What Is A WhatsApp Business Account And How Do You Set One Up

Straight answer: A WhatsApp Business account is a free version of WhatsApp built for companies talking to customers, with a business profile, product catalogue, automated messages and chat labels that the regular consumer app doesn't have. You set it up by downloading a separate app, WhatsApp Business, and registering either your existing number or a new one. The whole thing takes under half an hour if you have your business details ready.

I set these up for clients regularly, and the app itself is simple. What takes the time isn't the technical registration, it's writing a business profile and a catalogue that earns a reply rather than looking like a half-finished form.

What a WhatsApp Business account is

It's a distinct app from regular WhatsApp, not a mode inside it. Once you're set up, your contacts see a business profile when they open a chat with you: your logo, business description, category, address, and hours, all visible from a tap on your name at the top of the chat. Behind the scenes you get tools regular WhatsApp doesn't offer at all: a product catalogue customers can browse inside the chat, quick reply shortcuts for common questions, labels to sort chats by status (New customer, Paid, Pending), and automated greeting and away messages.

Step by step: setting up WhatsApp Business

1. Download WhatsApp Business from the App Store or Google Play, it's free
2. Open it and tap "Agree and Continue"
3. Enter the phone number you want to use. If it's already active on regular WhatsApp, you'll be offered a transfer of your existing chats; if it's a fresh number, you'll register it from scratch
4. Verify with the code sent by SMS or an automated call
5. Enter your business name exactly as you want it to appear, this is harder to change convincingly later, so get it right first time
6. Go to Settings, then Business Tools, then Business Profile, and fill in category, description, address, business hours, email and website
7. Add a logo as your profile photo, not a personal photo
8. Set up your automated greeting message under Business Tools, Greeting Message, so first-time contacts get an instant reply
9. Set your away message for outside business hours, under the same Business Tools menu
10. If you sell physical or digital products, build your catalogue under Business Tools, Catalogue, adding photos, prices and descriptions for each item

That catalogue step is the one people skip and shouldn't. A completed catalogue means a customer can browse products without leaving the chat, tap one, and send it straight into the conversation to ask about it. I've seen conversion improve noticeably for small retailers once the catalogue was fully stocked rather than left with two sample items from setup week.

What you'll need before you start

Have these ready before you open the app, it saves stopping halfway through: a decision on which number you're registering, a square logo image (WhatsApp crops profile photos to a circle, so keep the important detail centred), your business address and category if you want them public, opening hours, and if you're building a catalogue, decent photos and prices for at least your top few products. Nothing here is complicated, but gathering it mid-setup, phone in one hand, is exactly how a profile ends up half filled in and left that way for months.

Business number or personal number

You have a real choice here. Migrate your existing personal number (keeping your chat history, useful if customers already have that number saved) or register a brand new number specifically for the business (cleaner separation from personal messages, but starting with zero saved contacts on that number). Neither is wrong. I generally recommend a dedicated number for anything beyond a one-person operation, because shared team access and a clean professional boundary matter more once you're not the only person answering.

Verified badges and what they require

WhatsApp does offer a green verified checkmark next to certain business names, but it isn't something you switch on during setup. It's granted by WhatsApp to a small number of larger, well-known businesses that meet their internal criteria, and it isn't available to request through the free app at all, it runs through the paid Business Platform and Meta's own review process. Most small and mid-size businesses using the free app will never see this badge, and its absence doesn't mean your account is any less legitimate or verified in the way that matters to customers.

Labels and how I use them day to day

Labels are one of the features that sound minor on the setup screen and turn out to matter once messages start coming in. You can create custom labels (New customer, Order placed, Payment pending, Complete) and tag each chat, then filter your chat list by label instead of scrolling through everything mixed together. For a client running a small online shop, we set up six labels matching her order stages, and it turned her chat list from a scroll of forty mixed conversations into something she could filter to "awaiting payment" in one tap. It's a small feature, and it's one of the clearest reasons the business app earns its keep over the regular one.

Business hours and time zone, worth getting right first time

Your business hours setting controls when the away message triggers automatically, and it's set inside Business Tools, Business Hours, where you pick opening and closing times per day of the week, including marking days fully closed. If you serve customers across time zones, be clear in your profile description which time zone those hours refer to, WhatsApp doesn't localise this for the person messaging you, so a customer in a different country sees your stated hours exactly as you set them, not converted to their own local time.

A mistake worth flagging

A client set up her account, filled in the profile, and stopped there, thinking that was the whole job. Three weeks later she asked why customers kept messaging basic questions she'd assumed were obvious, opening hours, whether they did international shipping. Neither was in her business description, and she had no automated greeting pointing people to the FAQ she'd already written elsewhere on her site. We added both in about ten minutes and the volume of repetitive questions dropped within days. The setup isn't finished when the profile technically exists, it's finished when it answers the questions people ask before they have to type them.

Linking it to other channels

Once the account exists, you can add a WhatsApp link or QR code to your website, email signature, and social bios so people can start a chat without typing your number in manually. WhatsApp generates this automatically: go to Settings, Business Tools, and you'll find a short link (wa.me/yournumber) along with a scannable QR code you can download as an image. I put this link directly in Instagram bios for clients who get most of their enquiries there, it removes a step between someone being interested and sending the message.

If you run customer groups, it helps to know how WhatsApp member tags work.

Quick replies, the shortcut that saves the most time

Quick replies live under Business Tools, Quick Replies, and let you save a message once with a shortcut, say "/hours" or "/shipping", and fire it into any chat by typing the shortcut instead of the full answer. For repetitive questions, delivery times, return policy, pricing on a specific item, this cuts response time from a couple of minutes of retyping to a couple of seconds. I set up eight or nine of these for most retail clients in the first session, built directly from the questions already sitting unanswered in their old chat history. It's the single fastest win in the whole setup, and the one most people never discover because it's tucked one menu deeper than the profile settings.

I have written more around this on the site: Does a WhatsApp Business Account Cost Anything to Run? The Real Numbers, Can You Link a WhatsApp Business Account to a Second Phone in 2026?, Why Your WhatsApp Business Account Might Get Blocked.

Want to broadcast updates to followers as well as chat? Here's how to create a WhatsApp channel.

Frequently asked questions

Is WhatsApp Business free to use?

Yes, the app itself is free to download and use, including the profile, catalogue, labels and basic automated messages described above. Costs only appear if you move up to the paid WhatsApp Business Platform (API) for larger-scale automated messaging.

Can I use WhatsApp Business on a computer as well as my phone?

Yes, WhatsApp Business supports linked devices the same way regular WhatsApp does, including WhatsApp Web and a desktop app, so you can reply from a computer while your phone stays the primary device.

How many products can I add to my catalogue?

WhatsApp's standard catalogue limit is generous for most small businesses, comfortably into the hundreds of items, so it's rarely a practical constraint unless you're running a very large product range.

Do I need a business email or website to sign up?

No, neither is required to register the app itself. They're optional fields in your business profile that make the profile look more complete and trustworthy, but the account works without them.