WhatsApp overview

WhatsApp in Pointerly connects your WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) through Meta’s Embedded Signup, then lets you manage numbers, opted-in subscribers, approved templates, and click-tracked broadcasts.

What you'll achieve

• Understand the five tabs: Connections, Subscribers, Templates, Broadcasts, Usage
• Know plan, permission, and “number registered” gates
• Use the in-app tutorial / guided tour when you need a walkthrough

Before you start

• Correct team selected
• Plan feature for WhatsApp (WHATSAPP_FEATURE_KEY / messaging add-on) — otherwise Upgrade
• Permissions: connect, create, edit, publish, delete as needed
• A Meta Business portfolio you administer, with a WhatsApp Business number you can register on Cloud API
• Expect Meta (not Pointerly) to bill conversation/template messaging on your Business account

How the page is organized

Open Dashboard → WhatsApp.

Header extras:

• ? help opens the WhatsApp tutorial modal (manual — does not auto-open)
• New Broadcast appears once a registered number exists and you can publish
• ?guide=1 on the URL starts the Driver.js guided tour once

Owning the add-on is not enough: tabs that send require a registered Cloud API number. Otherwise you see Connect a WhatsApp number first.

End-to-end path

1. Connect WhatsApp via Embedded Signup.
2. Confirm the number shows registered and can send (refresh health if blocked).
3. Create topics and opt-in keywords, and share wa.me links so people join them.
4. Sync / install APPROVED templates.
5. Send a broadcast to a topic with product links mapped into template slots.
6. Watch delivery on Broadcasts and Usage (statuses move queued → sent → delivered → read).

Disconnecting freezes in-flight scheduled/sending campaigns and pending messages until you reconnect and resume.

Two bills, not one

Messaging costs arrive from two places, and they are not the same money:

Pointerly's rate does not change when Meta's does: we charge per broadcast send, not a markup on Meta.

What Meta charges from 1 October 2026

Meta prices marketing, utility and authentication templates per message at a rate that depends on the recipient's country. Rates were updated on 1 October 2026 — up in some markets, down in others.

Two things that used to be free are now charged from that date:

• Service messages — the plain replies sent inside the 24-hour window that a person's own message opens. In Pointerly these are the confirmations a subscriber gets when they text your keyword or send STOP. Each phone number gets 1,000 free service messages per calendar month; past that they are billed at the regional rate. The allowance is per number — not shared across your account — and does not roll over.
• Utility templates sent inside that same window, which were previously free.

In practice a subscriber costs about two service messages over their whole life with you — one when they join, one if they leave — so a number stays inside the free 1,000 until roughly 500 new subscribers in a single month. A launch that recruits a few thousand people at once is the case where a service-message line appears on your Meta bill.

Still free: the 72-hour free entry point window, which opens only when someone reaches you from a click-to-WhatsApp ad or a Facebook/Instagram page button. A keyword sent after tapping a wa.me link does not open one.

Tips

• Allow pop-ups for Meta Embedded Signup; blockers break the Facebook popup.
• Prefer Pointerly catalog templates when you want product slots filled from links instead of typing every {{n}}.
• Quality rating and messaging tier come from Meta — Pointerly surfaces them on the connection card.

Related

• Connect WhatsApp
• Send a broadcast
• Add-ons and credits
• Create a link

Troubleshooting