When comes to WhatsApp Business Solution we have 3 options and flexible billing plans to select. This guide helps to choose the best solution for your business.
WhatsApp Business Solutions Offered by Picky Assist
There are 3 options available with us to choose, based on your nature of business and usecase you can select the most suitable one.
- Phone Automation
- Official WhatsApp Account
- WhatsApp Official Shared Number
1. Phone Automation
We make use of your existing Android Phone & WhatsApp Number as a gateway to automate. In order to automate you need to install our bridge app in your android phone which will act as a bridge between your WhatsApp and our servers.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| No Approval Needed From Whatsapp | Not an Official Solution |
| Get Started in 5 Minutes | Not Scalable so not recommended for handling high volume of messages. Read Benchmarking Results |
| Affordable Plan Starts from $5 or Pay As You Go Plan | Actual Delivery & Read Receipts Not Supported (Sent Report Supported) |
| Possible to Send any type of message contents including marketing | Requires an Android phone installed with our bridge app, phone language should be set to English and phone should be always unlocked |
| Can be used for marketing purposes, supports drip campaign, mass sending (recommended only when the user sends at least one message to your number) | Limited support on sending messages to groups (possible to reply only when a message comes into a group i.e not possible to send a message to a group without someone sends a message) |
| Technically possible to initiate a conversation even if the user not contacted your business. | Sending Contact & Location not supported |
| Send messages to any countries without any extra charges | Receiving Media files not supported |
| Possible to Send & Receive SMS using the phone SIM Card | Read Complete Limitations |
| Possible to start a call conference using the phone SIM Card | |
| Possible to start a click 2 call/call back service using the phone SIM Card | |
| Possible to reject the incoming call after x seconds (Missed Call) |
2. Official WhatsApp Account
WhatsApp Official Solution is a fully managed enterprise scalable solution suitable for businesses who want to engage large audiences through WhatsApp. Before start using WhatsApp Official Solution, your business and phone number must be approved by WhatsApp. Don’t worry we will take approval for you.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Official Solution Approved & Authorised by WhatsApp | Your business must be approved by WhatsApp before start using the service (We will take the approval) Apply Now |
| Highly Availablity & Scalable Service | Not all categories of businesses are eligible. Read WhatsApp Commerce Policy |
| Supports Sending & Receiving all type of media files including contact & location | In order to send a message after 24 hours from the last user interaction businesses need to make use of pre-approved message templates. Read More Marketing/promotions messages are not allowed after 24 hours |
| Supports Actual Delivery & Read Receipts | Currently, only image and pdf media are supported through templated messages, however during 24 hours you can send all type of media’s Read More |
| Option to get Verified Badge (Green Tick) | A valid opt-in is required to send messages. Read More |
| No need to host any phone to send and receive messages, the solution is based on WhatsApp Official Docker | Country-wise charges for template messages. See Pricing |
| Possible to get the context of the message i.e when a user tap reply to a previously sent message you will able to get which message user is replied. | Price starts at $199. See Pricing |
| Possible to create groups, send and receive messages in groups | Session messages after free quota will be billed (unlimited plan also available for session messages) |
| Mandotory Warm Up Process for Templated Messaging i.e Template message sending limits increase gradually i.e by default you can send template messages only to 1000 users in 24 hours window and this gradually increases when you reach each day threshold. Read More |
3. WhatsApp Official Shared Number
Use our Shared WhatsApp Official Number to send and receive WhatsApp Messages using dedicated branded keyword like #your-brand-name (#picky) or use our un-branded keyword for testing like #WV12623883FUrU1AgHG
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Highly Scalable & Reliable Solution | No option to use your own number, numbers may not available in all countries. |
| Cost-effective compared to a dedicated WhatsApp Official Account | The number shared with multiple businesses |
| No approval required from WhatsApp | Not possible to get brand visibility and identity |
| Get started in 5 minutes | Not possible to get Verified Badge (Green Tick) |
| In buit Optin & Optout Managment | Works only with pre-approved templates and not possible to request new templates (case to case we may allow) |
| Intelligent Context Switching & Auto appending signatures if multiple contexts are available against a user. Read More | Not possible to initiate a conversation, in order to send even a template message the user must send at least one message to your keyword. |
| Mandotory Warm Up Process for Templated Messaging By default, you can send template messages only to 100 users in 24 hours window and this gradually increases when you reach each day threshold. | |
| If multiple contexts present aginst a user then all reply messages will append with your signature to avoid confusion to the user. This will apply only if a user is interacting with more than one business at a time |
Choosing a Solution
| Usecase | Suggested Solution |
|---|---|
| Less than 2500 contacts and 50,000 messaging volume monthly and no need to receive media and send contact and location through WhatsApp | Phone Automation |
| Want to send marketing messages after 24 hours like Drip Campaign, offers, etc | Phone Automation |
| Want to use one number for WhatsApp, SMS & Call | Phone Automation |
| Businesses categories which are not allowed by WhatsApp / businesses rejected by WhatsApp for an official solution | Phone Automation |
| Don’t want to get billed for country wise | Phone Automation |
| Businesses who need scalable and reliable messaging solutions | WhatsApp Official Account |
| Business who need to deliver time-critical messages like OTP, Notification Alerts etc | WhatsApp Official Account |
| Businesses who need to get exact delivery and read receipts of the messages | WhatsApp Official Account |
| Businesses who want to get a verified badge (Green Tick) and display the brand name to the user even if the number is not saved in the contacts | WhatsApp Official Account |
| Businesses who want to send and receive all type of media including contact and location | WhatsApp Official Account |
| Businesses who want to collaborate through WhatsApp groups (Programatically) Read Usecases | WhatsApp Official Account |
| Businesses who are limited budget still need a scalable and reliable solution but can comprise followings; No problems of having a shared WhatsApp number No problems to educate users to send the specific keyword to get started No problems to make use of the pre-approved templates No problems if the shared number does not belong to your country. | WhatsApp Official Shared Number |
Choosing the best billing plan
You can choose the billing plan based on the answers of the following questions;
- What is the estimated number of active subscribers in a month?
- What would be the average monthly messaging volumes?
- Whether API access is needed or not ? i.e whether you want to integrate WhatsApp with your existing CRM / Application or any 3rd party applications.
- What kind of features you are looking for like Smart Replies, Drip Campaign, Broadcaster, Social CRM etc ?
Based on the above answers please compare different plans and choose the best one for your business
Please note in phone automation only Pay As You Go & Unlimited Plan offers API access so please choose the plan carefully, if you want to send and receive WhatsApp messages programmatically or want to integrate with your application or any 3rd party applications then please select Pay As You Go or Unlimited.
