For maximized communication and high effectiveness, it’s imperative to understand what is the difference between WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business. Why? Because each possesses unique capabilities and serves a specific purpose.
What’s more, WhatsApp has an average open rate of 98%, making it a lucrative option for better customer engagement and sales.
Without any further ado, let’s dive into this comprehensive guide on the difference between WhatsApp Messenger and WhatsApp Business app, covering its major features (business tools).
Limited interaction, low engagement, and lack of professionalism can hurt your business. Avoid this by switching to WhatsApp Business API. With personalization, integrations, and automation, it enhances customer interaction, engagement, and brand image.
Major Differences Between WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business Account
The key difference between WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business app is that the standard app is for personal communication, and the business app is to fulfill the purposes of small and large businesses.
Here, you must note that WhatsApp for business is of two types with distinct capabilities– WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Business API Account.
However, individuals often get confused between the three. That’s why we have listed the major difference(s) between WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business (WhatsApp Business VS WhatsApp) in a tabular form for a clearer picture.
Features | WhatsApp | WhatsApp Business | WhatsApp Business API |
|---|---|---|---|
| No | No | Yes | |
| No | No | Yes | |
| Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| No | Yes | Yes | |
| No | No | Yes | |
| No | Yes | Yes | |
| No | Yes | Yes | |
| No | Yes | Yes | |
| No | Yes | Yes | |
| Yes | Yes | No | |
| Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| No | No | Yes | |
| Yes | Yes | Yes |
Now that you exactly know what is the difference between WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business, it’s time to dive deep into their individual capabilities one by one.
1. Chatbots
WhatsApp: Doesn’t support chatbots.
WhatsApp Business: No chatbots.
WhatsApp Business API: 55% of businesses generate more high-quality leads using WhatsApp chatbots. WhatsApp Business API chatbots spot a keyword or phrase in the inbound message and perform the relevant pre-defined action, such as finding specific information or sending a message.
It also lets you communicate with your stakeholders, seamlessly process sales, or share product information with zero human intervention.
2. Integrations
WhatsApp: No integrations available.
WhatsApp Business: Offers zero integrations.
WhatsApp Business API: WhatsApp Business API integrations pull and centralize customer details from platforms like e-commerce or social media websites into one profile. Using this data, you can deliver contextual support or create relevant broadcasts. Integrations also help you automate customer communication and your company’s marketing.
3. Multi-user access
WhatsApp: Two users cannot use a common WhatsApp account simultaneously on different mobiles. However, they may access the same account via WhatsApp web on 4 connected devices.
WhatsApp Business: WhatsApp Business accounts allow your team to share one business account among multiple users—one phone and four connected devices. This is not a great option for businesses with large teams.
WhatsApp Business API: The API lets your team share the same WhatsApp Business account with unlimited users (having access to API). This streamlines communication, improving customer service and business productivity.
4. Business Profile
WhatsApp: Doesn’t support a business profile.
WhatsApp Business: The WhatsApp Business profile allows you to add a business number, description, and cover photo.
WhatsApp Business API: The WhatsApp Business API lets you verify your WhatsApp business profile (green tick), enhancing customer trust. It allows you to enhance your profile with a display business number, address, website, cover photo, description, and shareable link for maximized reach.
5. Verified account
WhatsApp: Doesn’t offer a verified account.
WhatsApp Business: Has no verified account feature.
WhatsApp Business API: The Business API verifies your business profile and provides a green tick against your business name. This instills trust among prospects and customers, as a green tick is a symbol of authenticity and credibility. Verified accounts can also choose to show their business name instead of the number in the customer’s inbox.
6. Marketing messages
WhatsApp: Has no policy regarding marketing messages.
WhatsApp Business: Lets you manually create and send marketing messages to your prospects, which can be a hassle.
WhatsApp Business API: Allows you to create and use marketing message templates after getting them approved from WhatsApp. This helps you send messages instantly without draining time in curating contextual marketing messages for each customer.
7. Product Catalog
WhatsApp: Doesn’t support product catalogs.
WhatsApp Business: Offers product catalogs for businesses to enlist and show their products with images, descriptions, and prices to their customers or prospects.
WhatsApp Business API: 75% of customers are inclined to purchase after engaging with product catalogs. API allows businesses to create detailed product catalogs with all the products and their relevant information.
This creates a seamless customer experience, encouraging customers to purchase more. In addition, API allows you to connect your product catalogs available on Instagram and Facebook to your WhatsApp Business app.
