Since Meta opened the Cloud API, three routes exist and the old advice is wrong. Building directly is genuinely viable now, which changes when a platform is worth paying for — and the honest answer is that it depends on whether you have an engineer to spare.
| Question | Cloud API direct | A BSP reseller | A platform like Zanii |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Meta's conversation rates, nothing on top. The cheapest per message, always. | Meta's rates plus a markup, often 15–30%, sometimes with a monthly minimum. | A subscription plus Meta's rates. More than direct, comparable to a BSP, with the software included. |
| What you build | Everything. A webhook receiver that acks in 100 ms, an inbox, template management across every WhatsApp account, a campaign runner that respects the tier, retry and deduplication. Realistically three to six engineer-months before it is not embarrassing. | Depends entirely on the BSP. Some give you a real console; many give you an API wrapper and a spreadsheet, and you build the console yourself anyway. | Nothing, to start. An API and webhooks are there when you need to connect your own systems. |
| Who owns the WhatsApp account | You, unambiguously. | Check. Some register it in their own Business Manager, which means you cannot take your number when you leave. This is the single most important question to ask a BSP and the one they answer least directly. | You. Registered in your own Meta Business Manager — we say so in the terms because it is the thing worth writing down. |
| Who answers at 2am when a campaign stalls | You do. Meta's support is a form, and the answer is usually days away. | Varies enormously. Ask for the SLA in writing. | We do, in Arabic or English, Sunday to Thursday. Outside those hours, the console shows you what Meta is doing so at least you know whether it is us. |
| Proof of what was sent | Your own database, which is exactly as convincing to a disputing customer as their screenshot. | Their database. Same problem, one step further away. | A signed receipt on an append-only public log, verified in the reader's browser rather than by us. |
| When it is the wrong choice | When nobody on your team wants to own a webhook receiver forever. The build is the easy part; the maintenance as Meta changes things is the cost. | When you need software rather than access. A reseller sells you a connection, not a console. | When you send a hundred messages a month from one number and one person answers them. The free WhatsApp Business app is better and costs nothing. |
You have engineers, WhatsApp is core to the product rather than a channel bolted on, and you would rather own the integration than rent it. This is a genuinely good choice and most articles pretend it is not.
You need access and a contract in your own region, and you already have the software you intend to plug it into. Ask who owns the WhatsApp account before you sign.
You have several numbers or several people, you want an inbox and campaigns on Monday rather than in three months, and you would rather your engineers built your product than somebody else's messaging layer.