Short answer: Wati and 360dialog are two ways to buy WhatsApp's Business Platform — Wati sells the shared team inbox on published per-user tiers, 360dialog sells the raw API pipe on published per-number-per-month subscription chapters. Devotel Orbit is the comparison that carries WhatsApp beside SMS, RCS, email, voice, video, a human+AI contact center, AI voice agents, and a native customer data platform on one pay-as-you-go account with published per-message pricing. If the program is deliberately WhatsApp-only, a BSP plan is an honest fit; if a second channel ever enters the roadmap, that is the lane Orbit is built on.
The longer version names both vendors straight, scores each against Orbit on the criteria a shortlist actually compares, and keeps the carve-out visible. Figures below are paraphrased scope, not numbers — every numeric claim is a "published pricing exists, check the vendor page" claim, not a copied figure (retrieved September 2026).
1. The two vendors, read from their own pricing pages
- Wati — the shared-inbox-first BSP. A team inbox, no-code chatbot builder, and broadcast tooling on Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform, priced in published tiers (Growth, Pro, Business) with included seats plus add-on users per month. The pricing page also names WhatsApp Business Calling, an SMS-fallback beta, and an AI agent add-on (Astra) with bundled AI Co-pilot credits — so Wati's own surface shows the single-channel boundary breaking the moment a second channel enters the roadmap.
- 360dialog — the API-first BSP. Programmatic access to the WhatsApp Business API sold per number per month on published subscription tiers (Regular, Premium, Scale) with Meta's messaging charges passed through on top. Higher tiers bundle Inbox, Sendout, and Automation addons, and the pricing page publishes Zapier, Make, and n8n integrations. The inbox is a scoped addon; the product is the API pipe.
Read both straight: both are real WhatsApp access with published pricing. The boundary they share is that the product is one channel, and neither ships SMS, RCS, email, or voice as a first-class channel on the same consent record or a native AI-agent runtime.
2. The evaluation criteria: what a WhatsApp-vs-platform buyer should compare
Five axes decide this class of decision, and this post holds all three to the same ones:
- Inbox and channel surface. Whether the shared team inbox is the one WhatsApp number or the channels a team runs together; whether the WhatsApp channel itself ships as a first-class developer surface.
- Programmable access and automation. Whether the gates are pass-through templates and a no-code flow bot, or a first-class REST API with the console riding on the API.
- channels beyond WhatsApp. Whether SMS fallback, RCS, email, voice, or video are native channels on one account or a new vendor.
- Profile and contact state. Whether identity resolution, golden records, and audiences ship behind the channel or whether the conversation remains the record.
- Commercial model. Per-user subscription tiers, per-number subscription tiers, versus pay-as-you-go per message on one bill with published pricing and self-serve signup.
3. The evaluation matrix: honest cells, one per row
The cells mirror each vendor's published public scope (its pricing page and product pages, retrieved September 2026); "Yes" credits a published capability, "Partial" a published-but-caveated one, and "No" an honest gap either direction.
Wati, on the shared-inbox core:
| Criterion | Devotel Orbit | Wati |
|---|---|---|
| Shared team inbox (WhatsApp + Facebook + Instagram + widget) | Yes | Yes — parity |
| No-code WhatsApp flow / bot builder | Yes | Yes |
| AI chatbot / agent (Astra AI agents published) | Yes | Yes |
| Personal-seats pricing (per-user tiers published) | Pay-as-you-go per message | Yes — per-user tiers |
Wati, on the boundary the BSP hits:
| Criterion | Devotel Orbit | Wati |
|---|---|---|
| Programmable SMS & MMS API | Yes | No, SMS fallback is a beta on the WhatsApp product |
| OTT chat (Telegram, LINE, Viber) | Yes | Partial, some channels published beside WhatsApp |
| RCS Business Messaging | Yes | No |
| Native customer data platform (identity resolution, golden records) | Yes | No |
| Human + AI contact center (ACD, IVR, skills routing) | Yes | Partial, WhatsApp Business Calling is published, voice as a queue is not |
360dialog, on the API pipe:
| Criterion | Devotel Orbit | 360dialog |
|---|---|---|
| WhatsApp Business API access | Yes | Yes — parity |
| Published per-number pricing (subscription tiers) | Pay-as-you-go per message | Yes — per-number tiers |
| Self-serve signup on the entry tiers | Yes | Yes, sales gate only on Scale |
| Addon inbox / automation (bundled on higher tiers) | Yes, the inbox is the account | Partial, the inbox is a bundled addon scoped to WhatsApp |
| AI chatbot | Yes | Partial, addons route over Zapier/Make/n8n integrations |
360dialog, on the boundary the BSP hits:
| Criterion | Devotel Orbit | 360dialog |
|---|---|---|
| Programmable SMS & MMS API | Yes | No |
| RCS Business Messaging | Yes | No |
| Native customer data platform | Yes | No |
| Human + AI contact center (ACD, IVR, skills routing) | Yes | No, the addon inbox is not a voice ACD |
Two cautions on the "Partial" and "No" rows. A "No" asserts the capability is absent from the vendor's published public scope at the time of writing — not that the vendor fails at the capability it never claimed. A "Partial" means the capability exists with a caveat (a beta, a scoped addon, an integration surface rather than a native channel) — the same grading discipline the /compare tables use.
