Blog / API & technical

SendApp is a Meta partner: what that actually means if you use WhatsApp Business

If you are searching for “SendApp Meta partner” you are probably asking the right question before signing: does this platform actually work with Meta, or does it just say so? Few people ask it, and everybody should — because it is the difference between a business number that holds up and one that stops working one day.

“Meta partner” is not one thing

This is where almost all the confusion starts. On the WhatsApp Business Platform there is no single badge: there are different roles, with different obligations, and sales material tends to call them all the same.

• Tech Provider: whoever registers on the platform to build software connected to the official API. It is the entry level and you get it by registering.
• Solution Partner (formerly BSP): has a contractual relationship with Meta, can hold credit lines and invoice platform services directly to its own customers.
• Meta Business Partner: the programme with a listing in Meta's official directory, subject to requirements and review.

SendApp works on Meta's official WhatsApp Business Platform as a Meta Business Partner. That is why your number gets verified, templates go through Meta's approval and conversations are billed to you by Meta directly, at Meta's rate.

Rule of thumb: if a provider says “we are a Meta partner” without specifying the role, ask. It is not pedantry — it is the one question that separates whoever has a relationship with Meta from whoever has only written the word on a website.

What changes for you, concretely

The partnership is not a badge for the homepage: it changes four things you feel every day.

1. The number does not get blocked

Software that automates WhatsApp Web breaks the terms of service, and sooner or later the number is limited or shut down. On the official API the number is registered and verified: sends go through an authorised channel, so the problem does not arise. It is why nobody who has lost a number once ever goes back.

2. Promotional messages go through approval

On the official API a campaign is sent with a template approved by Meta. It looks like a constraint, and it is instead the reason it arrives: the message is declared for what it is, and is not treated as spam.

3. Conversations are billed by Meta, at Meta's price

This is the point worth looking at closely when you compare quotes. On the official API the cost of conversations is set by Meta and billed by Meta. If a platform adds a markup on top, that markup is theirs, not Meta's — and you pay it on every send, forever.

4. The green tick becomes possible

The official account badge is requested only on a number registered on the platform. It is neither automatic nor guaranteed, but outside the official API it is not even on the table.

Five checks you can run yourself

They apply to SendApp as to anyone else. Ten minutes, before you sign.

• Ask how the number is connected. If the answer is “scan a QR code with your phone”, that is not the official API: it is automated WhatsApp Web.
• Ask whether the phone has to stay on and connected. On the official API the phone is irrelevant: the number lives on Meta's infrastructure.
• Ask who invoices the conversations. If the platform invoices them rather than Meta, ask to see the markup.
• Ask to see the template panel and the approval status. On an official platform it exists; on an unofficial tool it makes no sense.
• Ask for the exact role on the Meta platform and, if there is one, the link to the listing in the official directory.

If a provider gets uncomfortable on the first or the third question, you already have your answer.

Why we are writing this

Because it is the question we get most often on the phone, and because the market is full of tools promising the same results at half the price by working outside the rules. They work until they do not. Then the number is blocked, and two years of contacts stay on the other side.