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WhatsApp Business Platform glossary
The vocabulary every WhatsApp Business API vendor uses and almost none of them define — WABA, Embedded Signup, quality rating, Coexistence and more, in plain English.
The WhatsApp Business Platform (also called the WhatsApp Business API) is Meta's programmatic messaging interface for businesses. It has no app of its own — you access it through a platform such as BotPulsar — and the underlying WhatsApp Business Account (WABA), phone number, message templates and quality rating all stay owned by your business rather than by whichever vendor you use. This page defines every term you will run into while evaluating or running a WhatsApp Business API platform.
- WhatsApp Business Platform (WhatsApp Business API)
- Meta's programmatic interface that lets medium and large businesses send and receive WhatsApp messages at scale. It has no app interface of its own — you access it through a platform such as BotPulsar, and your business owns the underlying WhatsApp Business Account. Reference
- WhatsApp Business Account (WABA)
- The asset inside Meta Business Manager that owns your WhatsApp phone numbers, message templates and quality ratings. Because the WABA stays in your name, you can move between providers without losing your number.
- Embedded Signup
- Meta's official onboarding flow that connects your WhatsApp Business Account and phone number to a platform without leaving that platform. It replaces manual API key exchange and takes a few minutes.
- WhatsApp Coexistence
- A Meta capability that lets an eligible business keep using the WhatsApp Business App while the same phone number is also connected to the API, with message origin tracking and echo de-duplication.
- Template message
- A pre-approved message format required to contact a customer outside the 24-hour customer service window. Meta categorises templates as Marketing, Utility or Authentication, and charges a different rate for each.
- Customer service window
- The 24-hour window that opens when a customer messages your business. Replies you send inside it are free-form and are not charged as template messages.
- Green tick (Official Business Account)
- Meta's verified badge for a WhatsApp business profile. It is granted on brand notability — credible third-party news coverage — not on spend or on which provider you use, so no vendor can guarantee it.
- Click-to-WhatsApp ads (CTWA)
- Facebook and Instagram ads whose call to action opens a WhatsApp chat with your business, passing a referral payload you can attribute.
- Monthly Active Contacts (MAC)
- A pricing model used by some platforms that bills per unique contact messaged in a month, on top of the subscription. BotPulsar does not meter contacts — contacts are unlimited on every plan.
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
- A technique where an AI agent retrieves passages from your own knowledge base before answering, so replies are grounded in your documented policies and product facts rather than invented. Reference
See how these fit together
The full feature list shows WABAs, templates and Embedded Signup in the product, not just definitions.