WhatsApp Business for tradespeople: app or API?

The WhatsApp Business app

The app is free and runs on your own phone. You create a business profile with your opening hours, service area and a short description, and you can show a catalogue of your services or products. On top of that you get a few handy tools:

• Quick replies. Standard texts you insert with a couple of taps, such as your opening hours or how booking an appointment works. You still pick and send them yourself.
• Greeting message. A fixed message for someone who messages you for the first time.
• Away message. A fixed message outside your opening hours or while you're on holiday.
• Labels. To organise conversations, for example "new request" or "awaiting payment".

For a self-employed tradesperson who answers messages personally, that's often fine. The limits show when things get busier. A greeting or away message is always the same text: the app doesn't read the question, doesn't ask for an address or a photo, and doesn't put anything in your calendar. And working with colleagues on one number is only possible through linked devices, without a clear overview of who answered what.

The WhatsApp Business Platform (the API)

Meta's official name for the business connection is the WhatsApp Business Platform; most people simply call it the API. It is designed to connect WhatsApp to other systems, such as a dashboard or a digital assistant. Messages can then be answered automatically, appointments can go straight into a schedule, and several people can follow the conversations in one overview. You usually connect to the platform through a provider, on your business's own WhatsApp Business account.

What does the API cost? How Meta charges

Since 1 July 2025, Meta charges per delivered template message rather than per conversation. Two ideas matter here:

• The 24-hour customer service window. As soon as a customer sends you a message, a window opens that runs until 24 hours after their last message. Within that window you can reply freely, and those ordinary replies are free.
• Templates. If you want to message someone outside that window, for example a reminder about tomorrow's appointment, you have to use a template: a fixed text approved by Meta in advance. Only delivered templates can cost money.

Templates come in three categories, each with its own price per country: marketing (offers, news), utility (an appointment confirmation, a reminder, a message that the job is done) and authentication (login codes). A utility message sent within an open window is free. At higher volumes Meta offers a lower rate for utility and authentication messages. The current amounts per country are on Meta's pricing page; they change from time to time, so check there for the exact price.

Can I use both?

Often, yes. Meta calls this coexistence: you keep the WhatsApp Business app on your phone while the same number is also connected to the platform. Messages are mirrored between the two, and when you connect, roughly the last six months of chat history can come along. Messages you send yourself from the app stay free. According to Meta's documentation there are some limitations:

• Group chats are not synchronised.
• Existing broadcast lists become read-only.
• Disappearing messages, view once and live location no longer work in conversations with customers.
• If your phone is inactive for about 14 days, the connection can be broken, so open the app regularly.
• You need a recent version of the WhatsApp Business app.

That's why we look at each situation individually: sometimes coexistence is handy, sometimes a separate number for the platform works more smoothly.

Which should you choose? A quick check

• Choose the app if you work alone, answer messages yourself and the number of messages per day is easy to keep up with.
• Choose the platform if you want messages answered while you're on a job and in the evening, if you work with several people, or if you want requests and appointments to appear in your schedule straight away.

What Corvo Apex does

With our Reachable+ package with the WhatsApp assistant we connect your own WhatsApp Business account, so messages come from your business. You always pay the messaging fees directly to Meta yourself, with a payment method of your own business; we don't add anything on top. If you mainly reply to customers who message you first, those costs usually stay limited.