Your customers are already on WhatsApp, and they would rather get the order confirmation, the appointment reminder or the delivery update there than in an email they will not open. You might also want a booking form that lives inside the chat, or a QR code on the shop window that opens a conversation with you. WhatsApp can do all of that through an API, a way for one piece of software to ask another to do work, so your order system, your booking tool or an AI assistant can send the message for you.
What WhatsApp does
WhatsApp, owned by Meta Platforms, is the free, end-to-end encrypted messaging and calling app that Meta says is used by more than two billion people. For businesses it offers the WhatsApp Business Platform. The centre of it is the Cloud API, hosted on Meta’s Graph API, for sending and receiving messages, media, interactive messages and template messages, alongside the Business Management API, WhatsApp Flows, webhooks and per-conversation pricing. One thing to know before you read older guides: the self-hosted On-Premises API was sunset on October 23, 2025, so everything now runs through Meta’s hosted service.
On APIs.io we list the platform in pieces: the Messages API for sending every kind of message, the Message Templates API for the pre-approved messages a business is allowed to start a conversation with, the Flows API for structured forms and multi-step experiences inside a chat, the Media API for images and documents, the Phone Numbers API and Business Profile API for who you appear as, and the Analytics API for conversation and template statistics. The retired On-Premises API is listed so you can recognise it when you meet it.
What you can get done
We map WhatsApp’s operations to one business capability, and the rest of what the platform does shows up in the workflows below.
SMS & Messaging Apps
Sending a message from your software to a customer’s phone. A template message is one Meta has approved in advance, which is what lets a business open a conversation rather than only reply to one. An interactive message carries buttons or a list the customer can tap. Both go through the same call.
POST /{phone-number-id}/messagessends a message from one of your business phone numbers: plain text, an image or document, a location pin, reply buttons, a template, or a flow.POST /{Version}/{Phone-Number-ID}/messagesis the same send, with the Graph API version named in the path.
Workflows that put it together
A workflow is a recipe: several API calls made in a set order, each using what the last one returned. They are written in Arazzo, an open format for describing them, and WhatsApp has 14 of them on APIs.io. They cover most of what a business would set up in its first month.
- Verify and Register Phone Number requests a verification code, verifies it, then registers the number. This comes first.
- Create Template then Send creates a message template and sends it once it is available.
- Find Approved Template and Send looks up a template by name and sends it to a recipient, the everyday order confirmation.
- Build, Publish, and Send a Flow creates a flow, uploads its definition, publishes it, and sends it as an interactive message, which is how a booking or lead form ends up inside the chat.
- Check Number then Send Interactive Buttons confirms the sending number is verified, then sends a message with reply buttons.
- Confirm Profile then Send Location reads the business profile to confirm the sender, then sends a location pin.
- Create and Retrieve QR Code creates a click-to-chat QR code and reads back its link and image, ready for the shop window.
- Send Message then React to It sends a text and then applies an emoji reaction to it.
Getting started
Access runs through Meta’s business tooling rather than a plain signup, and the get started guide walks through creating the business account and the first phone number. The about the platform page is the overview, the Flows documentation covers the in-chat forms, and the On-Premises sunset notice explains the migration if you inherited an older setup. WhatsApp charges per conversation, and we summarise what we found in the Pricing section of the APIs.io profile. The one figure on our sheet, as of late October 2026, is for Meta Business Agent messages: one global rate of $2.00 USD per 1 million tokens; the conversation rates themselves are on Meta’s pricing page. On APIs.io you can browse the WhatsApp profile, the Messages API, the Message Templates API and the Flows API. Register a number, get one template approved, and send your next order confirmation where your customer will actually read it.
