WhatsApp marketing

Free options first

• Broadcast lists in the Business app: one message, delivered as individual chats, only to contacts who added your number to their address book.
• Status updates: the stories of WhatsApp. Customers who saved your number see offers without being messaged at all.
• Channels: a one-way feed people choose to follow; good for news, weak for sales.
• Catalog and a click-to-chat link on your site, bio and packaging, so customers start the conversation. Make a link.

Most of this works from the phone and from WhatsApp Web; broadcast lists can only be created and viewed on the phone. It stops scaling at a few hundred contacts, by design. One step up, still inside the app: paid business broadcasts, which reach customers who have not saved your number and are charged per delivered message by the recipient's country.

The rules for marketing at scale

• Opt-in. The person must have opted in to messages from your business, and the opt-in must name your business. Since late 2024 it does not have to mention WhatsApp specifically, as long as you follow local law.
• Customers can switch you off. Under "Offers and announcements" a customer can stop marketing messages from your business without blocking you.
• Approved templates. Every message you send first is a template Meta reviewed and classed as marketing.
• Messaging limits. A new business can start conversations with 250 different people per 24 hours. The next levels are 2,000, 10,000, 100,000 and unlimited, shared by all numbers of the business. Verifying the business lifts you to 2,000; after that the limit rises by itself when quality is high and you use at least half of it.
• Quality rating. Templates are rated from customer feedback and read rates. Low-rated templates are slowed, paused and finally disabled, and repeated policy violations lead to blocks of days or weeks.
• Per-user limits. WhatsApp may limit how many marketing templates one person receives from businesses overall, depending on how much they read. A message that hits the limit is not delivered and not charged; wait a day before retrying. The limit is not applied to users in the EEA, the UK, Japan or South Korea.
• United States. WhatsApp currently does not deliver marketing templates to United States numbers (+1 with a US area code). Utility and authentication templates and replies to US customers still work, and Canadian numbers are not affected.

What it costs

Meta charges per delivered marketing template, by the recipient's country; see the rate examples. Add your platform's subscription and, with some vendors, a markup per message. WhatsApp is therefore far more expensive per send than email, and it is only worth it because far more of the messages are opened. It suits messages with a clear value per recipient: a restock the customer asked for, an expiring offer to past buyers, a renewal reminder. It does not suit a weekly newsletter to everyone.

What works

• Segment hard. Send to people for whom the message is relevant today. Blocks and reports lower your quality rating and then your limits.
• Make replying the goal. A reply opens a 24-hour window in which your team or bot can write freely. From 1 October 2026 the first 1,000 such replies a month per number are free and the rest cost the utility rate, a fraction of the marketing rate.
• Use buttons: quick replies and links lift response, and an "unsubscribe" button beats a block.
• Click-to-WhatsApp ads turn ad spend into conversations. When the customer comes in from the phone app and you answer within 24 hours, a 72-hour window of free messaging opens.
• Pair with utility messages. Customers who get useful order updates on WhatsApp accept an occasional offer there.

Collecting opt-ins

• A checkbox at checkout or on forms: "Send me order updates and offers on WhatsApp."
• A click-to-chat link or QR code with a pre-filled "Subscribe" message, in store and on packaging.
• A keyword in an existing chat: "Reply YES to get our monthly offers here."

Store when and how each person opted in. You will need it if WhatsApp or a regulator asks.

Tools for WhatsApp campaigns