WhatsApp marketing tool: broadcasts and campaigns past 256 contacts

Where the free app stops: 256 contacts

The free WhatsApp Business app can broadcast, and its broadcast list holds 256 contacts. A second rule catches people later: a broadcast reaches only those who have saved your number in their own phone. Here is how that would land on a Calicut coaching centre with 900 parents on file. It would need four lists, and the parents who never saved the number would receive nothing at all.

The rest of what the free app cannot do is about the team rather than the sending. One login, no assignment, no notes, and two years of history sitting on one handset. That argument belongs to the shared team inbox.

The API removes the 256 cap and the saved-contact rule. You send to any number that has opted in, from a verified business name, with the whole team on one login. A single campaign goes to 5,000 recipients on either plan, so a 12,000-name list goes out as three campaigns. Premium adds a second number, with sends spread across both, while Meta's messaging limit stays with the business portfolio and each number keeps its own quality rating. That is the trade. You start paying per message, and you get a marketing tool instead of a phone.

Opt-in is what keeps your number alive

Meta requires opt-in before you send a template to anyone. This is not a formality. When people report or block your messages your number's quality rating drops, and Meta answers by cutting how many customers you are allowed to message.

A new business portfolio starts able to reach 250 unique customers in a rolling 24 hours, and that limit is shared by every number in the portfolio. Complete Meta's scaling path and it lifts to 2,000; from there it steps up on its own to 10,000, then 100,000, then unlimited. Get reported often enough and it moves the other way: quality falls, the limit is cut, and sending can be blocked altogether, which is the expensive version of the same lesson, because it is the number printed on your board.

Opt-in that holds up is boring and specific.

• They messaged you first. From your website, from a Click-to-WhatsApp ad, or from a code on the counter. Our free WhatsApp QR code generator makes one in a minute, and a Click-to-WhatsApp click opens 72 free hours.
• They ticked a box. On your booking or enquiry form, saying you will send updates and offers on WhatsApp.
• They gave the number in person. And somebody recorded when and where.

A bought list is none of those. Every marketing template must also carry a way out. When Meta tells us a contact has stopped marketing messages, Zappio records that against the contact and leaves them out of every later campaign, and the campaign report names who was skipped and why. For the customer who simply replies asking you to stop, tag them and keep that tag out of your next audience, so you stop paying to annoy them.

Sending from the UAE? Our guide to why WhatsApp Business numbers get banned in the UAE covers what Meta does when quality falls and the record an appeal rests on.

Which campaign is worth sending first depends on your trade. What fifteen kinds of business actually send is set out separately.

Marketing or utility: a 7.5 times difference

Every template is approved in a category, and the category sets the price. On Meta's India rate card effective 1 July 2026 a delivered marketing message is ₹0.8631, and a utility or authentication message is ₹0.115, both before 18% GST. Service replies inside the 24-hour window are free until 30 September 2026; from 1 October 2026 each business phone number gets 1,000 delivered service messages a month free and ₹0.115 each after that. So a marketing message costs 7.5 times a utility one, and category choice is the largest single lever you have over a broadcast bill.

The split is about intent, not wording. Meta reviews the category when it approves the template, so a discount dressed up as a reminder gets recategorised or rejected. The practical version for an owner: send reminders as utility templates, and keep marketing for messages that are genuinely selling something. A Kochi dental clinic sending 2,500 utility reminders and 500 marketing offers in a month pays ₹719.05 to Meta for the lot.

The whole card, every category and both currencies, with the provider-by-provider comparison, is on WhatsApp API pricing in India.

Segments, scheduling and delivery reports

A campaign in Zappio is four decisions. Who, which template, when, and what happens when they reply.

• Segments. Build the audience from tags and from behaviour. Bought in the last 90 days. Enquired and never booked. Attended one class.
• Exclusions. Before the first message goes out, Zappio drops contacts Meta has marked as having stopped marketing, anyone already messaged in the last 24 hours, and anyone over the weekly frequency cap you set. The report afterwards names each one and the reason.
• Scheduling. Set the send for Thursday at 11 a.m. and leave it. A send rate holds the queue to a set number of messages a minute, and quiet hours shift a send rather than dropping it.
• Delivery reports. Sent, delivered, read, replied and failed, per campaign.
• Replies. They land in the shared team inbox, tagged and assigned, answered by whoever is free.

That last one is where the money is. A customer's reply opens a 24-hour window, and everything you send inside it is free, whether a person types it or a chatbot answers at midnight, until 30 September 2026. From 1 October 2026 the first 1,000 delivered service messages a month per business phone number are still free, and after that your own replies, and any utility template sent inside the window, cost the utility rate rather than the marketing one. A campaign that starts conversations costs less per sale than one that only lands.

What a month of broadcasting costs

A Bengaluru boutique broadcasting twice a month, on top of its order updates, sends 8,000 marketing messages and 1,500 utility ones. Meta's charge for that month is ₹7,077.30, paid to Meta directly with nothing added.

The plan sits on top of the message line. Standard is ₹4,000/month on a yearly term, or ₹5,000/month billed quarterly, plus 18% GST. Standard comes with a 14-day free trial, and connecting your number is free with no card. Premium, if you need a second number, 20 seats and unlimited chatbots, is ₹8,000/month on a yearly term, or ₹10,000/month billed quarterly, plus 18% GST. Enterprise is quoted for your business. Every term and every currency is on plans and pricing.

Watch the message line rather than the plan line. It is the one that grows with your list, and it is where a provider's markup on Meta's rate quietly compounds. With Zappio you pay Meta's rate to Meta directly, unchanged.

The same sum in the Gulf

Meta prices by the recipient's country, not yours, so a Dubai salon messaging UAE numbers pays Meta's UAE rate rather than the India one. Meta publishes a dirham card for the UAE, with the dirham pegged at 3.6725 to the dollar, which puts a delivered marketing message at about eighteen fils until 30 September 2026 and about twenty-one fils from 1 October 2026, and a utility message at about six fils on both cards.

The gap between the two categories is narrower in the Gulf than in India, about 3.2 times against 7.5 until 30 September 2026, and about 3.7 times from 1 October 2026, but the rule it implies is the same one. Remind in utility, sell in marketing. Plans are priced separately in rupees, dirhams and US dollars rather than converted, so see plans and pricing for the dirham figure. AED invoices are raised from India as a zero-rated export, so no Indian GST is added; UAE VAT under reverse charge is yours to account for.

Where your list comes from, and where the replies go

Shopify, our REST API and webhooks are self-serve on every paid plan, so orders and enquiries create and tag contacts without anyone retyping them. The Shopify connector runs inbound only. Order, fulfilment and cancellation events arrive in the chat, abandoned carts can be chased, and that customer's recent orders sit beside the conversation. Nothing a bot collects is written back into the store; write-back is REST API and webhook work.

Google Sheets runs the other way. Zappio appends a row into your sheet as a conversation collects it, and it cannot read your sheet, so a sheet can never feed a broadcast list. WooCommerce is not self-serve either: it lives in our Engage module, included on Premium and available as an add-on on Standard. Everything else, whether that is Salesforce, Mailchimp, Pipedrive or your own billing software, connects through our REST API and webhooks, so tell us what you run. What ships today and what is wiring work is set out on integrations.

There is no self-serve signup, and that is deliberate. We create the workspace, connect the number you already use, sit with you through Meta's verification, and put your first templates in for approval. Most businesses are sending inside 24 hours. Zappio is made by TABSYST, with offices in India and Dubai (UAE), and there is more about the company if you are weighing up a year with a supplier you have not met. When you are ready, tell us about your list.

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