Underneath, every platform sells the same thing: a number on the official WhatsApp Business API. The differences that cost you money sit above it.
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Platforms in this market sell two things at once: authorisation to run your number on Meta's business messaging service, and the software your team opens every morning. Wherever you buy it, the first is close to identical, because Meta is the one writing the rules, reviewing the templates and charging for the conversations. So the comparison worth your afternoon is the second one: what arrives with the software, how the invoice splits between the vendor and Meta, and what walking away in a year would actually cost you.
We build WaliChat, and it is one of the five platforms in the table below. Read this the way you would read any vendor's comparison page: every check on it is one we would want a buyer to run on us.
These four are the platforms buyers most often set against us. Each cell restates something that vendor publishes about itself; where their own pages say nothing, the cell reads "Not published", which means we could not find it stated rather than that it does not exist. Every column heading links to the page that covers that platform properly.
| What you are comparing | WaliChat | Wati | Callbell | Respond.io | Whato |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Getting a number connected | |||||
| Runs on WhatsApp's official Business API | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not published |
| Can start without an API application | Yes, by QR code | Not published | Not published | No | Yes, your own WhatsApp Web session |
| Connects the number you already use | Yes, with its chats | Not published | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Networks the product covers | WhatsApp only | WhatsApp and Instagram | WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram | WhatsApp and many others | WhatsApp Web |
| Where the software runs | Hosted, always on | Hosted | Hosted | Hosted | A Chrome extension on your computer |
| The shared inbox | |||||
| Several agents working one number | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not published |
| Departments and chat routing | Yes | Advertised as Team Inbox | Not published | Yes | Not published |
| Apps for agents away from a desk | iOS and Android | Yes | Mobile app | iOS and Android | Not published |
| Automation and outreach | |||||
| No-code automation builder | Yes, from the Business plan up | Yes | Sold as a separate module | Yes | Task automation and AI quick replies |
| An AI agent that answers on its own | Yes | Yes | Not published | Yes | AI quick replies |
| Campaigns to a segmented list | In every plan | Yes | Sold as a separate module | Yes | Bulk personalised sends |
| Building on it | |||||
| HTTP API and inbound webhooks | In every plan | Yes | On the higher tier | Yes | Not published |
| Zapier, Make and n8n | Yes, all three | App directory | Not published | Yes | Calendar and CRM integrations |
| Runs with your name on the front | Yes, reseller programme | See their partner programme | Not published | Not published | Not published |
| What you pay | |||||
| The subscription is counted by | The WhatsApp number | Published on their site | Each user | A plan, plus users | Published on their site |
| Adding a teammate | Included: 3 / 6 / 9 by plan | Published on their site | Charged per user | Charged per user | Published on their site |
| Entry price, published | From $39.90 per number, per month | On their pricing page | On their pricing page | On their pricing page | On their pricing page |
| Meta's conversation fees | Invoiced by Meta, on top | Invoiced by Meta, on top | Invoiced by Meta, on top | Invoiced by Meta, on top | Not published |
| Free trial | 7 days, no card | Published on their site | Published on their site | Yes | 3 days, no card |
Compiled in good faith from each platform's own public pages at the time of writing, and from our own plan data for the WaliChat column. "Not published" is a prompt to go and ask them, not a verdict. Products ship constantly, so verify every row, and hold ours to the same standard as theirs.
Half the rows in that table describe one layer of a stack four deep. Knowing which layer owns a problem tells you who to hold responsible for it, and stops you paying a vendor for something Meta decides.
The thing that actually delivers. Meta writes the messaging rules, reviews your templates and charges for conversations. No vendor negotiates its way around any of that, and none of it is a reason to prefer one over another.
Business verification, display-name review, template submission: a platform registers your number and carries Meta's process for you, so none of that ends up as your paperwork and your waiting.
The inbox, the automation, the campaign sender, the contact records, the reporting. This is the layer vendors genuinely compete on, and the only one anybody on your team touches daily.
Agents replying from a browser or a phone, and whatever you wire in through the API and webhooks. A platform that leaves this layer empty is selling you plumbing and calling it a product.