8. Auto response
WhatsApp: Cannot send an automated response.
WhatsApp Business: Limited to sending automated messages or greetings to new users, quick replies to frequently asked questions, and away messages to customers messaging during off hours.
WhatsApp Business API: Lets you program business-specific automation. It allows you to send automated messages on WhatsApp, renewal reminders, marketing campaign messages, and personalized promotions, driving high revenue.
What’s more, you can send auto-delivery updates, payment approvals, and appointment reminders, reducing your team’s workload.
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9. Office hours
WhatsApp: Doesn’t allow you to set office hours.
WhatsApp Business: Enables you to set office hours so senders messaging outside of it are notified with an automated away message.
WhatsApp Business API: API automatically delivers your personalized away message when some messages after the pre-set business hours, enhancing customer experience. Also, it lets you automate delivery updates, application drop-off reminders, and order confirmation so the customer experience isn’t interrupted during off hours.
10. Platform
WhatsApp: Has an app loaded with basic chat and call features.
WhatsApp Business: Comes with an app that offers business features.
WhatsApp Business API: Requires you to create a business account through a robust WhatsApp Business Solution Provider (BSP) like ControlHippo. You then get access to multiple automation features and powerful chatbots for easy and streamlined communication.
11. Bulk and Broadcast messages
WhatsApp: Limits broadcast messages to 256 contacts at once.
WhatsApp Business: Allows you to send messages to your contacts (256) simultaneously, but those who haven’t saved your number won’t receive it, limiting your reach.
WhatsApp Business API: Lets you send up to 100K personalized messages to multiple accounts in bulk simultaneously with pre-approved message templates. Also, even those who haven’t saved your number would receive it. Such WhatsApp bulk messages messages cut down your workload and accelerate sales by maximizing reach with minimum effort.
12. Interactive messages
WhatsApp: Doesn’t support interactive messages.
WhatsApp Business: No interactive messages feature.
WhatsApp Business API: Allows you to send messages with multiple clickable CTAs & quick reply buttons, so customers can easily find what they’re looking for and are pumped to take action. List messages, reply buttons, single-product and multi-product messages are some interactive messages you can send using API for an enhanced customer experience.
13. Message insights and analytics
WhatsApp: Message insights and analytics are not available.
WhatsApp Business: Offers basic message insights like the number of messages sent, delivered, seen, read, and received.
WhatsApp Business API: Enables you to gauge key metrics such as response time, message delivery rates, and customer interaction patterns, painting a clear picture of customers’ preferences. Using this data, you can easily mold your strategies to deliver a better customer experience.
That was all about WhatsApp Business VS personal that you need to know before adopting WhatsApp as your main business communication channel.
Tips for WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business Effective Usage
Businesses can efficiently utilize WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business by following specific best practices and strategies, which we will outline below.
- Personalize your communication to build stronger customer relationships.
- Use labels in WhatsApp Business to organize and track conversations.
- Enable WhatsApp Business API for automated responses to improve customer support.
- Leverage WhatsApp Business to create a professional profile with business details.
- Schedule messages on WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business for better engagement.
- Use the catalog feature on WhatsApp Business to showcase products and services.
- Regularly back up your chats on WhatsApp to avoid data loss.
WhatsApp Business Benefits
Now that you’ve understood the difference between WhatsApp and WhatsApp business and identified useful tips for both WhatsApp business vs WhatsApp. Let us now understand the top benefits of WhatsApp business:
1. Professional Business Profile
WhatsApp Business allows you to create a detailed business profile, displaying essential information such as your address, website, and contact details.
This verified profile increases your brand’s credibility, helping customers trust your business and easily find important information, improving their overall experience with your brand.
2. Automated Messaging
You can set up automated messages like greeting messages for new customers or away messages for after-hours inquiries.
This feature ensures that customers receive timely responses even when you’re unavailable, improving engagement and customer satisfaction by providing consistent communication around the clock.
3. Labels for Organization
WhatsApp Business lets you organize customer interactions with color-coded labels like “new customer” or “pending order.”
This feature improves workflow efficiency, enabling you to prioritize conversations, track the status of ongoing inquiries, and provide better customer service by staying organized.
4. Catalog Feature
The catalog feature allows businesses to showcase products or services directly on WhatsApp. Customers can browse items, view images, prices, and descriptions without leaving the app.
This streamlined shopping experience simplifies the buying process, making it more convenient for customers to inquire and place orders.
