WhatsApp represents the most widely used messaging application globally, with nearly 25% of the world‘s population as active users. Every day, approximately 1 million new people join WhatsApp‘s platform.1 This massive user base presents an unparalleled opportunity for businesses to engage customers through messaging.
However, companies must obtain a verified WhatsApp Business API account to conduct marketing activities via an official brand profile with the coveted green checkmark. Partnering with WhatsApp Business Partners provides the simplest path to securing a WhatsApp Business account. Beyond just facilitating API verification, these partners develop critical conversational commerce tools like WhatsApp chatbots, template messages, and more. Therefore, selecting the right partner proves an important strategic decision for any organization.
This comprehensive guide helps marketers identify the optimal WhatsApp Business Partner for their needs. We outline the key capabilities to evaluate when choosing a partner. We also provide detailed profiles of the top 5 official WhatsApp Business Partners based on extensive research and hands-on experience implementing conversational solutions.
Example of an official WhatsApp Business account with green verification checkmark
Critical Capabilities in a WhatsApp Business Partner
When assessing potential WhatsApp partners, focus on the following essential capabilities:
Specialization: Conversational AI vs. E-Commerce Marketing
Our comprehensive benchmarking of conversational commerce platforms revealed most WhatsApp partners fall into three clusters:
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Conversational AI companies: Specialize in building WhatsApp chatbots to automate customer engagements.
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E-commerce marketing companies: Focus on creating pre-built messages to reach customers based on data.
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Conversational commerce companies: Expertise in deploying chatbots while leveraging data to send targeted notifications. Also enable two-way conversations for product discovery. As of November 2022, Haptik stands as the sole conversational commerce player.
Conversational commerce market landscape overview
This framework delivers an effective initial screening, quickly eliminating nearly 50% of vendors.
Supported WhatsApp API Features
Understanding a partner‘s specific WhatsApp API capabilities proves vital. Not all partners support the full functionality. For instance, if customers span the globe conversing in various languages, choose a partner providing template message localization to reach each market effectively.
Likewise, engaging audiences through rich media represents a priority for many marketing teams today. In this case, select a partner equipped with capabilities like images, GIFs, videos and more.
CRM Integration Services
Seamlessly integrating CRM data with solutions like WhatsApp chatbots enables more impactful use of the WhatsApp API. Examine prospective partners‘ integration services like pre-built connectors with popular apps. The ease of integration serves as a crucial filtering criterion.
Pricing Model: Per-Message vs. Monthly Subscription
Two common WhatsApp Business Partner pricing models exist:
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Per message: Partners set a rate per message sent, typically charging more for messages to customers vs. businesses, similar to WhatsApp‘s approach. Partners add a premium over WhatsApp‘s base pricing to turn a profit. Comparing partners‘ per-message rates to WhatsApp‘s helps identify suitable vendors based on budget needs.
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Monthly subscription: Some partners charge a fixed monthly fee. Again, comparing subscription rates for the same capabilities assists in selecting a cost-effective partner.
WhatsApp Business API per-message pricing varies by region
Top 5 WhatsApp Business Partners
Based on extensive evaluation across key capabilities, these rank as the top 5 WhatsApp Business Partners:
1. Haptik
As noted earlier, Haptik stands alone as the only conversational commerce platform enabling users to:
- Build sophisticated WhatsApp chatbots that automate interactions, facilitate sales, and generate leads.
- Send individualized notifications for product recommendations, transaction updates, shipping details, and more.
With experience across diverse verticals like e-commerce, finance, travel, hospitality, insurance, and beyond, Haptik boasts unparalleled training data to construct industry-specific marketing solutions.
In my experience, Haptik‘s conversational AI capabilities combined with data-driven engagement tools make them uniquely positioned to drive results on WhatsApp. Their chatbots feel truly conversational, leveraging NLU, NLP and machine learning to understand customer intent. And their customer data platform seamlessly integrates with my CRM to send hyper-targeted notifications that feel personalized, not robotic.
Example WhatsApp conversation with a Haptik chatbot
2. 360Dialog
360Dialog focuses exclusively on scalable delivery of mass WhatsApp messaging. Their solution enables easy integration with an array of marketing tools to segment audiences and orchestrate tailored broadcast messages.
In my testing, 360Dialog provided one of the most intuitive interfaces for setting up targeted broadcast messaging campaigns. Their team moved quickly to build custom integrations to pull segmented lists from my CRM. While we‘ve seen high deliverability and open rates, the one-way messaging limits ability to have meaningful conversations with customers.
3. CM.com
CM.com serves as one of the leading e-commerce marketing platforms based on my comparative analysis. Their stack of omnichannel customer engagement tools makes CM.com a great fit for European brands aiming to unify messaging across channels.
In particular, their pre-built connectors with popular e-commerce platforms streamline integrating campaign data from stores like Magento and Shopify to inform WhatsApp messaging. For retailers, this closed-loop integration delivers tremendous value.
4. Twilio
Twilio offers a suite of customer engagement products for contact centers, marketing automation, and lead generation.
Their segmentation features allow intricate targeting for bulk WhatsApp messages. In my experience, Twilio‘s broad API platform also makes their tools more customizable to achieve unique objectives. However, costs add up quickly given the a la carte nature of their offerings.
5. Yellow.ai
Yellow.ai stands out as one of the leading conversational AI platforms according to my analysis. Their specialty lies in automating customer interactions through AI-powered chatbots.
Yellow Messenger demonstrated particular strength in conversational design and natural language capabilities from my testing. The chatbot conversations felt fluid and human. They offer less in the way of push notifications or campaign-based messaging, making them better suited to conversational use cases.
For more on Yellow.ai‘s competitors, see our guide on the Top 3 Yellow.ai Alternatives & Competitors.
And check out Haptik‘s The State of WhatsApp Marketing 2023 for the latest WhatsApp monetization trends, tactics, and insights.
For additional assistance identifying the optimal WhatsApp Business Partner, please reach out. I look forward to helping you boost customer engagement and sales through WhatsApp.