Can You Use WhatsApp to Update Customers?

It’s gone eleven and the till roll is off. A manager runs a highlighter down a list of eight phone numbers jotted at the counter that afternoon, illustrative only. She wonders whether she can use WhatsApp to update customers the moment their order is ready. The short answer is yes: one condition applies before she can send anything at all.

That condition comes straight from WhatsApp’s own Business Policy: a business may only message someone once it holds their mobile number and has their opt-in. Nothing else in this article changes that policy, though the Business Platform has since added a second way to identify a customer.

WhatsApp deserves a fair word here too. Ofcom found that WhatsApp reached 90% of UK online adults in May 2025, the highest-reaching messaging service (Ofcom, 2025). That’s exactly why the question in this title gets typed so often.

Key Takeaways

• Meta’s own policy requires a customer’s mobile number and their opt-in before a business may message them on WhatsApp.
• The 24-hour customer service window is opened by the customer messaging or calling the business, not the other way round.
• Once the window closes, only pre-approved template messages can still be sent.
• A template must be approved before use, and review can take up to 24 hours. An approved template can later be paused or disabled on customer feedback and read rates alone.
• Billing moved to a per-message basis on 1 July 2025, and utility templates sent inside an open window are free today.
• Meta has published that the free case for utility templates ends on 1 October 2026.
• Meta prints no rate on its own pricing page. Rates sit in downloadable per-currency rate cards, and in a selector that returns a figure in a browser.
• A WhatsApp Channel keeps phone numbers hidden in both directions, though channels are not end-to-end encrypted by default.

Which WhatsApp is the question about?

There isn’t one WhatsApp when it comes to updating customers. Four different products share the name, and the answer changes depending on which one is meant. They are personal WhatsApp, the free WhatsApp Business app, the WhatsApp Business Platform, also called Cloud API, and WhatsApp Channels. That distinction matters because the entry condition, the cost, and who can start a conversation all differ by product, even though every one of them is simply called WhatsApp.

Personal WhatsApp is a consumer service built for personal use, and it isn’t covered further in this article.

Product	What it is	What the business needs before sending	Who can start	What it costs
Personal WhatsApp	A consumer messaging account	Not covered here	Not covered here	Not covered here
WhatsApp Business app	A free app for small businesses	The customer’s mobile number and their opt-in	Either side, inside an open window; templates only once it closes	Free to download; sending cost covered in the pricing section below
WhatsApp Business Platform (Cloud API)	The API businesses connect to, directly or through a provider	Opt-in before templates; the number in most cases, per the Business Policy	The same window rule as the app	Billed per message since 1 July 2025; rates in downloadable rate cards
WhatsApp Channels	A one-way broadcast feed	A follower who chooses to follow; no number changes hands	The channel admin only	No charge published

Which product applies changes what the business has to do before a customer ever sees a message, and it changes what sending that message is allowed to cost. For a wider comparison across every notification method, not only WhatsApp, choosing between the notification channels sets pagers, SMS and apps side by side.

WhatsApp’s own policy sets the entry condition

WhatsApp answers the title question itself. Its own Business Policy states: “You may only contact people on WhatsApp if: (a) they have given you their mobile phone number; and (b) you have received opt-in permission from the recipient confirming that they wish to receive subsequent messages or calls from you.” (Business Policy, WhatsApp for Business, 2026). Both halves matter. Holding a number without permission isn’t enough, and neither is permission without the number.

The policy is also quiet about how that opt-in gets collected, and that quiet is deliberate. WhatsApp’s policy states: “You are solely responsible for determining the method of opt-in, that you have obtained opt-in in a manner that complies with laws applicable to your communications…” In plain terms, Meta hands the method entirely to the business. A number written on a paper form at the till counts the same as one typed into a website, provided real permission sits behind it.

This is a platform’s own rule, not a regulator’s. What UK law separately requires once a number is written down is covered in the record a phone number becomes once it is written down.

