The short version: You set up a WhatsApp Business catalogue inside the free WhatsApp Business app under Business Tools, adding up to 500 products with photos, prices and descriptions that customers can browse and send you straight from a chat. It takes about twenty minutes to build, it costs nothing, and it will not sell a single thing on its own unless you actively push people to it and reply fast when they get there.
Got a new handset? Here is how to move WhatsApp to a new phone and keep your chats.
Next step on this topic: What Does A Lead Magnet Mean For Your Business.
What a WhatsApp Business catalogue is
Think of it as a mini shop window that lives inside your chat. Instead of texting a customer twelve separate product photos one at a time, you send one catalogue link and they scroll through it like a lookbook. Each item can have a name, price, short description, a product code and up to ten images. When someone taps an item, they can hit a button that opens a new chat with that product already attached, so you know exactly what they want before you type a single word back.
It is not a full ecommerce checkout. In the UK, US and most of Europe, WhatsApp does not process payment on your behalf inside the catalogue (that only happens in a handful of markets like Brazil and India through WhatsApp Pay). So you are still taking payment manually, by bank transfer, a Stripe or PayPal link, or in person. That surprises almost every small business owner I have worked with, because the app makes it look like a shop. It is not. It is a very good order-taking tool wearing a shop’s clothes.
What you need before you start
- A WhatsApp Business account (not a personal WhatsApp) verified with your business phone number
- The latest version of the WhatsApp Business app, because catalogue features get added in updates and older versions sometimes hide the tab entirely
- Clear photos of each product, square format works best, ideally 1024 by 1024 pixels
- Prices and short descriptions already written, do not do this live inside the app, you will lose patience by product six
If you have not set up the business account yet, do that first. I have written a full walkthrough of what a WhatsApp Business account is and how to set one up, and it is worth doing right the first time because you cannot easily merge a personal number into a business one later. And if your catalogue tab seems to have vanished or won’t load, it is nearly always a version issue, so check the steps for downloading the latest WhatsApp Business update before you assume something is broken.
Step by step: building the catalogue
- Open WhatsApp Business and tap Settings, then Business Tools
- Tap Catalogue, then Add New Item
- Upload your photo (or up to ten photos per item)
- Add the product name, exactly as you would want it searched or remembered
- Add the price. You can leave this blank if pricing is custom, but I would not recommend it, people abandon enquiries when price is hidden
- Write a short description, two or three lines maximum, focus on what it does for them not just what it is
- Add a product link if you sell it elsewhere too (Etsy, Shopify, your own site)
- Save, then repeat for each item
That is the mechanical part and it takes twenty minutes for ten products. The part that takes longer is deciding what goes in.
The mistake almost everyone makes on their first catalogue
I worked with a candle maker in Kent, a proper small operation, one woman, one workshop, selling at markets and through Instagram. She built her WhatsApp catalogue in an afternoon and loaded up all forty of her scents, because why not, she had the photos already from her website.
Enquiries barely moved. People scrolled, got overwhelmed by choice, and closed the chat without asking anything. We cut it down to twelve, her actual bestsellers plus two seasonal ones, with the description on each one naming a specific mood or room rather than just the scent name (“cosy, low-lit evenings” instead of “amber and oud”). Enquiries doubled inside three weeks, not because the catalogue got prettier, but because there was less to think about. A catalogue with 500 slots available does not mean you should fill 500 slots. Twelve good products people can picture beat forty they have to compare.
This is the bit most guides skip because it is less tidy than “just upload your products.” Choice overload is real in a chat window in a way it is not on a scrollable website, because the person is holding their phone, thumb hovering, and every extra option is friction.
Organising products into categories
Once you have more than about ten items, group them into collections inside the catalogue tool (there is a Collections option under the same Business Tools menu). Name collections the way a customer thinks, not the way your stockroom is organised. “Gifts under 20” outperforms “Small Jars” every time I have tested it with clients, because it answers a question the customer was already asking themselves before they opened the chat.
