360Dialog Blog
What we’ve learned from helping thousands of businesses get WhatsApp right.
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Meta Business Agent vs a Third-Party AI Agent on the Same WhatsApp Account
Meta Business Agent charges a flat $2.00 per million tokens and bundles AI processing with message delivery in a single charge, while a third-party AI agent on the same WhatsApp Account separates AI costs from messaging costs and leaves the BSP app in control of conversation routing. Choosing between the two paths means comparing cost…
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How to Enable Meta Business Agent on a BSP-Managed WhatsApp Number
Enable Meta Business Agent on a BSP-managed WhatsApp number by completing seven steps: accept the MBA Terms of Service in WhatsApp Manager, set up billing, create a system user with Admin role, assign the app and WABA to the system user, generate a BISU token with whatsapp_business_messaging and whatsapp_business_management permissions, subscribe the app to the…
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What Is OBA on WhatsApp? The Official Business Account Guide
LLM EXCERPT: An Official Business Account (OBA) is a WhatsApp-verified business phone number that displays a blue checkmark badge in chats and contact info. Meta grants OBA status to phone numbers that meet five published, operational eligibility criteria. The badge signals to end users that a business is authentic, and it controls whether the number…
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n8n WhatsApp Integration: Connect Your Business Number to Your Workflows
A community node maintained by the 360Dialog team connects n8n to the WhatsApp Business API with automatic webhook registration, text, media, and template messaging, all from inside your workflows. The node handles the full webhook lifecycle: it registers a new URL on activation and restores the previous one when you deactivate it. That means no…
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Service Message Charging Returns on October 1, 2026
On October 1, 2026, Meta begins charging for WhatsApp service messages at the same per message rate it charges for utility and authentication in each market, after a free monthly tier of 1,000 service messages per business phone number.[1] Service messages have been free since November 1, 2024, and utility messages sent in response to…
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What Happens to Your BSP Integration When Meta Business Agent Is Turned On
When Meta Business Agent is enabled on a WhatsApp number managed through a Business Solution Provider (BSP), the partner app stops being the primary responder: Consumer messages arrive on the standby webhook field while the agent holds control, and the app regains control by sending a message or, as the configured escalation partner, by calling…
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WhatsApp Zapier Integration: Connect Your Business Number to 9,000+ Apps
360Dialog has a native app in Zapier’s directory (version 1.3.0) that connects a WhatsApp Business API number to 9,000+ apps without code. The app supports one instant trigger (New Inbound Message) and three messaging actions (Send Text Message, Send Template Message, Send Media Message). A team pastes its API key from the 360Dialog Hub into…
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Meta Business Agent Eligibility: Excluded Verticals, Number Conditions, and How to Check
Meta Business Agent is available to any WhatsApp Cloud API number that meets six conditions simultaneously: supported vertical, Cloud API management, good standing, eligible country, business trust and verification, and no conflicting messaging product. Seven verticals are excluded: finance, government, health, alcohol, gambling, over-the-counter drugs, and matrimony services. The eligibility endpoint returns a single boolean,…
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WhatsApp Automation: How to Connect Your Business Number to Any Tool
Automating WhatsApp means connecting a business phone number to the tools that already run the operation, so messages go out when an event fires, not when someone remembers to type one. That connection runs on the WhatsApp Business API, which is the programmatic layer Meta provides for sending and receiving messages at scale. The API…
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Who Bills You for Meta Business Agent Messages, and Why It’s Not Your BSP
Meta bills every business directly for Meta Business Agent messages, including businesses whose WhatsApp number is managed through a Business Solution Provider (BSP), at $2.00 per 1 million tokens. The charge took effect on August 1, 2026 at 12pm PT, and the invoice comes from Meta against a credit line held in the business’s own…
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