business account for the messages whichever software you use. Everything below is what we have written about living with that trade: how to get on the API, what it costs, what to do when it breaks, and what to do when Meta stops your number entirely.
Before anything else
The questions people actually ask
Is the WhatsApp Business API free?
Access to the WhatsApp Business API is free: Meta charges nothing for the API itself, and there is no licence fee to connect a number to it. What costs money is the messages. Meta bills per message by the market your customer is in and by what the message is for, and any platform you use to reach the API bills you separately for its own software. So the honest answer is that the API is free and using it is not, which is the opposite way round from the free WhatsApp Business app, where the software is the product and the messages are free.
How much does the WhatsApp Business API cost?
There is no single price, because Meta charges per message by the market the customer is in, and the spread is very wide. On Meta's card effective 1 July 2026, a marketing template costs US$0.0118 in India and US$0.1365 in Germany, roughly a twelvefold difference for the same message. Utility messages, the kind that confirm a booking or an order, run far cheaper: US$0.0014 in India against US$0.0550 in Germany. From 1 October 2026 Meta also starts charging for service messages, the replies you send while a customer's 24 hour window is open, at the utility rate, with 1,000 free per business phone number per calendar month. On top of Meta's per-message cost sits whatever your platform charges. Price your own markets off the current card rather than a figure quoted somewhere, because the rates move roughly every quarter.
Meta's current rates, market by marketHow do I get the WhatsApp Business API?
You do not download the WhatsApp Business API or generate a key for it the way you would for most APIs. You apply for access to a business phone number through Meta, either directly as a developer or, far more commonly, through a Business Solution Provider that runs the connection for you. The sequence is the same either way: a verified Meta business portfolio, a WhatsApp Business Account, a phone number that is not on personal WhatsApp or on another provider's platform (a number on the WhatsApp Business app can keep the app), a display name Meta approves, and a payment method on the account. Approval usually takes days rather than weeks, and the step that most often stalls is business verification, because it needs documents matching the legal entity exactly.
The full setup guideWhat is the difference between the WhatsApp Business app and the WhatsApp Business API?
The WhatsApp Business app is a free app you install on a phone and use like WhatsApp, with a catalogue, labels, a greeting message and an away message. The WhatsApp Business API has no app and no interface at all: it is an endpoint that your own systems or a platform you buy connect to, so that software can send and receive on your business number. Three practical consequences follow. The app runs on one phone and up to four linked devices, while the API has no device limit and lets a whole team work the same number. The app cannot read your calendar, your stock or your CRM, so it can only reply with text somebody wrote in advance, while the API can be wired to any system that holds the answer. And the app is free to send with, while the API is billed per message. A number can stay on the app and run on the API at the same time, within Meta's coexistence limits.
Can I send bulk messages with the WhatsApp Business API?
You can send to many people through the WhatsApp Business API, within limits Meta sets. Any message you start outside a customer's 24 hour reply window has to use a template Meta approved in advance, the recipient has to have opted in, and Meta caps how many unique customers you can message outside the service window in a rolling 24 hours. A new business starts at 250, reaches 2,000 by completing one of Meta's scaling paths, and from there Meta raises the cap automatically to 10,000, 100,000 and then unlimited. Send to a list that did not opt in and the number's quality rating drops, and the number can be restricted. So what decides whether a send lands is whether the list consented and the number is in good standing. In Volty, a send to many people is a broadcast: one approved template sent once to one audience, picked as chosen contacts, segments, everyone, or a spreadsheet. A broadcast requested in chat waits for a person's approval. After it sends, a follow-up broadcast can go to the contacts who replied, read without replying, never read it, or failed to receive it. When a customer's 24 hour window has closed, Volty follows up one to one with an approved template.
How messaging limits and tiers workPut the API to work
Three pages, one for each job. Volty does all three from US$157 a month with unlimited seats. Start with the page that matches what you need.
The documentation
Set it up and run it
The rules you have to work inside once a number is live: what you may send, when, to how many people, and in what words. Volty handles Meta's template approvals and the 24 hour window for you on every plan, from US$157 a month.
- What the WhatsApp Business API isThe long version of this page's first section, including the full approval sequence.
- The 24 hour ruleWhy a customer's reply opens a window, and what you are allowed to send once it shuts.
- Messaging limits and tiersThe 250, 2,000, 10,000 and 100,000 caps, and what moves a number between them.
- Writing a template Meta approvesWhat gets a template through first time, and the phrasings that get it rejected.
- Running the app and the API togetherWhat coexistence mode actually supports on one number, and what it quietly does not.
- Known issuesPlatform behaviours that look like a bug in your setup and are not.
- All the guides, by taskThe full documentation set: messaging, templates and rules, troubleshooting.
What it costs
Meta prices per message by the market your customer is in, and publishes a card for each billing currency. Meta can change rates on the first day of each quarter, and service messages become billable on 1 October 2026. For a customer in Singapore, the US dollar card effective 1 July 2026 charges US$0.0732 for a marketing template and US$0.0160 for utility. Meta bills your own WhatsApp Business account directly for the messages, whichever software sends them. Volty is a separate US$157 a month for the software, with unlimited seats and unlimited contacts.
- What Meta charges, market by marketThe card effective 1 July 2026, checked field by field against Meta's own rate CSV, with the calculator on the same page.
- What changes on 1 October 2026Service messages become chargeable, with 1,000 free per business number per month.
