WhatsApp Flows explained: forms inside the chat, how they are sent, cost and seven examples

Meenal Joshi runs the front desk of a skin clinic in Kolhapur. Booking a visit on WhatsApp takes her six messages: which doctor, which day, morning or evening, name, age, new or follow-up. Half the patients answer two questions and go quiet until the next day.

WhatsApp Flows exist for that problem. A Flow is a form that opens inside the chat, so the patient answers everything on one or two screens and taps Confirm. Three things to know before the detail. Flows belong to the WhatsApp Business Platform and are sent through the Cloud API. Meta’s getting-started page says that to send them you must verify your business and “maintain a high message quality”. And Flows are built for phones: the guides page lists Android 6.0 and newer and iOS 12 and newer.

What is a WhatsApp Flow?

It is a small set of screens that slides up over the chat when the customer taps a button. Meta’s words: “a way to build structured interactions for business messaging”. Its guides page defines the parts. A Flow is one use case, such as “Book an appointment”. It is made of screens, each screen is made of components, and an optional endpoint connects it to your server.

The components are what you’d expect in a form: text inputs and text areas, dropdowns, radio buttons, checkboxes, a date picker, a calendar picker, an opt-in tick box, images, links, and photo or document upload. When the customer submits, your system receives the answers together and the chat shows them a summary of what they sent.

Flow has a second, looser meaning in this trade: any scripted bot conversation. This page is about Meta’s feature with the capital F. The glossary keeps the two apart.

How is a Flow sent?

In one of two ways, depending on who spoke last.

	On a template	As an interactive message
When you can send it	Any time, to people who opted in	Only inside an open 24-hour window
What carries the Flow	A button of type FLOW on the template	A message with one call-to-action button
Button text	25 characters at most	Meta advises 30 characters or fewer, no emoji
Approval	The template is reviewed first	None for the message. The Flow must be published

A Flow starts life as a draft, which can only be sent for testing and shows a banner saying so. Publishing makes it sendable to customers. A published Flow can’t be deleted, only edited or retired.

What are the three ways to build one?

Meta lists a builder, a JSON format and an endpoint. Most small businesses need only the first.

Flow Builder in WhatsApp Manager. It is Meta’s own editor. The Flows changelog describes ready templates in it (one is called “Book an Appointment”), a phone preview you can share, usage statistics for published Flows, and a way to send a Flow straight from WhatsApp Manager on Cloud API numbers.

Flow JSON. This is the text format behind every Flow, used when a developer or a provider’s software creates Flows through the API. Meta caps it at 10 MB.

An endpoint for dynamic data. A static Flow shows the same screens to everyone. With an endpoint, each screen can ask your server what to show next: the slots still open on Friday, the EMI for the amount just chosen. The server must use HTTPS, encrypt every exchange with a key pair you upload to Meta, pass regular health checks, and reply fast. Requests time out after 10 seconds, and Meta suggests aiming for under one.

Meta’s own best-practice page argues for skipping the endpoint wherever you can. It says Flows without one “often offer better experience for consumers” and are quicker to build, and that an endpoint is for cases where live data is needed while the form is being filled, such as ticket booking.

Limits, review and health rules

There are hard limits, a review on the template route, and a health system for Flows with endpoints.

• A screen holds at most 50 components, and a Flow with an endpoint can have up to 10 branches in its routing.
• A screen can have one photo or document picker.
• Meta’s guidance: a task should take no longer than 5 minutes, with no more than 10 options on a screen.
• WhatsApp keeps the last 5 versions of an edited Flow. Messages already sent keep the old version.

The health rules apply only to Flows that use an endpoint. WhatsApp watches the endpoint’s error rate, speed and availability, and warns you by webhook before acting. If things get worse the Flow becomes Throttled, which Meta defines as 10 new Flow messages an hour. Worse still and it is Blocked: you can’t send it and customers can’t open copies they already have. It recovers by itself once the endpoint does.

One availability note is unsettled. The guides page, updated 2 July 2026, says Flows are “not supported on companion devices (for example, WhatsApp Web)”. The Flows changelog said support on WhatsApp Web would begin in early December 2025. Until the two pages agree, assume a customer at a laptop may not be able to open your form.

Which message rate applies to a Flow?

The rate of the message that carries it. Meta’s Flows pages don’t mention price at all, so the general pricing page decides, and on that page a message is either a template or a non-template message.

To Indian numbers, on the rupee rate card effective 1 October 2026 and read on 13 October, before GST:

How the Flow is sent	What Meta charges for each delivered message
On a marketing template	₹0.8631
On a utility template	₹0.115
As an interactive message in the window	A service message: the first 1,000 a month per number are free, then ₹0.115

Meta doesn’t charge for messages customers send you, and the screens inside a Flow aren’t messages. That’s where the saving is. Take Meenal’s clinic at 1,500 bookings a month, as an illustration. Six bot messages a booking is 9,000 service messages, and (9,000 − 1,000) × ₹0.115 = ₹920. A Flow message plus one confirmation is 3,000, and (3,000 − 1,000) × ₹0.115 = ₹230. The ₹690 is the smaller gain. The larger one, if patients take to the form, is fewer half-finished bookings, and only your own numbers can show that.

