WhatsApp Business
What is WhatsApp Business?
WhatsApp Business is Meta's umbrella term for the business-side messaging program — the registered business identity (a WhatsApp Business Account or WABA), the message templates that pre-register outbound copy for business-initiated sends, and the Cloud API integration layer your application code calls. A WABA is the account identity created and approved through Meta Business verification; the Cloud API is the connection an app like Orbit plugs into to actually send and receive WhatsApp messages.
More detail
Opt-ins flow in two directions under the umbrella: business-initiated conversations force pre-approved template messages (the contents Meta's reviewers vetted), while customer-initiated conversations open a 24-hour session window within which free-form reply is allowed. Meta caps business-initiated conversations per WABA by a tier that climbs with quality and volume history — a measured recipient count per rolling 24 hours, not a hard send-rate ceiling.
Orbit runs the full onboarding and message path through its WhatsApp channel surface: WABA setup, template submission and review, daily-tier tracking, and the inbound webhook that fires on customer-initiated replies against the same API contract as SMS. The 'Business' term is Meta's branding for the whole surface; WABA and Cloud API are the specific objects inside it.
Frequently asked
- Is a WhatsApp Business Account the same as the Cloud API?
- No — the WABA is the registered business identity you verify through Meta Business, while the Cloud API is the integration endpoint an app calls to send/receive. You can't use one without the other in a production deployment.
- What distinguishes WhatsApp Business from the consumer WhatsApp app?
- The Business program runs under Meta's business terms — verified identity, message templates, daily recipient tiers — while the consumer app is personal-to-personal texting with no business-grade sender identity or send limits.
See also
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