Buyer's guide · BSPs, approval and message economics
A WhatsApp Business Solution Provider — BSP — is the Meta-authorised partner through which you get WhatsApp Business API access. You cannot buy the API from Meta directly, so choosing a BSP is a real decision, and the thing that decides your bill is not the platform fee everyone advertises. It is whether that BSP marks up Meta's message rates and by how much. Meta charges ₹0.8631 per marketing message and about ₹0.115 per utility or authentication message in India as of 1 January 2026, having moved from conversation-based to per-message billing on 1 July 2025. Most Indian BSPs add 10-30% on top; at least one passes them through at cost. This page covers how to choose, what approval requires, and what real volumes actually cost.
Platform fee is the small half at any real volume
Every BSP bill has a platform fee and message charges. Platform fees range from about ₹1,166 to ₹4,899 a month across mainstream Indian providers — a spread of roughly ₹3,700. Message charges scale with what you send: 10,000 marketing messages a month is about ₹8,631 at Meta's rate before any markup, and a 25% markup on that is ₹2,158 a month, which is comparable to an entire platform subscription. The practical rule is that below roughly 3,000 messages a month the platform fee dominates and you should optimise for features; above about 10,000 the markup dominates and you should optimise for the lowest message rate.
Pros
Cons
Best for: Every buyer, before shortlisting. Estimate monthly template messages by category first, then compare.
No markup on Meta rates, unlimited users — ₹3,499/quarter
Interakt bills quarterly — ₹3,499 for Starter, ₹7,699 Growth, ₹10,499 Advanced — which works out at roughly ₹1,166 a month at entry, not the ₹3,500 a monthly reading suggests. It is one of the few Indian BSPs that does not mark up Meta's message rates, and it does not charge per user. Those two facts together make it the cheapest option for most businesses sending meaningful volume or running more than a handful of agents. Backed by Jio Haptik, with particularly strong Shopify and WooCommerce integration for D2C order flows.
Pros
Cons
Best for: D2C and e-commerce businesses sending order and delivery notifications at volume, and any team with more than about six agents.
Lowest entry point — from around ₹1,500/month
AiSensy is the most common starting point for Indian small businesses, with plans from around ₹1,500 a month and a Pro tier near ₹3,200. Native INR billing, GST invoicing and same-day API activation in many cases. Its broadcast and campaign tooling is the strongest in this group, which matters if you are primarily pushing promotions. It does add a markup on Meta rates, so model your volume before assuming the low platform fee makes it cheapest overall.
Pros
Cons
Best for: Small businesses and marketing-led teams sending under a few thousand messages a month, where the platform fee is the bigger number.
Best support inbox — Growth ₹2,199/month with six users
Wati is the strongest shared-inbox product among Indian BSPs and the fastest for a support team to adopt. Growth is ₹2,199 a month on annual billing including six users, Pro ₹4,899, Business ₹14,799. There is a ₹999 one-time pay-as-you-go bundle covering 500 messages over three months, which is the most sensible way to run a genuine pilot without committing to a subscription. Its Meta markup is at the higher end of the group, so it suits conversation-heavy support rather than high-volume broadcast.
Pros
Cons
Best for: Customer support teams where agents handle inbound conversations all day and outbound volume is modest.
Where volume, SLA and custom integration matter more than list price
Above roughly a hundred thousand messages a month, or where WhatsApp must integrate into core systems rather than sit beside them, the enterprise BSPs become relevant. Pricing is negotiated rather than published, and at that volume the negotiation is about the per-message rate, not the platform fee — a one-paisa difference across a million messages is ₹10,000 a month. What you get in exchange is contractual SLAs, dedicated support, custom integration work and, usually, better rates than any published tier. What you give up is self-service simplicity.
Pros
Cons
Best for: Large D2C brands, BFSI, logistics and any business where WhatsApp is core infrastructure rather than a channel.
One to three working days, if your paperwork matches
Approval is far quicker than its reputation suggests, usually one to three working days. You need a Facebook Business Manager account, business verification documents such as GST certificate or incorporation papers, and a phone number that is not currently active on the WhatsApp consumer or Business app — this last point catches people out, because the number must be freshly available or first deleted from the existing app. The most common rejection is display name: Meta checks it against your registered business identity, so a trading nickname or a marketing slogan will be refused where the registered entity name passes. Messaging limits start at 1,000 unique customers per day and scale automatically with good delivery and low block rates.
Pros
Cons
Best for: Plan two weeks end to end including template approval, not two months. Sort the phone number first — it is the usual delay.
A BSP is a Meta-authorised partner through which businesses get WhatsApp Business API access, since Meta does not sell the API directly to end businesses. The BSP handles onboarding and verification, provides the software layer — inbox, automation, broadcast, analytics — and bills you for Meta's message charges, sometimes with a markup added. Choosing a BSP is therefore two decisions at once: which software you want to use, and what rate you pay per message.
Platform fees run from about ₹1,166 a month (Interakt Starter, billed ₹3,499 quarterly) through AiSensy from around ₹1,500, Wati Growth at ₹2,199 and Gallabox Growth at ₹2,399, up to ₹14,799 for top tiers. Meta charges separately per message: ₹0.8631 marketing and about ₹0.115 utility or authentication, as of 1 January 2026. Sending 10,000 marketing messages a month costs roughly ₹8,631 in Meta charges before any BSP markup, plus 18% GST on everything.
Meta replaced conversation-based billing with per-message billing on 1 July 2025. Previously you paid for a 24-hour conversation window in which any number of messages could flow; now you pay per template message sent. Free-form replies you send within the 24-hour window opened by a customer message remain free at any volume, which makes responsive support cheap and outbound broadcast the thing to model carefully. Rates then rose about 10% for India marketing messages on 1 January 2026.
Interakt is the notable one, passing Meta's rates through at cost. Most Indian BSPs add somewhere between 10% and 30%. That difference is invisible in a feature comparison and dominant in a bill: at 50,000 marketing messages a month, Meta charges about ₹43,000, so a 25% markup is roughly ₹10,750 a month — several times the platform fee of any provider here. Always ask a prospective BSP for its per-message rate in writing, not just its subscription price.
A Facebook Business Manager account, business verification documents — GST certificate, certificate of incorporation, or equivalent proof of registered business identity — and a phone number not currently active on the WhatsApp consumer or Business app. Your display name must correspond to your registered business identity; trading nicknames and marketing slogans are the most frequent cause of rejection. Approval typically takes one to three working days once documents are correct.
Only after deleting the number from the WhatsApp Business app first, and doing so erases that account's chat history — export anything you need beforehand, because it is not recoverable. Many businesses avoid the disruption by activating the API on a new number and keeping the old one running during transition. If the existing number is printed on your marketing and known to customers, the deletion route is worth the care; plan it rather than discovering it mid-migration.
New API accounts start at 1,000 unique customers per day, rising through 10,000, 100,000 and unlimited tiers as you demonstrate good sending behaviour. Progression is automatic and depends on your quality rating, which reflects how often recipients block or report you. The practical implication is that message quality governs your capacity: sending relevant, expected messages raises your ceiling, and aggressive broadcasting to cold lists lowers it and can get your number restricted.
Only when you have crossed one of three thresholds: more than about two people need to answer the same number, you need to reach more than a few hundred contacts at once, or you want systems to send messages automatically. Below those, the free WhatsApp Business app does the job and the API adds cost without capability. Above them, the API generally pays for itself quickly — but model your message volume first, because that, not the subscription, is what you will actually be paying for.
Send us your expected monthly message volume by type and we will compare BSPs on total cost — platform fee plus real per-message rate. WhatsApp +91 98119 98370.