How to get the official WhatsApp Business API in Egypt: the steps, the requirements and the limits

The official API comes from Meta, not from a provider. You need a Meta business account, business verification with your company's documents, a phone number dedicated to the API (Egyptian or international) and a display name that matches your business. Meta bills each delivered message by its category, and service messages are free.

Whose API is it, exactly?

The official WhatsApp Business API — Meta calls it the WhatsApp Business Platform, or the Cloud API — is provided by Meta itself. Whoever runs it for you, us or anyone else or you on your own, connects to the same API. Nobody sells a different “WhatsApp API”; what differs is the software around it, who does the setup, and who stands next to you when something stops.

What you need before you start

A Meta business account

Created in Business Manager with the account of somebody responsible at the company. The WhatsApp number is attached to it, and it stays the company's, not the provider's.

Business verification

Meta asks for official company documents — the commercial register, for example — and the company name on them has to match the account. How long it takes is Meta's decision, and nobody can promise it to you.

A dedicated phone number

Egyptian or international, both work. It has to receive an SMS or a call to be activated, and it must not be in use on the WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business app — if it is, it is migrated, and migrating closes the app on that number.

A display name

The name the customer sees. It has to match your company or brand and follow Meta's naming rules; a generic or misleading name is held up.

Three ways to run it

1. Directly on Meta's Cloud API: free as an interface, but there is no inbox, no campaigns and no team on it — a developer has to build all of that or connect it to your system.
2. Through a provider that sells the platform and the setup together: you pay a subscription and work from day one.
3. On our platform: we do the Meta setup with you, and the inbox, campaigns, templates, API and webhooks are ready. Meta's message fees and the platform subscription appear separately in the quote, and the Meta account stays in your company's name.

The limits you start with

A new number starts with a limit of 250 distinct customers per 24 hours for the messages you initiate. It rises to 2,000 with business verification, and above that it rises on its own under two conditions: high quality across your messages and templates, and having used at least half the current limit in the last 7 days. So a first campaign has to be planned for 250 recipients a day — which is better known before you buy than when the campaign stalls.

Money: who bills what

• Meta bills each delivered message by its category — marketing, utility, authentication — since 1 July 2025, not the conversation as it used to.
• Marketing messages are always charged. Utility and authentication messages are free inside the 24-hour window the customer opened, and charged outside it.
• Service messages — your replies inside the window — are free for every business since 1 November 2024.
• The rates themselves differ by country and are on Meta's published rate card. None of them is on this page, because a rate changes without the page knowing.
• The platform subscription is a separate thing entirely, and it is stated in a written quote.

The mistakes we see most

• Using the owner's personal number that has been on WhatsApp for years. The number is migrated and the app closes on it — if that is not what you meant, get a new number.
• Submitting a marketing template as “utility” because it is cheaper. It is the first cause of rejection, and Meta recategorises silently and bills the right category.
• A first campaign bigger than the daily limit. The messages stop halfway and nobody knows why.
• An “unofficial WhatsApp API”: software that drives the ordinary WhatsApp app from a server. It is against WhatsApp's terms, and nobody can guarantee you the number stays up.

After go-live

Go-live is not the end of it. Templates are submitted and approved or rejected, every template carries a quality rating that customers' blocks and reports move, and a number whose templates are sliding in quality is flagged before its limit drops. The guides below take each of those on its own.