5. Quick Replies
With the WhatsApp quick replies feature, businesses can store and reuse frequently used messages, like answers to common customer questions.
This saves time by reducing the need to type repetitive responses manually, leading to faster replies and more efficient customer support, boosting overall satisfaction.
What is WhatsApp Business API?
The WhatsApp Business API is an advanced communications platform designed to enable medium and large businesses to manage their interactions at scale. It offers features that go beyond those of the free version, with extensive integration, automation, and high-volume messaging support.
With WhatsApp Business API, businesses can send notifications, automate replies via chatbots, and provide uninterrupted customer support. It is further capable of adding communication value by being integrated with CRM systems and other business tools without having to install a third-party application.
Some key features of WhatsApp Business API include automated messaging, rich media support, end-to-end encryption, multi-agent support, CRM and chatbot integration, broadcasting, and notifications.
Benefits of WhatsApp Business API
Using the WhatsApp Business API, companies can change the way they communicate with their customers. The following are some of the primary benefits:
1. Faster & Convenient Customer Support
Customers today demand quick responses, and the WhatsApp Business API allows one to provide this instant support. Automated messages and AI-created chatbots can handle basic inquiries, while human agents may handle more complicated queries. Response times are sped up, and customer satisfaction increases.
2. Personalized Customer Interactions
Compared to SMS or traditional email, the WhatsApp Business API allows for personalized messaging based on customer tastes, order histories, and past interactions. This level of personalization makes customers feel valued and increases engagement.
3. Secure Messaging
The service employs end-to-end encryption, which guarantees that messages between businesses and potential clients will always be private and secured. So, users can trust this channel with sensitive information like order confirmations, invoices, and customer care particulars.
4. High Open Rates
Compared to emails or SMS, WhatsApp messages have a 98% higher open rate! Customers are much more likely to read and respond to WhatsApp messages than to other forms of communication. So, WhatsApp will prove most beneficial as a communication medium.
5. Rich Media and Interactive Elements
Images, videos, documents, and interactive buttons are all supported on the WhatsApp Business API. This makes it very easy for catalogs of products, how-tos, and promotional deals to be shared. Quick replies and call-to-action buttons direct customers seamlessly through the buying process.
6. Scalable Communication for Large Businesses
One major upside of the WhatsApp Business API is its ability to handle a large number of messages. A company could integrate it into its CRM system and customer support platform, allowing multiple agents to chat with several customers simultaneously.
7. Cost-Effective and Global Reach
Since WhatsApp is used by over 2 billion people worldwide, businesses can reach customers in different countries without paying expensive SMS or call charges. It is cost-effective as a means of creating customer engagement with international communities.
Wrapping Up
So, that was the difference between normal WhatsApp and business WhatsApp (WhatsApp VS WhatsApp Business). WhatsApp (personal account), WhatsApp Business, and WhatsApp Business API offer distinct capabilities and features that serve a unique purpose and business size.
WhatsApp Business API is loaded with business tools that improve customer engagement and interactions, making it a great fit for growing businesses and large enterprises. They can cater to their huge customer base seamlessly.
To fully leverage WhatsApp Business API, select a reputed and robust Business Solution Provider like ControlHippo. From offering data-driven insights for enhanced customer satisfaction and expanding reach to ensuring seamless workflow integration, ControlHippo does it all. Start a free trial today!
Frequently Asked Questions
WhatsApp Business is a better choice for businesses because it has features specialized for small and medium-sized businesses, such as company profiles, automated messages, and catalog creation.
An individual cannot use WhatsApp Business as normal WhatsApp as a WhatsApp Business account is not the same as a normal WhatsApp account. WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business can be on the same phone, but they have to use separate phone numbers.
The disadvantages of a WhatsApp Business account include:
- Inability to use VoIP numbers for registration
- Restriction to mobile numbers only
- Limitation to one active business account per device
- Potential for customer annoyance with higher message volume
- Concerns over privacy and trust due to association with Facebook
Yes, WhatsApp can be used for business, but it's not suitable for larger or growing companies. WhatsApp offers a separate app called WhatsApp Business designed especially for small and medium-sized businesses.
Updated : March 23, 2025
Naina Khare is an experienced content writer specializing in business communication solutions. Her expertise in omnichannel communication shines through in her clear, engaging content. Naina’s writing helps businesses navigate and enhance their communication strategies, making complex concepts more accessible.
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