How to get the WhatsApp Business API in India: a step-by-step guide

You get the WhatsApp Business API by connecting a phone number to a WhatsApp Business Account through Meta’s embedded signup, usually run by a provider such as Fliok. The signup is a short guided flow. What follows it is decided by Meta: business verification, display name approval and your messaging limit. Here is the whole path, in order.

What do you need before you start?

• A Facebook account to sign in to Meta’s signup with.
• A Meta business portfolio (Business Manager). You can pick an existing one or create one during signup.
• A phone number. Either the number already on your WhatsApp Business App, which you can keep using through coexistence, or a new number for standard Cloud API onboarding.
• Your business details as they officially appear, and ideally a website that shows the name you trade under. Meta checks your display name against your website and your Business Manager details.

Step 1: Which way should you connect your number?

Standard onboarding expects a number that is not in use on a WhatsApp app. If your customers already know your Business App number, coexistence is the way to keep it without removing it from the app. See how coexistence works for what it keeps and what changes, and Meta’s guide to onboarding WhatsApp Business app users.

Step 2: How does embedded signup work?

On Fliok:

1. 1Create a free Fliok account. The Free plan is enough to connect a number and try the inbox.
2. 2In onboarding, choose Keep using my WhatsApp Business App (coexistence) or Use a fresh Cloud API number.
3. 3Meta’s embedded signup opens. Sign in with Facebook, pick or create your business portfolio and WhatsApp Business Account, and connect the number. For coexistence, Meta asks you to confirm from the app on your phone, including whether to share your recent chat history.
4. 4When it finishes, the number is on Meta’s Cloud API and shows up in Fliok.

The WhatsApp Business Account is yours, in your own business portfolio. Meta bills message charges to the payment method you attach to it, not through Fliok.

Step 3: Do you need Meta business verification?

Business verification is Meta confirming that your business is what it says it is. You start it in Meta Business Manager and provide details and documents that back up your legal business identity. You can connect a number before it is done, but it matters:

• Meta raises your messaging limit only once your business is verified.
• In our experience, templates can sit in review until verification is complete. If everything stays pending for days, check verification first.

How long it takes is up to Meta. No provider can speed it up.

Step 4: How do you get your display name approved?

The display name is the name customers see above your messages. Meta reviews it against its display name guidelines, and by itself once your number reaches a higher messaging limit. Until it is approved, customers may see your number at the top of a chat instead of the name.

• Submit it from Settings in Fliok, where you also see its status, or in WhatsApp Manager.
• Use the name your business actually trades under. Meta checks it against your website and your Business Manager details, and a mismatch is the usual reason for a rejection.
• A rejected name cannot be resubmitted straight away, so check it before you send it.

Step 5: What is your messaging limit?

Meta caps how many different people you can start conversations with in a rolling 24 hours. New accounts start at 250. To reach 2,000, verify your business with Meta, or have 2,000 messages delivered to different people within 30 days using templates with a high quality rating; Meta then checks your message quality. After that Meta raises the limit by itself each time you have used at least half of it in the last 7 days while your messages stay high quality. Replies to people who messaged you first do not count against it.

Fliok’s Settings page shows each number’s quality rating and how many new people it can reach a day, and warns you when a number is capped. Plan big campaigns around the limit you actually have, not the one you expect.

Step 6: How do you create your first templates?

Any business-initiated message, including every broadcast, needs a Meta-approved template. Create templates on the Templates page in Fliok (or through the REST API); Meta reviews them and the result syncs back on its own.

• Pick the honest category: marketing, utility or authentication. Meta prices by category and can reclassify a template (Meta’s template categories).
• Give sample values for every variable.
• If you plan to run Click-to-WhatsApp ads, get a re-engagement template approved first, so you can use the free window for ad leads.

The details and common rejections are in how template approval works, and the template examples give you drafts to adapt.

What does the WhatsApp Business API cost in India?

Meta charges per delivered message. A template’s price depends on its category and the recipient’s country, and as of October 2026 free-form replies inside the 24-hour customer service window are charged too, at the utility rate, once a number has used its 1,000 free service messages for the month (Meta’s non-template message charges). Messages in the free entry point window after a Click-to-WhatsApp ad stay free. Those charges are billed by Meta to your WhatsApp Business account; Fliok does not resell messages or add a margin. Rupee rates, and why some marketing messages are never delivered, are in what WhatsApp marketing messages cost in India.

The platform fee is separate: see pricing. On Basic and above, AI replies are paid from a prepaid wallet; see how AI replies are billed.

How long does it take?

The signup itself is quick. Everything after it runs on Meta’s timetable: business verification, display name review and template review. Start verification and submit your display name early, well before a campaign or an ad launch.

Should you move to the API at all?

If one person answers every chat from one phone, the Business App may be all you need. Compare them in WhatsApp Business API vs WhatsApp Business App.