- WhatsApp replies stop being free on 1 OctoberThe same change, written for somebody deciding what to do about it before the date.
Singapore
The WhatsApp Business API in Singapore
The WhatsApp Business API works the same way in Singapore as it does anywhere else. What is local is the money and the paperwork.
Meta bills a Singapore business in Singapore dollars. Singapore dollars became a WhatsApp billing currency on 1 April 2026, and Meta publishes a rate card for each billing currency. On the card effective 1 July 2026, a marketing template costs S$0.0937 a message and a utility or authentication message S$0.0205. A conversion from the US dollar card gives a different number, so the Singapore dollar card is the one that applies.
Service messages become chargeable on 1 October 2026. Every business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month, and Meta charges once that free tier is used. Meta counts a one-to-one reply as one and a group send as one per recipient delivered. The Singapore rate on the card effective 1 October 2026 is S$0.0205 a message. Marketing, utility and authentication rates do not change.
A number must clear Meta before it can send. A number needs a website carrying your business name, a matching business email, a phone number of its own, and a verified Meta Business Portfolio. A number on the WhatsApp Business app can keep the app and run on the API at the same time, within the limits in our coexistence guide. A number on personal WhatsApp must be deleted from it first.
A provider in Singapore does four jobs for you: registering the number, verifying the business, submitting templates, and handling the 24 hour window. Voltade registers the number and gets the business verified. The WhatsApp Business account, the number and the templates stay in your name.
When it breaks
Errors, in the words Meta uses for them
Meta's error messages rarely say what is actually wrong. Each of these takes one of them and works back to the cause.
- Error #200: no permission to send messagesThe token or the number is missing the permission the send needs.
- Phone number not eligibleThe number will not connect to the Business Platform, usually because it is still on the app.
- Error 131060: companion deviceMessages send, and the companion device cannot see any of them.
- The end-to-end encrypted warningThe chat says it is now end-to-end encrypted, which means the number has dropped off the API.
- Error 131042: payment issueA billing problem on the Meta account blocks sending, typically for 72 hours.
- Cannot access the app until you log in to FacebookA verification prompt on the Meta account that stops the connection until it is cleared.
- Error 131026: message undeliverableThe send was accepted and then failed, which usually says something about the recipient.
- Meta error 459: account checkpointThe checkpoint that stops everything on the account until somebody clears it.
- DiagnosticDescribe what the number is doing and get sent to the guide that matches.
- Help centreThe same problems written up for people already running a number inside Volty.
If Meta has stopped your number
Restricted, blocked and banned are three different states with three different routes back, and the first thing worth doing is working out which one you are in. These are free to read and you do not need to be a customer.
- How to unban a WhatsApp accountThe appeal that works and the ones that do not. The most read page on this site.
- Blocked, not banned: restoring accessWhat separates the two states, and what actually brings a blocked number back.
- This account can no longer use WhatsAppThe message that means a ban rather than a restriction, and the appeal route from it.
- Restricted by quality ratingA red or amber rating caps your sending before it bans anything. How the cap lifts.
The vocabulary
Words you will meet in the first week
Meta's documentation and every provider's onboarding assume all of these. One paragraph each, no product pitch.
- WhatsApp Business APIThe endpoint itself, in one paragraph.
- WhatsApp Business Account (WABA)The Meta object your phone numbers and templates hang off.
- Business Solution Provider (BSP)The licensed middleman most businesses reach the API through.
- Official Business AccountThe green tick, what it takes, and what it does not get you.
- Session windowThe 24 hours a customer's reply buys you.
- Template messageThe pre-approved format required to start a conversation.
- Template categoriesMarketing, utility and authentication, and why the label sets the price.
- Conversation-based pricingThe model Meta billed on before the move to per-message rates.
- Messaging limitsHow many unique customers a number may message in a rolling day.
- Quality ratingThe score Meta gives a number, and what it costs when it drops.
- Opt-inWhat counts as consent to be messaged, and what does not.
- Display name approvalThe review that decides what your customers see above the conversation.
- Broadcast messagingSending to many numbers at once, and the rules that govern it.
- WebhookHow an incoming message reaches your software at all.
- Click-to-WhatsApp adsAds that open a conversation instead of a landing page.
Longer reads
- WhatsApp 24-Hour Rule: What It Means and How to Work Around ItThe rule that decides when you may message first, and the legitimate ways around it.
- WhatsApp Business API Errors: Complete Fix GuideThe errors that come up most, with the fix for each one in order of likelihood.
- WhatsApp Template Rejected? Here's How to Fix ItWhy Meta turns templates down, and how to rewrite one that has been rejected.
- WhatsApp pricing for Singapore businesses: what 1 October costs youEvery figure in Singapore dollars beside the US dollar rate Meta actually bills.
- WhatsApp API Messaging Limits Explained (2026)The tiers in practice, including what it takes to move up one and how fast.
- WhatsApp Message Templates: Design Guide with ExamplesTemplates that read like a person wrote them and still pass review.
- WhatsApp CRM Comparison: SleekFlow vs WATI vs VoltadeWhat the three actually differ on once you get past the feature grid.
- How RAG Makes WhatsApp Chatbots Actually UsefulWhy retrieval is what stops a chatbot answering confidently and wrongly.
- How to Convert WhatsApp Leads into SalesWhat happens between the first message and the sale, and where it usually stalls.
- Everything else we have writtenThe full blog, including the posts that are not about WhatsApp.
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