Once a message is sent, WhatsApp’s own Cloud API documentation describes what happens to it next. “With Cloud API, every WhatsApp message continues to be protected by Signal protocol encryption that secures messages before they leave the device.” “Once Cloud API receives the message, Cloud API decrypts the message and forwards it to the business.” That’s how a business receives a message it’s meant to read, not a description of anyone else reading it.

Put together, a WhatsApp route to customers starts in the same place under this policy: a list of mobile numbers, and a record of permission against each one.

Who opens the 24-hour window, you or the customer?

The customer opens it, not the business. WhatsApp’s own developer documentation is direct about that. “When a WhatsApp user messages you or calls you, a 24-hour timer called a customer service window starts.” A message sent before that timer has started has nowhere to travel except as a pre-approved template.

What starts the timer, and what resets it

That 24-hour period doesn’t just run down once. “If the user messages or calls you again before the timer expires, the timer resets to 24 hours.” A customer who keeps replying keeps the window open. A business that waits for silence eventually finds it closed.

What can be sent once it shuts

Once the window shuts, the options narrow sharply. Meta’s documentation is plain. “When the window closes, you can only send pre-approved template messages.” The pricing page states the same rule from the other direction. “Non-template messages can only be sent within an open customer service window.”

That has a direct consequence for an order-ready alert. A customer who placed an order at the counter and walked out hasn’t messaged or called the business, so no window has opened for them. Sending that customer a plain WhatsApp message the moment their order is ready sits outside the window by default, and only an approved template reaches them instead.

A template is approved before it is sent, and can be switched off afterwards

Nothing gets sent as a template until Meta says so. “Templates must have a status of APPROVED before they can be sent in template messages.” Getting there takes time, too: “Review can take up to 24 hours.” A business planning to lean on templates needs that lead time built in, not assumed.

The path a first template message follows looks like this:

1. Hold the customer’s mobile phone number and their confirmed opt-in permission before drafting anything.
2. Choose the message’s category: Utility, Marketing, or Authentication.
3. Submit the template and wait for review, which can take up to 24 hours.
4. Only send once the template’s status shows APPROVED.

Meta defines the three categories plainly, and there are three, not four. Utility templates: “Enable businesses to follow up on user actions or requests, since these messages are typically triggered by user actions.” That is exactly where an order-ready alert sits.

Marketing templates: “Enable businesses to achieve a wide range of goals, from generating awareness to driving sales and retargeting customers.” Authentication templates: “Enable businesses to verify a user’s identity, potentially at various steps of the customer journey.” A “service message” describes a non-template message sent inside an open window, not a fourth category.

Approval isn’t permanent, either, and this is worth knowing before a business builds a workflow around one template. Meta can pause a template on its own: “The template has been paused due to recurring negative feedback from customers, or low read-rates. Message templates with this status cannot be sent to customers.”

A template can also be disabled outright: “The template has been disabled due to recurring negative feedback from customers. Message templates with this status cannot be sent to customers.” Meta’s documentation attributes both statuses to customer feedback and read rates, and names no action by the business.

What does a message cost, and what changes on 1 October 2026?

This article can’t tell you the price, and that gap is itself the finding worth knowing. Meta’s own pricing page prints no rate: “Effective July 1, 2025, Meta charges on a per-message basis”, but no currency figure sits anywhere on that page. Rates are published separately: downloadable per-currency rate cards, including one for pounds, and a selector on WhatsApp’s business site that returns a rate in a browser. The card files are downloads rather than on-page figures.

The billing structure is clear even without a number attached to it. A business is “only charged when a template message is delivered.” Two kinds of messages cost nothing today, though both change on the same date.

“Utility template messages sent within an open customer service window are free.” That holds only until 1 October 2026. “All non-template messages are free…” until the same date too, since, as Meta puts it, “Non-template messages can only be sent within an open customer service window.”

Meta has confirmed the change directly, with its own dates attached to each part of it. “Effective October 1, 2026, Meta will charge for service messages, which have not been charged since November 2024.” Separately, Meta states that it “will charge on a per-message basis for utility messages sent in response to users within an open 24-hour customer service window.”

