Move from WATI to your own Meta account

Moving from WATI to a Tech Provider setup means keeping your WhatsApp Business Account and number, and changing the software that sits between your code and Meta. The number, approved templates, quality rating and tier belong to Meta's records, so they can carry over. Inbox history, chatbot flows and contact lists do not. This post gives the order of work and the cutover.

What does the move involve?

You change three things: who holds the connection, what your code sends, and where webhooks go. You do not change your customers' chats, because those live on WhatsApp.

The reason to move is usually structure, not features. A platform such as WATI is built for teams who work in an inbox. According to WATI's pricing page, its Growth plan lists "10k API calls/mon, No Webhooks", while Pro lists "200k API calls/mon, Limited Webhooks". If your product needs to send and receive at volume from code, you may want an API with no plan gates. The trade-off is real: WhaBuzz has no inbox, no campaign builder and no chatbot builder, so anything your team did in WATI's interface must be rebuilt or replaced before you leave.

Read the WhaBuzz vs WATI comparison first if you are not sure you should move at all.

Who owns your WhatsApp Business Account?

Everything else depends on this answer. Open Meta Business Manager, go to WhatsApp accounts, and look at who owns the account your number sits on.

If the account belongs to your business, you can connect it to a new provider yourself. If your provider owns it, ask them to transfer it to your business, or migrate the number to an account you own using Meta's number migration. This is the slowest step because it needs a human on the other side, so start it first.

The ownership model is also why billing changes. According to Meta's Solution Provider overview, a Tech Provider setup works like this:

Unlike Solution Partners, however, Tech Providers do not have credit lines. Instead, clients onboarded by Tech Providers must provide their own payment method after onboarding is complete. Meta will then bill these clients for API usage, and the Tech Provider will bill for other services.

For the differences between provider types, see BSP vs Tech Provider vs Cloud API.

What carries over and what does not?

Per the WhaBuzz migration guide, three things carry over:

• Your WhatsApp Business Account and its numbers, if the account is yours.
• Approved templates, by name and language, imported after you connect.
• Quality rating, messaging tier and display name, which belong to the number at Meta.

Four things do not:

• Provider features such as campaign builders, chatbot flows, inboxes, contact lists and opt-in tracking.
• Provider message ids. Message history stays with your old provider; WhaBuzz starts its log on connection.
• Your provider's request format.
• Your provider's webhook format.

Opt-outs deserve their own line. WhaBuzz does not manage opt-in or opt-out lists. If a customer sends "STOP", you receive it as a message.inbound event and you decide what to do. Export or recreate your opt-out list in your own system before cutover, and check what your WATI plan lets you export, because we did not confirm that on WATI's public pages.

How do you connect the number and import templates?

Connect the number with Meta's Embedded Signup popup in the WhaBuzz console, or call POST /v1/numbers/connect with a system-user token if you already hold one. WhaBuzz documents POST /v1/numbers/migrate for moving a number from a different provider's account to yours.

Then import your templates with POST /v1/templates/sync. Templates keep their names, languages and approval status, so you do not resubmit them to Meta. Check each one after the sync, and keep an eye on category changes, because Meta can re-categorise a template and that changes what each send costs.

On cost, compare like with like. Per Meta's rate card for India from 1 Oct 2026, marketing messages cost ₹0.8631 and utility messages ₹0.115. WATI's Growth rate card, dated 1 Oct 2026, lists ₹1.0357 and ₹0.1495 for India. WATI does not itemise the gap. After the move, Meta bills its own charges to your account at Meta's rate and WhaBuzz charges ₹500 a month for the first number, excluding GST. See WhatsApp Business API pricing in India for the full picture.

How do you change your send and inbound code?

For sends, Meta's body replaces WATI's. WATI's API and event names are its own (for example templateMessageSent_v2 in its webhook reference), so the shape changes. A template send becomes Meta's request:

{
  "from": "1013622581841046",
  "to": "16505551234",
  "type": "template",
  "template": {
    "name": "renewal_reminder",
    "language": { "code": "en" },
    "components": [{ "type": "body", "parameters": [{ "type": "text", "text": "Kerry" }] }]
  }
}

If your old integration flattened variables into a list, you will build components[].parameters[] yourself. Meta's message reference documents every field.

For inbound, the data field of a WhaBuzz event holds Meta's change value and raw holds Meta's full POST. Add signature verification and deduplicate on dedupe_key. The webhook handler patterns are in WhatsApp webhooks that never lose an event.

Errors and statuses change too. Errors are Meta's, not a provider's translated codes. Statuses arrive as Meta's sent, delivered, read and failed, one event each and unordered.

In what order should you cut over?

Cut over in this order, and keep WATI running until the last step is proven.

1. Confirm account ownership, or finish the transfer.
2. Connect the number and sync templates.
3. Add a webhook endpoint to WhaBuzz and verify it. Leave your old provider's webhook receiving.
4. Ship the new send code behind a flag, and test it on a number you control.
5. Rebuild or replace anything your team did in the inbox.
6. Pick a quiet hour, subscribe the account to WhaBuzz, send a test message to the number, and confirm a message.inbound event arrives.
7. Switch the flag for live sends.
8. Cancel WATI only after you have seen real traffic on WhaBuzz.

The reason for the last rule is in the migration guide. WhatsApp delivers inbound messages to one webhook subscription per app at a time, and cutting a number over leaves a short window where inbound messages go to neither provider. For comparison, WATI's webhook documentation says failed deliveries are retried up to 144 attempts at 10-minute intervals, which is 24 hours. WhaBuzz retries for 24 hours too, per its webhooks guide. Neither helps for messages that arrive while no subscription points at your endpoint.

When should you not move yet?

Do not move if your team lives in an inbox and nobody writes code. WhaBuzz is an API only, so you would have nothing to operate. Also wait if you cannot get ownership of the account yet, or if you rely on WATI features you have not replaced.

WhaBuzz went live on 16 Oct 2026 and traffic is still low. Its reliability page states a target, not a track record: 99.9% of events to a healthy endpoint within 60 seconds is an SLO. If you need a long operating history, weigh that before you move.

Related reading

• Migrating from Plivo or WATI, the full steps
• Numbers and Embedded Signup
• Templates
• WhaBuzz vs WATI
• BSP vs Tech Provider vs Cloud API
• WhatsApp webhooks that never lose an event