Guide
You need a verified Meta business portfolio to send on the WhatsApp Business API. For a doctor in private practice the easiest path is a free Udyam certificate as a sole proprietorship — Aadhaar and PAN at udyamregistration.gov.in, usually same-day, no GST and no certificate of incorporation needed. With that certificate, you register the Meta portfolio in your clinic's name and connect either the WhatsApp Business app number you already use (Coexistence) or a new API number.
14 days free. No card. Cancel any time.
The short answer
To get the WhatsApp Business API in India, you need a Meta business account, one document that proves your business is real, and a phone number. If you are not GST-registered — most small clinics aren't — Meta accepts a free MSME Udyam certificate, made from your Aadhaar and PAN at udyamregistration.gov.in and usually issued the same day. You submit it for Meta business verification, which usually takes two to three days; once it clears, you create a WhatsApp Business account in your business's name and connect your number. A number already running the WhatsApp Business app can be linked as it is, keeping its chats. After that, every automatic message must be an approved template, and Meta bills you per message — about ₹0.10 per appointment message, billed by Meta directly once your own number is live.
First, the difference
Free, on your phone. You reply by hand, one conversation at a time, with a greeting and an away message you set in the app. No software can send messages through it.
What lets software send messages automatically — confirmations, reminders, review requests — and lets a whole team answer from a shared inbox. It needs Meta business verification and approved message templates, and Meta charges per message.
Documents
It comes down to one document proving the business is real. Personal documents such as PAN or Aadhaar on their own are not enough.
The certificate showing your GSTIN, legal business name and registered address. The name and address must match your Meta Business Manager details exactly, or the verification gets rejected.
Below the GST threshold, an MSME Udyam registration certificate works instead. It is free, issued at udyamregistration.gov.in with Aadhaar and PAN, and usually issued the same day. Same rule: the name and address must match.
Step by step
Free, at udyamregistration.gov.in, with just your Aadhaar and PAN. Usually issued the same day. No GST number or certificate of incorporation is needed; if you are GST-registered, your GST certificate also works.
In Meta Business Manager → Business Settings → Security Center, upload the certificate. The business name and address must match your Meta details exactly. It usually takes two to three days.
The WhatsApp Business account sits inside your own Meta business portfolio, so the number and the account belong to you, not to a provider.
Use a new number that isn't on WhatsApp, or link the number you already run the WhatsApp Business app on, keeping its chats and contacts.
Every automatic message — a confirmation, a reminder, a review request — is submitted as a template and approved by Meta before it can be sent. Usually hours, sometimes a day or two.
Your existing number
Meta's Coexistence signup links a number that already runs the WhatsApp Business app. The number stays the same, your chat history and contacts come across, and you can keep replying from the app on the clinic phone while software sends the automatic messages alongside you. Because there is no new number for Meta to verify, it sends the same day once your business is verified.
Because we create your WhatsApp Business API account inside your own Meta business portfolio rather than ours, it was never on loan. If you stop paying us you are left with a verified business portfolio and WhatsApp Business API account, on your own number, in your clinic's name — yours to use with any other software, or on its own. The only things you lose when you leave are us and the AI booking assistant.
Costs
Meta charges per message, by category. Appointment messages — confirmations and reminders — are the cheapest, about ₹0.10 each in India at the time of writing; marketing messages cost several times that. Registering is free, and FormAlert adds no markup — Meta bills you directly.
For clinics
Meta verifies the business behind every WhatsApp Business API number, and there are two ways through it. If your clinic's Meta business is already verified, there is nothing to do first — you onboard the WhatsApp Business app you already run, keep the number and the chat history, and start sending the same day. If it is not, you need one document: an MSME Udyam certificate. You get this yourself at udyamregistration.gov.in, as a sole proprietorship, from your personal Aadhaar and PAN — it is free and usually issued the same day. No GST number, no certificate of incorporation and no other registration, which is why it is the best fit for a doctor in private practice: most clinics in India have none of those, and they are not needed. With that certificate FormAlert sets up a verified Meta business portfolio in your clinic's name — Coexistence and the API are both blocked without it. We are an official Meta Tech Provider, so we take you through Meta's signup and submit your message templates rather than leaving you to work out their forms. FormAlert is an official Meta Tech Provider.
Common questions
Related
14 days free on our number while yours is verified. No card.
14 days free. No card. Cancel any time.
In short
FormAlert is a scheduling system for clinics in India that run on WhatsApp, built for doctors in independent private practice and small clinics. It runs the appointment side of a practice — online, QR code and WhatsApp booking, walk-ins and phone bookings in the same queue, automated WhatsApp reminders and Google review requests — so that patients get booked, reminded and asked for a review without anyone at the clinic typing a message, and the clinic's Google rating reflects the care it gives. FormAlert is an official Meta Tech Provider, which is what lets it create a WhatsApp Business API account in the clinic's own name rather than renting the clinic space on somebody else's. Patients book from a web page, by scanning a QR code at the clinic, or by messaging the clinic on WhatsApp, and the booking form can carry whatever questions the practice wants to ask, with photos and documents attached. The clinic confirms the appointment and marks the visit complete; FormAlert sends the confirmation, reminds the patient 24 hours and 2 hours before the visit, and asks for a Google review afterwards. Once the clinic's own WhatsApp number is connected, an AI booking assistant, included with the subscription, answers patients at any hour, books from the clinic's real calendar, and hands anything else to the clinic's staff. There is one plan, at ₹1,999/month or ₹17,999/year — the yearly price works out at ₹1,500 a month and saves ₹5,989 — and everything is on it: all of those messages, the clinic's own WhatsApp Business API number and templates, which Meta then bills the clinic for directly with no FormAlert markup, as many doctors as the clinic has with a calendar each, a login each for them and the front desk, a waiting-room queue display, a patient portal, and patients rescheduling or cancelling themselves inside WhatsApp. There is no setup fee, and nothing is priced per doctor, per seat or per booking. The WhatsApp number a clinic sends from changes once: during the 14-day free trial, which takes no card and includes 50 credits, messages go from FormAlert's shared WhatsApp number at ₹1 a message against that allowance, and the clinic can connect its own number, during the trial or after subscribing, through Meta's Embedded Signup inside FormAlert — a clinic already using the WhatsApp Business app can link the number it already runs, bringing its chats across — after which every message carries the clinic's own name. Meta verifies the business behind that number; a clinic whose Meta business is already verified connects the same day, and one that is not registered yet uses a free MSME Udyam certificate, issued from Aadhaar and PAN and usually the same day at udyamregistration.gov.in, or a GST certificate if it has one. FormAlert files that verification and the message templates with Meta on the clinic's behalf. Because that WhatsApp account is created inside the clinic's own Meta business portfolio, a clinic that stops paying FormAlert keeps the number and the account and can use them with any other software.