WABA — WhatsApp Business Account
What is WABA?
A WABA (WhatsApp Business Account) is the registered business identity on Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform that owns a company's WhatsApp phone numbers, message templates, and messaging permissions. No business can send on WhatsApp at scale without one: Meta reviews and approves the account and its display name, and every template message, session reply, and delivery receipt flows through the phone numbers registered to it.
More detail
The approval lifecycle has three gates, and a number only sends once all three clear: business verification on Meta Business Manager, WABA creation with an approved display name, and template approval for any message sent outside the 24-hour customer-service window. Verification typically takes a few business days when the company's documents are in order.
On Orbit, the WABA connects through an embedded sign-up flow — no Meta developer account or API wiring on the tenant's side — and its phone numbers then join the same unified messaging API, inbox, and sender pools as SMS and RCS senders.
Frequently asked
- How long does WABA approval take?
- Plan roughly 3–7 business days when business documents are in order: Meta first verifies the business, then approves the WABA display name, then reviews each message template. A rejection for a display-name guideline or a missing document restarts that step rather than the whole process.
- Is a WABA the same as a WhatsApp Business Platform API key?
- No. The WABA is the account — the registered business identity that owns the numbers and templates. The API key is how a platform calls the WhatsApp Business Platform on the WABA's behalf. One WABA can hold several phone numbers, and Orbit's embedded sign-up provisions the API access when the account connects.
See also
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