To set up WhatsApp Business, download the free app, register a dedicated business number, and complete your business profile with hours, address, and website. A landline works too: choose voice call verification instead of SMS. Then add quick replies, an away message, and desktop access for whoever answers, all at no cost.

Download the app and register your business number

The WhatsApp Business app is free on Android and iOS and runs alongside the personal WhatsApp app on the same phone. During registration you enter a dedicated business number that isn’t already registered for personal WhatsApp. That separation pays off even for a one-person company: customer chats stay out of your personal messages, the channel can be muted after hours, and when an employee moves on, the number stays with the company phone. If you currently use a number personally and want it to become the business line, the app offers to convert the existing account, chat history included. After you enter the number, WhatsApp sends a confirmation code by text, and the account is live.

You can also set up WhatsApp Business on an office landline. Instead of the text message, choose voice call verification during registration: an automated call dials the number you entered and reads the code out loud. For a business with an established office number this is often the better route, because customers keep one number for calls and chat. Just make sure the verification call rings through directly. If it lands in a phone menu or a hold queue, the code never reaches you. One formatting detail matters later for links: note the number with the full country code, for a US business that means 1 plus area code and number, no parentheses.

Fill out your business profile

Right after registration, the app walks you through the business profile: company name, category, a short description, hours, address, email, and your website link. Fill in every field, because customers open the profile on every new chat to check they’re texting the right company. Use the official name your customers know, and pick the category that matches your main service most closely. The hours deserve extra care: your away message can be scheduled around them later, and customers see in the profile when to expect a reply. Address, hours, and website link should match what’s on your website and your Google Business Profile, so customers find the same information everywhere they look you up.

In the app’s business tools you’ll find a short link in the wa.me format with your number, optionally with a pre-filled message like “Hi, I have a question about a quote.” Share that link wherever customers already run into your business: your email signature, your Google Business Profile, your social profiles. The QR code generated right next to it opens the same chat. Printed on a truck wrap, a business card, a yard sign, or the front door, it puts customers into the conversation without typing anything. How the same link becomes a button on your website, and when a contact form still serves you better, is covered in Adding a WhatsApp Business Button to Your Website.

Greeting, away message, and quick replies

Three automations take the repetitive typing off your plate. The greeting message goes out automatically to customers texting you for the first time or after 14 days of silence, for example a short thanks plus a note on when they can expect an answer. The away message covers the hours when nobody is watching the chat and can be tied to the business hours in your profile. Word it so it sets an expectation: “We’ll get back to you next business day” keeps a customer from moving on to a competitor after two hours of silence. Quick replies are saved text blocks you pull up in a chat with a slash: /servicearea can hold the counties you cover, /schedule your standard reply about booking a visit. The more often a question comes in, the more its answer belongs in a saved reply.

Multiple devices: answering from the office

Up to five devices can be linked to one account, and that’s what makes the channel workable day to day. At web.whatsapp.com you sign in an office computer by scanning the QR code from the screen, in the app under Settings and Linked devices. From then on, every chat runs on the phone and the computer in parallel: the phone with the business number stays with the owner or out in the field, while whoever runs the office answers on a full keyboard and pastes quote details straight from the estimate. Customers notice none of this, they text one number the whole time. Just settle internally who owns the inbox on which days, so every inquiry gets exactly one answer instead of two answers or none.

WhatsApp Business app or Business Platform

For most contractors and small service businesses the free app covers the full workload: profile, short link, QR code, quick replies, away message, and linked devices. The WhatsApp Business Platform, often called the API, targets companies that want WhatsApp wired into a CRM or a chatbot, and usually runs through a business solution provider. Since mid-2025 it has been billed per message. For a company where one or two people answer customer messages, that overhead rarely pays off. Revisit the question only when inquiries need to flow into a CRM automatically or a chatbot should handle the first sorting.

A quick note on privacy

Two habits keep the channel clean. First, mention WhatsApp in your website’s privacy policy, so customers know that Meta processes the conversation when they use the chat. Second, let customers send the first message. Pulling phone numbers from your files into a new messaging channel without permission gets you blocked and reported fast, and WhatsApp’s own business messaging policies expect customers to opt in before a business starts the conversation. The short link, the QR code, and a website button all follow that logic on their own: the customer opens the chat, you reply in the same channel.

With the number registered, the profile complete, and the automations in place, the channel is ready. The next step with the most leverage is your website: a clearly visible WhatsApp button next to your contact form catches inquiries where customers already look for you. Inside our subscription web design service, we set that contact channel up as part of the initial build, worded correctly in the privacy policy from day one.