The expensive mistakes both live at layer three: paying for raw access when your team needs to answer chats on Monday, or paying for an inbox when your roadmap needs an endpoint.
Every platform you look at sells some subset of those middle two layers, and which subset it sells decides which questions are worth asking it at all. Four shapes cover the market. Sorting a name into one of them takes a single question, and each card below closes with the one that settles it.
A number registered, an endpoint, a webhook, billed per message or per number. Nobody on your team logs in anywhere, because there is nothing to log into. On any quote you collect it is the smallest figure, and in engineering weeks the largest; that trade works only where the engineers already exist, and so does the software you would be wiring the endpoint into.
Settles it: go looking for a screenshot of an inbox. This shape of product does not have one.
The software is theirs. The authorisation underneath is rented from a company nobody has introduced you to, and frequently is not named anywhere on the site. Plenty of good products start here, so on its own that is no reason to walk away, though it does move the failure mode. A delivery problem now crosses a boundary you cannot see, and what comes back is that they have raised it with their provider.
Settles it: ask which company your number is registered under, and whether they hold the relationship with Meta themselves.
Registration and the product on one invoice, one login, one place to complain. Most teams end up here, and so does everything that quietly costs money: whether the inbox is inside the plan you were quoted, whether the plan is counted by numbers or by people, whether the API is in the price or a tier above it. Every row in the table further up is a way of asking one of those.
Settles it: their pricing page puts a price on seats, automation and API access, not only on messages.
Extensions and desktop add-ons that drive a WhatsApp session running on somebody's computer, rather than a number registered with Meta. Cheap, quick to start, and a different product from the three above: it stops when the machine does, it is one person's browser rather than a service, and none of Meta's official plumbing is underneath it. Fine for one person keeping a list moving. Not somewhere to put a support queue.
Settles it: setup begins by installing something in your browser instead of registering a number.
The first group of rows in that table asks whether it runs on the official API, where the software runs and which networks it covers, and those three answers put any of those five into one of these four. Run the same three rows against a name that is not in the table and you will have it placed before you book anything.
Run these on the five above and on anything else that reaches your shortlist. The middle column is the point of the exercise: each one is something you can establish for yourself in a trial or on a pricing page, rather than something you have to take a salesperson's word for.
| What to check | How to find out for yourself | What a straight answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Whose account the number is registered in | Ask which WhatsApp Business Account the number will live in, and for the page describing how to take it out. | The account is yours, and the exit is written down somewhere public. |
| Whether the inbox is in the plan or beside it | Open their pricing page and find the cheapest row that includes seats, assignment and internal notes. If it sits above the row you were quoted, that is the real price. | Seats, assignment and notes on the plan you were actually quoted. |
| How long until you send message one | Try to create an account and reach a first send without speaking to anybody, and time it. | You start the trial the same day and get told which of Meta's steps you are waiting on. |
| Whether your current number comes with you | Give them the number you already run in the WhatsApp Business app and ask what happens to the conversations on it. | It connects, it keeps its history, and your customers are told nothing because nothing changed. |
| Which part of the quote is theirs | Ask for the quote as two lines in writing: one for the software, one for Meta. | Two figures, itemised, before a card goes anywhere near it. |
| How people are counted | Count the team a year from now, including the evening shift and the second department, and price that rather than the one sitting there today. | A stated number of teammates in the plan, and a published figure for the next one. |
| Who can change an automation on a Tuesday | During the trial, edit a live automation yourself. No ticket, no call, no shared screen. | A visual editor whoever owns the wording can open, with an API underneath for the rest. |
| What year two runs on | Read the developer documentation before the homepage, and send one real call from their tester if they publish one. | Documented endpoints, webhooks for every inbound event, and somewhere to try one. |
| Whether the product can carry your name | Ask what a client of yours would see in the browser tab, in the emails and on the invoice. | A reseller programme covering your logo, your domain and your billing. |
Two of these arrive from different companies. Two of them only exist on some platforms. Merge all four into one figure and the quote has not got cheaper, only shorter.
The inbox and its seats, automation, campaigns, contact records, how long history is kept, API access. The one line a vendor fully controls, and therefore the only line where comparing vendors means anything.