Sharing the catalogue so people see it
Building the catalogue is the easy 20 percent. The other 80 is getting eyes on it, and that is where most businesses stop trying after the first week.
- Add the catalogue link to your Instagram and Facebook bio, most social platforms let you link straight to a WhatsApp chat now
- Pin a message with the catalogue link at the top of any WhatsApp community or group you run. If you have not set one of those up yet, I have a guide on creating a shareable WhatsApp Business group link without it turning into a spam magnet, which matters more than people expect once strangers start joining
- Put a QR code linking to your catalogue on physical packaging, receipts, or a market stall sign
- Send it proactively to warm leads after an enquiry, not instead of a personal reply, alongside one
The uncomfortable bit nobody likes hearing: a catalogue does not generate demand, it captures demand you have already created elsewhere. If nobody knows you exist, a beautifully organised catalogue sits there unopened. It is a conversion tool, not a discovery tool.
Replying fast is the part that converts
WhatsApp shows customers when a business was “last online” or whether messages have been read. If someone browses your catalogue at 9pm and asks a question, and you reply at 4pm the next day, you have lost most of that heat. I tell every client the same thing: set a realistic auto-reply for outside your working hours (WhatsApp Business lets you do this free, under Business Tools again, Away Message), and be honest in it about when you will respond. “Thanks for your message, I reply personally between 9 and 5 Monday to Friday” sets an expectation you can meet, which builds more trust than silence followed by a rushed apology.
Does any of this cost money?
The catalogue itself is completely free, no matter how many products you list, up to the 500 item cap. Where WhatsApp Business does start charging is if you move into the WhatsApp Business Platform (the API version used for automated messages at scale, or paid customer service tools through providers like Twilio or MessageBird). For a solo trader or small team running the free app on their own phone, none of that applies. I have broken down exactly where WhatsApp Business does and does not cost money if you are trying to work out whether you will ever need the paid tier, and separately, what to check for if you are worried about hidden charges creeping in as you scale. Short answer for a catalogue on its own: no, you will not be charged.
When a catalogue stops being enough
If you are regularly getting more than about 30 to 40 messages a day through it, or you are manually chasing payment on every single order, that is your signal the catalogue has done its job and you have outgrown it. At that point most businesses either add a proper checkout link (Stripe Payment Links work well pasted straight into the chat) or move to the WhatsApp Business Platform with automation. Neither is a failure, it is just what growth looks like. The candle maker I mentioned earlier eventually added a Stripe link to every product description once she was doing 15 to 20 sales a week through WhatsApp alone, because chasing bank transfers manually was eating an evening a week she did not have.
For the rest of the WhatsApp questions, see my WhatsApp guide.
Related reading: whatsapp business on multiple phones.
Frequently asked questions
How many products can I add to a WhatsApp Business catalogue?
Up to 500 items, but there is no rule saying you should use all of it. Most small businesses see better engagement with a tight, curated list of 10 to 20 bestsellers rather than their full range, because choice overload in a chat window kills momentum fast.
Can customers pay directly through the WhatsApp catalogue?
Not in the UK, US or most of Europe. WhatsApp Pay inside the catalogue only works in a small number of markets, mainly Brazil, India and Indonesia. Everywhere else, you take payment separately, usually through a Stripe or PayPal link, bank transfer, or in person, after the enquiry comes through the catalogue.
Do I need the WhatsApp Business app or is the personal app enough?
You need WhatsApp Business specifically, it is a separate free app from Meta, and the catalogue feature does not exist on regular personal WhatsApp at all. If you are still using your personal number for customer chats, that is worth fixing before you build anything else.
Why isn’t my catalogue getting any enquiries even though it looks good?
Almost always it is a visibility problem, not a design problem. A catalogue converts people who are already looking; it does not generate the looking in the first place. Check whether the link is live in your Instagram bio, your email signature, your receipts and any WhatsApp community you run, because a well built catalogue that nobody has been pointed to will sit at zero enquiries no matter how good the photos are.
