Moving from the WhatsApp Business App to the Cloud API: the step-by-step plan, from preparation to first campaign

The free WhatsApp Business App is fine as long as customers message you and one or two people reply. If you want to send messages to groups of customers yourself, work in one number with your team or connect WhatsApp to your systems, you end up at the WhatsApp Cloud API: the Meta platform that CommuniQate runs on. This article is about the move itself, from preparation to first campaign. Why the app was not built for that use is covered in our articles about blocks and about the limits of the Business App.

What changes in practice: your number moves from the app on one phone to a platform where your whole team works in the browser, which means WhatsApp Business on PC, without a phone that has to stay switched on. Your customers notice nothing of this; they message the same number, see the same company name and get a faster reply. What you notice: you can send messages to people who have not messaged you yet, with approved templates and a limit that grows with you. The move itself takes a week with good preparation, most of which is waiting for Meta.

Most of the delay in a move does not come from the technology, but from things that were not ready beforehand. Make sure you have this in order before you start:

• Export the conversations you want to keep. Your chats do not move with you; whatever you do not export is gone after step 2. You export WhatsApp chats in the app one chat at a time; do that for open quotes, complaints and appointments.
• Take the phone menu off your number. Meta verifies your number with an automated phone call. If there is a phone menu (press 1 for...) on the line, that call does not get through and the registration stalls. Ask your telecom provider to switch the menu off temporarily.
• Have your Chamber of Commerce extract (KvK) ready. For the business verification at Meta the name and address have to match the extract exactly. If you want to use a trade name that differs from the statutory name, it has to be on the extract.
• Decide who does the administration. Meta Business Portfolio works with a personal Facebook account of an administrator. That account only gives access to the business environment; no private data is shared with customers.
• Take stock of your opt-ins. Which of your current contacts has ever given permission for messages from you? Under Meta's opt-in rules that is the group you may approach first. The rest you collect again, for example through a QR code or your website.
• Look up the PIN of your two-step verification. If you switched it on in the app, Meta asks for it when registering the number.

Start on the platform side, so that your number has a place to land straight away. You create a personal account and after that a team: that is your organisation. In the team you first add a payment method and only then choose a subscription; in that order, otherwise you get stuck at choosing the package.

In this phase, also invite your colleagues already. They each create an account of their own and accept the invitation, so that on moving day everyone can follow along. This whole part takes fifteen minutes and can be done days before the actual move.

Meta registers a number in one place at a time. As long as it is in the WhatsApp Business App, the Cloud API does not accept it; it has to be removed from the app first. You do that in the app itself, through the account settings, with the option to delete your account.

Two things to know. From that moment the number is briefly unreachable on WhatsApp; with good preparation that is a matter of minutes, until the registration in step 3 is complete. So plan this outside your peak hours. And: deleting is final for the app, so do step 0 first and step 3 right after.

This is the longest step, but the WhatsApp Cloud API setup runs almost entirely in one go from CommuniQate:

1. 1Business Portfolio. Log in at Meta with the administrator's Facebook account and create a Business Portfolio, with the details as they appear on your Chamber of Commerce extract. If you already have a portfolio, check at the top left whether you are in the right organisation.
2. 2Add a WhatsApp account in CommuniQate. Give it an internal name and start the onboarding; you are sent through to Meta.
3. 3Set up the profile. Choose your portfolio and fill in the display name: that is the name customers see in WhatsApp. Meta approves that name; keep it the same as your company name or trade name.
4. 4Verify the number. Fill in your number, choose verification by phone call, pick up and type in the code. After a few seconds the number is on the API.
5. 5Add a payment method in Meta. This is a second payment method, separate from the one with your CommuniQate team. Meta charges the template messages directly; CommuniQate adds nothing on top.

From here messages from customers come into your shared inbox, and your team can reply.

Without business verification your messaging limit stays at 250 unique contacts per 24 hours. With verification it goes to 2,000, and the customer sees your company name instead of just a number. So request the verification on the same day as the connection; Meta takes two working days on average and sometimes asks for an extra document.

The request runs through the settings of your Business Portfolio. You fill in the official company details, upload the Chamber of Commerce extract and confirm through a business email address on your own domain. If your phone number is not on the extract, which these days is usually the case, Meta asks for a second document that does show it, for example an invoice.

Now you rebuild your way of working from the app, but for a team and with the possibilities the app did not have:

• Import contacts. You load your customer list in one go through a file, with per contact whether there is an opt-in.
• Create labels again, as one fixed set that the whole team uses.
• Move quick replies over to the library, so that every colleague uses the same text.
• Welcome and away messages become an automation. This is often also the moment to add a short intake, so that a conversation ends up with the right colleague.
• Submit your first WhatsApp message templates for approval. Think of an appointment confirmation, a reminder and one message with which you inform existing customers about the move. Meta usually reviews templates within 24 hours.
• Set up opt-in. A QR code for the counter or the van, a chat link in your email signature and the widget on your website. Every contact that starts through that route has a recorded permission straight away.

This is also the moment to connect WhatsApp Business to your CRM or planning system, if you use one. Everything you set up now saves you manual work per conversation later.

The temptation after a move is to write to your whole database straight away. Do not do that. In the first days you are on 250 or just on 2,000, and your quality rating is still empty: the first reactions from customers therefore weigh heavily.

Start by informing customers with whom you have an ongoing relationship and who gave permission earlier. Use that message to confirm the opt-in explicitly. Look at your rating on the dashboard after two days and then expand, in steps. That way your limit grows along by itself in the weeks after, exactly as described in our article about the quality rating and messaging limits. A company that builds up calmly is usually within a month at a level the free app never came near.

These are the mistakes we come across most often during onboardings, with the step where you prevent them:

1. 1The phone menu is still on during the verification of the number (step 0).
2. 2The wrong Business Portfolio verified, because several organisations hang under one administrator (step 3).
3. 3Chats not exported before the number left the app (step 0).
4. 4Business verification postponed until the day of the first campaign (step 4).
5. 5The whole database messaged on day one, with an empty quality rating and a low limit (step 6).