Meta charges on its own published rates, which vary by country and by what the conversation is for, and which are revised from time to time. They apply through whichever platform you route through. Read them from Meta's current list, or put your own volumes through the estimator.
Where a plan is priced per user, every person you add is a permanent raise on the invoice. Two of the four platforms above publish exactly that model, so price the team you are hiring towards rather than the one you have.
Campaigns, the automation builder and API access are not always inside the plan the inbox came in. On some platforms they are separate modules or a tier further up. The table shows which ones, and that answer moves the annual figure more than the headline price does.
One question separates vendors on this section, and it is worth asking all of them: are Meta's fees passed through at cost, or marked up? Anyone who will not answer it while you still have a card in your pocket has answered it.
Ask these, in these words. Under each one is what a straight answer sounds like, and none of them needs a technical reply so much as a specific one.
If an answer arrives as a link to a pricing page, ask again.
Moving a WhatsApp number between platforms is routine. What surprises people is which parts travel with it and which parts get rebuilt on the other side.
A number migrates between platforms routinely, but flows, labels, saved replies and routing rules are configuration and get rebuilt on the other side. Budget for the ten you actually use, not the ninety that accumulated.
Message templates belong to a WhatsApp Business Account, so a move usually means submitting them again. Copy the approved wording exactly and they generally come back the way they went in.
Past conversations rarely travel between platforms. Export whatever your records need before the switch, because afterwards is not a plan.
Keep the old webhook endpoint live until the new number is sending, then cut over. A gap here raises no error at all; it quietly drops inbound messages while every screen looks fine.
Buying everything on one subscription is right for one shape of business and wrong for another. Both halves of that, plainly, and the second half is not shorter than the first.
Two rows in that table are the reason teams choose us, and neither is a feature. The subscription is counted by the number rather than by the head, so the evening shift does not arrive as a price rise. And the API is in the cheapest plan rather than the tier above it, so the integration you have not scoped yet cannot become an upgrade conversation. Everything else arrives on that same subscription: the shared inbox, AI agents, campaigns, contacts, the mobile apps, the reseller programme. Official WhatsApp Business API provider, used by 5,000+ teams.
There is no single answer, and any page that gives you one is selling something. The useful version is a rule: buy the thinnest product that covers what you will do this year. Where several people share the number, add one condition, which is that the shared inbox has to be inside the plan rather than beside it. The table above sets five platforms against each other on exactly those lines, and the checklist under it is what to run on any platform not listed.
In practice, yes. BSP is Meta's label for a business authorised to sell access to its WhatsApp messaging service. Most platforms you will shortlist either are one or resell one, and the label on its own tells you nothing about the software you would be using.
Meta reaches businesses through providers it authorises, so every route to a WhatsApp business number runs through one of them. What differs enormously is how much software arrives alongside the authorisation.
Not necessarily. A number already running in the WhatsApp Business app can usually be connected with its conversations intact. Confirm it before you sign, because it is the difference between a launch and a migration.
Rarely the vendor. Business verification, display-name review and template approval are Meta's steps on Meta's timing. A good platform tells you which one you are sitting in; nobody skips them.
To open a conversation. Once a customer writes to you there is a window in which you can reply freely without one. Meta prices those two cases differently, so the mix of them drives your bill more than your total volume does.
Often because it is not the same number. Meta's fee and the vendor's margin get quoted together. Ask for them apart, then compare the margins against each other.
Only where the platform runs a reseller or white-label programme, one that covers your logo, your domain and your billing relationship with the client. Of the five platforms above, one publishes a reseller programme and one publishes a partner programme; the rest publish nothing, which is the answer you need before you build a business on top of it.
The two things a feature list hides: how a rejected template is explained to you, and what the inbox does when three agents open the same conversation at once.
Two official-API platforms with a lot of overlap, and the four places they genuinely part.
ComparisonFour networks priced per user against one network priced per number.
ComparisonBreadth across many channels against depth on the one yours arrives on.
ComparisonA browser extension over WhatsApp Web against a platform the number lives on.
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