An order-ready alert to a customer who has walked out is a utility template sent outside any open window, so the free case above never applies to it.

The rates themselves stay inside downloadable cards, so no figure appears on the page itself. Meta’s pricing page lists a GBP rate card as a CSV and PDF download, under the link text GBP rates and volume tiers.

For comparison, how a text is billed by the segment explains the pricing mechanics on the SMS side, which follows a different structure entirely.

Category	Meta’s own definition	Charged today	What changes on 1 October 2026
Utility	Follows up on a user action or request	Free inside an open customer service window	Meta will charge per message; rate cards published, no figure on the page
Marketing	Achieves a range of goals, from awareness to retargeting	Charged per message since 1 July 2025; rate not published	Not part of the announced change
Authentication	Verifies a user’s identity at steps of the customer journey	Charged per message since 1 July 2025; rate not published	Not part of the announced change

No price, in any currency, appears anywhere in this article, for exactly the reason above.

Do broadcasts really only reach people who saved your number?

For years, the answer here has been a flat yes to the limitation: a broadcast only reaches people who already have the business’s number saved. That’s still what most of the vendor pages say, and Meta’s own newer marketing tells a different story.

What the messaging vendors say

Sinch, which sells access to the WhatsApp Business Platform, states the limit under a heading of its own: “You can only message users who’ve saved your number”. Its guide adds: “WhatsApp broadcasts only go through if the recipient has saved your number in their contacts.”

Respond.io, which sells a messaging inbox built on the same platform, puts it just as plainly: “contacts must save the sender’s number on their phones to receive broadcasts.” Infobip, a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider and Meta partner, says the same thing again: “Only contacts who saved your number receive your broadcast.”

What Meta says

Meta’s own page for the WhatsApp Business app describes something different. It markets “business broadcasts” as reaching people “even if they haven’t saved your contact number.” It calls the older limitation “the challenge of traditional broadcasts.”

None of this removes the entry condition set out earlier in this article. Setting up a business broadcast still starts with a list. Step two of Meta’s own instructions reads: “Select the contacts you want to message.” A business broadcast removes a delivery obstacle. It doesn’t remove the requirement to already be holding the number and the permission behind it. Sinch, Respond.io and Infobip are simply describing the older mechanism, and Meta’s own page is describing a newer one it now sells.

Is there a route that needs no phone number at all?

Yes, one, and it isn’t built for telling one customer their order is ready: a WhatsApp Channel. It’s worth knowing what it is and isn’t before reaching for it.

Channels work differently from everything else covered so far. WhatsApp describes them as “a one-way broadcast tool for admins to send text, photos, videos, stickers, and polls.” Numbers stay hidden in both directions. WhatsApp states plainly: “As a channel admin, your phone number and profile photo won’t be shown to followers.” “[F]ollowing a channel won’t reveal your phone number to the admin or other followers.”

WhatsApp’s live product page adds one further condition. A follower’s number “stays private,” and “only admins that have you saved as a contact can see it.”

Two things keep that honest, and both matter. Channels “are not end-to-end encrypted by default”, in WhatsApp’s own words, unlike the messages covered earlier in this article. A Channel is also a broadcast to whoever chose to follow it. That makes it a poor fit for telling one specific customer that one specific order is ready.

Route	What the business must be holding	Who can start	Who can read the content
Personal WhatsApp	Not covered here	Not covered here	Not covered here
WhatsApp Business app	The customer’s mobile number and opt-in	Either side, inside an open window	The business, once Cloud API decrypts and forwards it
WhatsApp Business Platform	Opt-in, and in most cases the number	Either side, inside an open window	The business, once Cloud API decrypts and forwards it
WhatsApp Channel	Nothing from the customer; they choose to follow	The channel admin only	Any follower; not end-to-end encrypted by default
A scanned QR channel	Nothing from the customer to hold in advance	The business, by generating a code	Any device holding the code

WhatsApp itself already calls QR codes one of its “Free entry points”, alongside short links and profile buttons, that help a customer start a chat. That’s a different use of the code, though: it opens a two-way conversation on WhatsApp, not a one-way channel. What a QR code can and cannot start covers where QR codes help and where they fall short, across the wider set of customer service tools.

