WhatsApp Cloud API

Overview

The WhatsApp Cloud API is Meta's official, cloud-hosted messaging API. It is how serious businesses send order updates, reminders, one-time passwords, marketing campaigns and two-way conversations on WhatsApp — reliably, at scale, and within Meta's policies. Running on the official Cloud API (rather than an unofficial library or a personal app) is what keeps your number compliant, your green-tick eligibility intact and your messages deliverable.

The catch is that the raw Cloud API is powerful but tedious to operate yourself. You have to create and verify a Meta Business Manager, register a developer app, stand up and host a public webhook endpoint, complete the webhook verification handshake, store and rotate access tokens securely, manage every message template through approval, and build your own retry, rate-limit and quality-monitoring logic. That is days of plumbing before your first message goes out.

WAGate is built directly on the official Cloud API and does all of that for you. Embedded Signup connects your WhatsApp Business number in minutes — no Meta developer account required. From there WAGate handles encrypted token storage, webhook registration and verification, delivery tracking (sent, delivered, read, failed) surfaced in the Log Explorer, template syncing and approval in the Template Hub, smart retries, rate-limit pacing and quality monitoring. You get the full power of the platform with none of the setup.

Why WAGate over raw Cloud API

You keep the official Cloud API under the hood; WAGate removes the operational burden on top of it.

How to connect WhatsApp Cloud API to WAGate

1. Create your WAGate account

   Sign up for a free trial. No Meta developer account, Business Manager or webhook server is required on your side — WAGate is an official Meta Tech Provider and runs the Cloud API for you.

2. Run Embedded Signup

   Launch Embedded Signup from onboarding and connect your WhatsApp Business number in a few clicks. WAGate registers and verifies the webhook and stores your access token encrypted — typically in minutes.

3. Create and approve templates

   In the Template Hub, build your message templates and submit them to Meta for approval. Approved templates sync automatically and become available everywhere in WAGate.

4. Send your first message

   Reply to inbound chats from the Inbox, or fire an approved template. Watch sent, delivered, read and failed events land live in the Log Explorer.

5. Automate with integrations

   Map business events from WooCommerce, Shopify, HubSpot or Zapier to your approved templates so messages send themselves when an order, ticket or trigger fires.

6. Go programmatic with the REST API

   On Growth and Scale, mint an API key in Developer Studio and send messages from your own code with a single authenticated request.

What you can send and automate

Because WAGate sits on the official Cloud API, you get the full Cloud API surface — managed for you:

• Text and media messages — send plain text, images, documents, audio and video to opted-in contacts.
• Approved templates — order confirmations, shipping updates, reminders, OTPs and marketing (opt-in required for marketing — see acceptable use).
• Interactive messages — buttons and list replies for menus, confirmations and quick actions.
• Two-way conversations — inbound replies arrive in the Inbox; the optional AI Chatbot add-on can answer in the customer's language and hand off to a human when unsure.
• Event-driven automations — an order placed, a deal stage change or a Zap can fill a template's {{1}} variables from event data and send automatically.

The comparison below shows what you skip by running on WAGate instead of the raw Cloud API:

For developers, the same platform exposes a REST API. Mint a key in Developer Studio and post a message:

curl -X POST https://wagate.app/api/messages.php \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ag_live_sk_xxxxxxxxxxxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"to":"+15551234567","type":"text","text":{"body":"Hello from WAGate"}}'

See the full developer docs and the API reference for templates, media and interactive messages.

Plans and pricing

Every WAGate plan runs on the official Cloud API: Starter ($19/mo) includes one connected number, 1,000 messages a month, the WhatsApp Inbox and Template Hub. The REST API and webhooks are a Growth ($49/mo) and Scale ($99/mo) feature, which also add more numbers, higher message volume, automations and AI assist. Compare everything on the pricing page, then start a free trial and connect your number with Embedded Signup in minutes.

Frequently asked questions