WhatsApp Business vs. WhatsApp: what changes, what’s free and which one to use

The difference between WhatsApp Business and regular WhatsApp comes down to the tools. WhatsApp Business is a free app from the same company, Meta, built for small businesses: chats work the same way, but it adds a business profile with your address and hours, a catalog, quick replies, labels, and greeting and away messages.

A third option often gets mixed up with the app: the WhatsApp Business Platform, or “API,” for medium and large companies, which is paid per message. If you serve customers from a single number—a corner store, a restaurant, a repair shop—the free app is almost always the one you want.

What is WhatsApp Business?

WhatsApp Business is a free app for Android and iPhone, built with small business owners in mind, according to the WhatsApp Help Center. You use it like regular WhatsApp—chats, photos, calls—but it adds a business profile, tools to reply quickly and lists to keep chats organized.

WhatsApp announced it on its blog on January 18, 2018 as a free Android app, first available in five countries: Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the UK and the US.

What’s the difference between WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business?

The difference is in what each one is for and in the tools: WhatsApp is for talking to family and friends, and WhatsApp Business is for serving customers. Both are free and nearly identical inside, but only the business app has a business profile, a catalog, reply tools, a link with a QR code and the option of a landline.

What is the WhatsApp Business Platform (the API)?

It’s WhatsApp’s option for medium and large businesses that handle high volumes of conversations, according to its overview of business products. It isn’t an app you download: it plugs into the company’s own software, directly or through an approved provider, and it’s paid per message.

Since July 1, 2025, Meta has charged for the platform per delivered message, not per conversation. The rate depends on the message type (marketing, utility or service, for example) and on the recipient’s country, according to its pricing documentation, checked in October 2026. What customers send is free, and since October 1, 2026, service replies cost money from the 1,001st each month, per phone number.

Is WhatsApp Business free?

Yes. The app is free to download and use, and its App Store listing notes that it mixes free and paid features. The profile, catalog, quick replies and labels cost nothing. Apart from the platform, which is paid per message, there are three optional paid extras:

• Meta Verified for Business. A paid subscription, only in some countries, that adds a verified badge, impersonation protection and up to 10 linked devices on the top plan.
• Marketing messages (“business broadcasts” in some countries): you pay for each delivered message. They also reach people who haven’t saved your number, while broadcast lists only reach those who have it in their address book.
• Facebook and Instagram ads that open a WhatsApp chat, paid like any other ad.

Is WhatsApp Business right for your business?

If you serve customers on WhatsApp, almost always yes: you keep personal and business apart, pay nothing and keep your chats. For a corner store, a restaurant or a clinic, this is what changes day to day:

• A profile that answers before people ask: address, hours, email and website in plain view. If you don’t have a website yet, we explain what a domain, hosting and DNS are.
• A catalog instead of loose photos: your restaurant menu or your store’s products, which customers can share.
• Labels to keep orders straight: “New,” “Paid,” “Delivered.” Up to 20, which in newer versions are turning into lists.
• Answers to the questions you get twenty times a day: up to 50 quick replies, inserted by typing “/”; the ones with your hours and address come ready-made.
• A hello and an after-hours notice: the greeting message goes to people who message you for the first time or after 14 days of silence; the away message, to people who write when you can’t answer.

The app falls short when you need more than one phone and four linked devices (Meta Verified raises the limit to 10), when messages run into the thousands or when you want to connect it to your ordering system. That’s what the platform is for.

How do you switch from WhatsApp to WhatsApp Business without losing your chats?

Install WhatsApp Business on the same phone and keep your usual number: according to the official switching guide, the app detects the number and brings over your chat history and media. From then on, that number stops working in regular WhatsApp. The steps:

1. Back up your chats in WhatsApp.
2. Update WhatsApp and install WhatsApp Business from Google Play or the App Store.
3. Open WhatsApp Business and tap Agree and continue.
4. Tap the option with your number, which the app identifies by itself. On Android, then tap Continue and Allow so your history comes along.
5. Enter the six-digit code you get by SMS and create your business profile.

Before you switch: contacts saved only inside WhatsApp are lost, because WhatsApp Business doesn’t support them yet. In WhatsApp’s settings you can move them to your phone’s address book first.

Changed your mind? You can go back: WhatsApp lets you move the account back to regular WhatsApp from a backup, although your catalog and its collections don’t make the trip.

How do you make a WhatsApp link with a prefilled message?

With WhatsApp’s click to chat feature: type https://wa.me/, the number in full international format (no +, leading zeros, spaces or dashes) and, to prefill a message, ?text= followed by the URL-encoded message. Tapping the link opens a chat with that number and the text ready to send, in WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business.

We tested it in October 2026 with that made-up number and the message “Hi! Can I order a large pizza for pickup?” Encoded with encodeURIComponent, the JavaScript function, it grew from 41 to 59 characters: each space becomes %20 and the question mark %3F, while the exclamation point stays. The full link came to 90.

Requested with curl, wa.me answered with a 302 redirect to api.whatsapp.com/send, with number and message intact. In Chrome, without the app installed, that page showed the chat with +1 202-555-0147 and the text already typed. The classic mistake is pasting the number as it appears in your contacts: with dashes (wa.me/1-202-555-0147), the same test ended on a WhatsApp 404 page.

That link becomes a QR code for the counter. In our free QR code generator, WhatsApp mode, we typed the number the way anyone would, “+1 (202) 555-0147”: the tool stripped the +, the spaces, the parentheses and the dash, and checked that the code scans. Read separately with the jsQR library, the downloaded PNG returned the same link.

With the message, the code has 41 × 41 modules (the little squares); with just the number, 25 × 25. Our recommendation: keep the message short if you’re printing small, because fewer modules means each one prints bigger. The business app already has its own QR code, which doesn’t expire unless you reset it; wa.me links let you have several, one per table or product.

What gets exaggerated about WhatsApp Business

• “WhatsApp Business costs money.” The app is free; you pay for optional extras (Meta Verified, marketing messages, ads) and, separately, for the platform.
• “You have to pay to get a catalog.” The catalog comes with the free app; what depends on the country is whether you can add prices.
• “You need the API to sell on WhatsApp.” For a small business, the app is enough: catalog, link, labels and four linked devices. The API is for big teams.
• “Running your business from personal WhatsApp is just as good.” It works, but WhatsApp’s Terms of Service for users outside the UK and Europe rule out “any non-personal use of our Services” unless WhatsApp authorizes it. And you miss out on the profile, the catalog and the tools.

Which should you choose: WhatsApp, WhatsApp Business or the API?

If you only talk to family and friends, stick with WhatsApp. If you serve customers from one number, switch to WhatsApp Business: it’s free, you keep your chats and you gain a profile, a catalog and some order. Save the platform for when a whole team answers thousands of messages or you need to connect it to your systems.

And if you want more customers to reach that chat, at Vertize Plus Business we build websites with a WhatsApp button, like our restaurant websites, and Facebook and Instagram ads that lead straight to a conversation with your business.

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