How to choose a WhatsApp Business API provider in India: 12 questions to ask (us included)

Harleen Sethi runs a D2C home-textiles brand from Ludhiana with a team of seven. She shortlisted four WhatsApp providers in an afternoon. By evening she had four pricing pages, four different “per message” prices for the same marketing message, and no way to tell which part went to Meta, which part was the provider’s, and which part was tax.

Every provider selling access to the WhatsApp Business Platform in India is charged by Meta from the same rate card. What differs is everything around it: how they charge, who owns what, what happens when you leave, and who picks up the phone. These twelve questions are the ones we’d send, by email, to every provider on a shortlist. Send them to us too.

Money

1. What is Meta’s charge, and what is yours?

Meta charges per delivered template message, by category and by the recipient’s country. For Indian numbers on the card effective 1 October 2026, that’s ₹0.8631 per marketing message and ₹0.115 per utility or authentication message, before GST. Since 1 October, service replies also cost ₹0.115 each once a business number passes 1,000 in a month.

Some providers pass Meta’s charge through at cost and earn from the subscription. Others add a margin per message. Both are legitimate. What isn’t fine is not being able to tell which one you’re getting. Ask for the invoice to show Meta’s charge and the provider’s charge on separate lines.

The difference adds up. An illustrative brand sending 20,000 marketing messages a month pays about ₹17,262 to Meta at list price. A provider margin of 10 paise per message adds ₹2,000 a month, or ₹24,000 a year, before tax. Our cost guide has worked monthly bills if you want to run your own numbers.

2. Who pays Meta: me, or you?

There are two set-ups. Either your business adds its own payment method to its Meta account and Meta bills you directly, or the provider pays Meta on its own credit line and re-bills you.

Paying Meta directly is more admin, and it’s clearer. It also matters for two India-specific rules. Indian businesses billed by Meta must move every messaging account to INR by 31 December 2026, and from 1 January 2027 non-INR accounts stop delivering (more on that deadline). And Meta’s prepaid UPI top-up option isn’t available to accounts on a partner’s credit line. Ask which set-up the provider uses, and if it’s theirs, whether your account is already in INR.

3. What does it cost for my team, not the headline plan?

Plan prices hide in the limits. Write down your real numbers (people who’ll reply, WhatsApp numbers, contacts, messages a month, whether you want AI) and ask each provider for a monthly total at that size. Then ask what one more person costs. A plan that looks cheap for three seats can be the most expensive at ten.

Also ask what the provider’s own message allowance means. A plan “including 10,000 messages” might cover the provider’s fee for sending them while Meta’s charge is billed on top. Ask which.

4. How are AI replies charged?

Two separate things get called “AI” on WhatsApp. Meta’s own Business Agent is billed by Meta at $2 per million tokens since 1 August 2026, and Meta says a typical message uses 20,000 to 25,000 tokens, roughly 4 to 5 US cents. A provider’s AI agent is usually charged in the provider’s own credits.

For a provider’s credits, ask how many a typical customer reply uses, what happens when they run out (does the agent stop, or do you pay overage?), and whether testing an agent uses credits too. And remember that an AI reply sent on WhatsApp is still a service message, so Meta’s per-message charge applies on top of any AI cost once you pass the free 1,000.

Ownership, and leaving

5. Whose business portfolio will my number sit in?

This is the question that matters most in five years’ time, when you want to change providers.

When a provider onboards you through Meta’s Embedded Signup, your business creates or selects its own business portfolio, WhatsApp account and phone number. Meta says businesses onboarded this way own all their WhatsApp assets and get full access to WhatsApp Manager. Under the account model Meta began rolling out in September 2026, the WhatsApp account that holds your number and profile is always owned by the business.

Ask anyway, and check for yourself: log in to your own Meta business portfolio and confirm the number is there. If it isn’t, find out why before you sign anything else. (If “business portfolio” and “WhatsApp account” are new terms, our glossary explains them.)

6. If I leave, what comes with me?

The new account model helps here. Meta says businesses “can add or change partners without migrating their phone number”, and one number can be shared with several providers at once, each with its own messaging account.

The catch is in that messaging account: it holds your templates and billing, and it can be owned by you or by the provider. If the provider owns it, your approved templates may stay behind. Ask who owns the messaging account, and whether you’d need to resubmit templates if you moved.

7. Can I export my data, and in what shape?

Your contacts, tags, notes, conversation history and opt-in records are yours. Ask what can be exported, in what format (CSV is the minimum), whether conversation history is included, and whether exports stay available for a period after you cancel. Get the answer in writing.

One newer wrinkle: as WhatsApp usernames roll out, some contacts will reach you with a business-scoped user ID instead of a visible phone number. Ask how the provider stores those, and whether they come out in an export.

8. What’s the minimum commitment?

Monthly, quarterly or yearly, and what’s refundable. A yearly discount is worth taking once you’ve used a provider for a quarter. It isn’t worth taking before your team has sent a single campaign on it.

Day to day

9. What does the free trial actually include?

A trial that switches off the features you’re buying for isn’t a trial of those features. Ask which features are limited during the trial, and how many messages, seats and numbers you get. If AI or campaigns are why you’re switching, make sure you can test them before paying.

10. Who helps when a template is rejected or recategorised?

Meta reviews every template (it says review takes up to 24 hours) and decides its category. It can approve a template you submitted as utility as marketing, which multiplies its cost by about 7.5. Ask whether the provider reviews templates before submission, explains rejections, and helps with appeals, or just shows you Meta’s status. Our guide to how Meta decides a message’s category covers the rules themselves.

11. Do you support WhatsApp calling and coexistence?

Two newer Platform features are easy to promise and harder to run well.

Calling: customers can call your business on WhatsApp, and user-initiated calls are free; business-initiated calls are billed by Meta. Ask whether calls are answered in the provider’s app or need separate software, what Meta’s prerequisites are for your number, and who pays for outbound calls.

Coexistence: Meta lets you keep using the WhatsApp Business app on the same number while connecting it to the Platform, and can bring over six months of chats. It changes things (broadcast lists become read-only in the app, and throughput is fixed at 20 messages a second). Ask whether the provider supports it and what they sync.

12. Who answers when something breaks?

The test isn’t a demo. It’s the Saturday your number gets restricted, or the Tuesday half a campaign fails with error 131049. Ask for, in writing: support hours, channels (a named person, a ticket, a WhatsApp number), languages, typical first-response time, and how you’ll hear about an outage. Ask for two customer references your size and call them.

Put it in a table

When the replies come in, lay them side by side. One row per question, one column per provider, and a last row for the monthly total at your real size. Anyone who didn’t answer a question in writing gets a blank, and a blank is an answer.

Send the twelve questions today, and give providers a week. How quickly and how clearly they reply is the first thing you’ll learn about their support.