One further option skips the phone number step altogether: a one-way channel of the kind Upd8All offers. It carries real limits. No reply is possible, nothing rich can be sent, and each message is capped at 40 characters.

No phone numbers or email addresses are exchanged between the business and the customer. Pairing happens by scanning a QR code. There are no accounts and no sign-up, for either side. The mechanics behind how a scanned code opens a one-way channel are explained fully elsewhere on this site.

That approach carries its own cost too. The customer needs a smartphone with a working camera and a connection. A business that already holds customer numbers with consent, and needs those customers able to reply, is better off using WhatsApp instead.

Nearly every page telling you to use WhatsApp to update customers sells something

Type “can you use whatsapp to update customers” into a search engine, or “whatsapp business broadcast customers”, or “whatsapp for customer notifications”. Or “whatsapp business app vs api”, “send order ready message whatsapp”, “whatsapp broadcast list not delivering”. Go about seven results deep on each query. On 4 September 2026 that returned 41 pages. Thirty-seven come from companies selling WhatsApp messaging software, Platform access, or an integration built on it. Meta publishes most of the rest.

None of seven checked closely names a current price with a currency symbol beside a link to Meta’s own pricing page. The limits those seven name are limits of the free Business app, and each points to the Platform or the publisher’s own product. Not one points the reader off WhatsApp altogether. Rankings move, so those counts are snapshots from 30 August and 4 September 2026, not standing facts.

That pattern needs no adjective. A page written by a company that sells access to something has little reason to write the section explaining when not to buy it.

Their number, their opt-in, and their first message

Every route through WhatsApp runs into the same three checkpoints before a first message goes out. Does the business hold the customer’s mobile number? Has the customer given clear opt-in permission? And has the customer messaged first to open the 24-hour window?

The Business app and the Business Platform both need all three cleared before an unprompted message can reach someone who hasn’t been in touch. A Channel skips the number and the opt-in, but only for people who chose to follow it. That makes it a broadcast rather than a message to one named customer.

Once those checkpoints are cleared, how to word the update once the channel exists is the next practical question.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need a customer’s phone number to send them a WhatsApp update?

Under WhatsApp’s Business Policy, yes. It allows a business to contact someone only if it already has their mobile phone number and has received their opt-in permission. Both parts are required together. Meta separately documents a business-scoped user ID for the Business Platform. It describes this as a way to message someone when their number is unknown (Meta for Developers).

Can a business message a customer on WhatsApp who has not messaged first?

Only through a pre-approved template. WhatsApp opens a 24-hour customer service window when a customer messages or calls a business, and once that window closes, only template messages Meta has already approved can be sent. A template needs APPROVED status first, and review can take up to 24 hours. Until a customer has been in touch, an ordinary message can’t reach them.

Is WhatsApp Business free?

The WhatsApp Business app is free to download, though that isn’t the same as every message being free to send. Utility templates delivered inside an open customer service window currently cost nothing, and so do ordinary non-template messages sent within that window. A business relying on that free case should watch the date: pricing for service and utility messages inside the window changes from 1 October 2026.

How long does WhatsApp take to approve a message template?

Meta states: “Review can take up to 24 hours” once a template is submitted, and it needs APPROVED status before it can send anything. A business should also know that Meta can pause or disable an approved template later, based on recurring negative feedback or low read rates. Once that happens, the template cannot be sent again until the status changes.

Is a WhatsApp Channel a good way to tell a customer their order is ready?

Not really. A Channel is a one-way broadcast to everyone who follows it, so there’s no way to single out one customer with one order-ready message. It does keep phone numbers private in both directions: an admin’s number isn’t shown to followers, and following a channel doesn’t reveal a follower’s number either. Channels also aren’t end-to-end encrypted by default, which is worth knowing before using one for anything sensitive.

Sources

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