4. Pricing model: the one row both vendors set
Both BSPs out-publish the conversational-CPaaS incumbents: Wati publishes per-user tiers; 360dialog publishes per-number subscription chapters, and both surface Meta's messaging charges as the tier's companion. Orbit's Pricing page is pay-as-you-go per message with no platform subscription over the conversation rate — the difference is stepped by send pattern. A team whose monthly volume is stable and predictable can fit a BSP plan; a team whose volume is spiky, seasonal, or starting pays usage either way — Meta's conversation charge is the floor on every model, and the second vendor markup is the row Orbit does not add.
5. Tenant-owned controls: what changes at go-live
Compliance posture should follow the tenant, not the BSP's defaults. On Orbit these controls are tenant-configurable:
- Consent capture and quiet hours are tenant-managed. Your organization names the consent policy per channel rather than inheriting a BSP's channel-scoped defaults.
- Retention policy is tenant-configurable. Retention windows and the data-residency lane apply to the conversations and the profile store, so a privacy program is a setting named at rollout, not a plan-tier gate.
6. The verdict: the BSP lane, the platform lane
Pick the BSP lane when the program is deliberately one channel: a team running WhatsApp broadcast, inbox, and simple flow bots on one WABA, no SMS/RCS/voice roadmap, no developers, and a finance team that prefers a flat plan — Wati's or 360dialog's published tiers serve that operator honestly, and Orbit does not pretend the single-channel program is underserved.
Pick Devotel Orbit when the shared inbox should resolve onto a live unified customer profile with golden records and audiences, routing should read that profile, and the program extends to SMS fallback, RCS, email, voice, an AI voice agent on the same record, a human+AI contact center, or programmable API sends — all billed per message on one account with published pricing and self-serve signup.
7. Migration path: contact-model parity and conversation cutoff
Moving from a WhatsApp BSP to Orbit is a bounded transfer, not a forklift:
- Export the contact model. Map each BSP contact to an Orbit customer profile on the phone number so identity resolves across channels; export historical reporting before the import window closes.
- Re-point the WABA. Port the WhatsApp Business Account number with Meta's standard WABA migration path — the number lands on Orbit's channel configuration, and template submissions reapply under the new BSP of record.
- Cut historical conversations at a fixed point. Close active threads, switch the channel gate, and keep the frozen snapshot read-accessible for the retention window your policy requires rather than running two live inboxes in parallel.
- Configure tenant-owned controls before go-live. Consent capture, quiet hours, and retention windows are tenant-configurable on Orbit — name the policy in the rollout checklist, not the BSP default.
Frequently asked questions
Is Orbit a good Wati or 360dialog alternative?
Yes — for the team whose program extends past one WhatsApp number. Orbit ships the shared team inbox and WhatsApp templates beside SMS, RCS, email, voice, video, a contact center, AI agents, and a native CDP on one per-message bill. If the program is deliberately WhatsApp-only, a BSP plan is an honest fit.
What does Orbit offer that Wati and 360dialog do not?
Orbit ships the channels beside WhatsApp (SMS, RCS, email, voice, video) on one consent record, a native customer data platform (identity resolution, golden records, computed traits, audiences), a human+AI contact center, and per-message pay-as-you-go pricing — instead of one-channel pricing plus a second vendor for everything else.
How does Orbit's pricing compare to Wati's or 360dialog's?
Orbit is pay-as-you-go per message with published pricing and self-serve signup; Wati publishes per-user tiers and 360dialog publishes per-number subscription tiers, with Meta's messaging charges passed through on either model. Compare the current published tiers on each vendor's pricing page before calculating; the difference is stepped by whether your team wants a flat subscription or a usage meter.
Should we still pick a BSP if our whole program is WhatsApp?
Not necessarily Orbit — if the program is genuinely one channel with no SMS, RCS, voice, or contact-center roadmap, a BSP's per-user or per-number plan is the honest fit. Orbit becomes the right choice the day the second channel enters the roadmap, so pick the frame that describes your program, not the brand that oversells the platform.
Hop to the full comparison
Every row above comes straight from each vendor's published public scope; the full matrices and per-row footnotes live on the /compare/wati and /compare/360dialog pages rechecked at the time of writing. Pricing pages are the source of truth and supersede every figure paraphrased here.
Related reading
- WhatsApp BSP alternatives for SMB India and SEA in 2026 — Wati, AiSensy, Gallabox, Interakt, and DoubleTick compared on the SMB procurement lanes.
- Best WhatsApp API providers in 2026 — the scored vendor round-up for the provider shortlist stage.
- WhatsApp pricing shift in 2026 — what per-message pricing does to a campaign budget before picking the model.