Seven Flows an Indian business could build

Each outline gives how it’s sent, the screens, and whether it needs an endpoint. All of the businesses are invented.

1. Appointment booking, skin clinic

Sent as an interactive message when a patient writes “appointment”.

1. Book a visit: doctor (dropdown), new or follow-up (radio).
2. Pick a time: date picker, then morning, afternoon or evening.
3. Your details: name, age, anything the doctor should know (optional). Button: Confirm booking.

No endpoint if the desk confirms the exact time by message. Live slots need one.

2. Lead qualification, property broker

Sent on a marketing template to people who enquired through a portal and agreed to be contacted.

1. What are you looking for: buy or rent, 1, 2 or 3 BHK, locality (dropdown).
2. Budget and timing: budget band (radio), when you want to move.
3. Visit: preferred day, opt-in tick box for updates. Button: Request a call.

No endpoint.

3. Test-drive request, car dealer

Sent as an interactive message after a model enquiry.

1. Choose the car: model, fuel type, transmission.
2. Where and when: showroom or home visit, date, time band.
3. About you: name, driving licence held (yes or no), exchange car (optional).

No endpoint. The sales desk confirms by message.

4. Loan pre-qualification, lending agent

This one needs care. Meta’s overview says you must follow local regulations on user data and its Business Messaging Policy.

1. Loan need: amount band, purpose, tenure.
2. Work and income: salaried or self-employed, monthly income band, city.
3. Consent: an opt-in tick box with a “Read more” link to your terms. Button: Check eligibility.

Ask for bands, not exact figures. Don’t collect PAN, Aadhaar, bank account numbers or OTPs in the form; take those in your regular KYC process. Flow JSON has a sensitive setting that keeps chosen fields out of the summary shown back in the chat. Use it for income.

5. Feedback after a job, AC service firm

Sent on a utility template the evening after the visit. Whether the wording passes as utility is Meta’s call.

1. How did it go: rating from 1 to 5 (radio), what went well (checkboxes).
2. Anything to fix: text area, photo upload (optional).

No endpoint. Low ratings should open a chat with a person.

6. Address capture, saree seller

Sent as an interactive message once the customer has chosen a saree in chat.

1. Delivery address: name, house and street, landmark, city, PIN code (number field).
2. Confirm: alternate phone (optional), prepaid or cash on delivery.

No endpoint. Keep the landmark field: plenty of Indian addresses can’t be found without one.

7. Demo class registration, coaching centre

Sent on a marketing template to enquiries from the last admission season.

1. Student: name, class, board.
2. Demo: subject (checkboxes), batch timing, centre.
3. Parent: name, opt-in tick box. Button: Book demo.

No endpoint unless seats are limited and you want to show what’s left.

If you’d rather run these as ordinary button chats, our WhatsApp bot examples has twelve written out message by message.

Flows, buttons and lists, or a website form?

Use buttons for a choice, a Flow for a form, and a web page when the customer isn’t on their phone or the form is long.

	Reply buttons	List message	Flow	Website form
Choices	Up to 3, labels of 20 characters	Up to 10 rows, titles of 24 characters	Up to 50 components a screen	Whatever you build
Typed answers, dates, uploads	No	No	Yes	Yes
Customer stays in WhatsApp	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Meta’s rules	Sent inside the 24-hour window	Sent inside the 24-hour window	Verified business, published Flow, template review if sent on a template	None
Messages for a five-field booking	Five or more	Five or more	One, plus a confirmation	One link

Buttons and lists win when there are one or two questions, or when the next question depends on a conversation. They also need nothing built in WhatsApp Manager. The chatbot guide covers them, and WhatsApp automation for business shows where they sit in a wider workflow.

A website form wins when people arrive from search on a laptop, when the form has twenty fields, or when you want it indexed and measured like any page. The cost is that the customer leaves the chat and you have to match the submission back to them. If your site is where most enquiries start, read how to add WhatsApp to a website first.

A Flow wins in between: four to ten fields, a customer already in the chat, and answers you want in a fixed shape.

Before you build one

Count first. Open last week’s chats for the job you have in mind and note how many questions your team asks before the work can start, and how many customers stop replying partway. Four or more questions and a visible drop-off make a case for a Flow. Two questions don’t.

Then write the screens on paper, one task to a screen, and cut every field you wouldn’t ask across a counter. Build it in Flow Builder without an endpoint, send the draft to your own phone, and time yourself. If it takes you more than a minute, cut a screen.