Conversational marketing is generating a lot of noise. Less noise surrounds what it actually takes to send a WhatsApp message on behalf of your business: what the infrastructure looks like, what the rules are, and what you’re committing to before you start.
Here’s what every business owner and marketing lead should understand before exploring these channels.
WhatsApp Business: the app versus the platform
Most people know the WhatsApp Business app — the free download that gives small businesses a profile and basic messaging tools. It works for simple, manual customer service for one user and limited messages. Simply put, it doesn’t scale or allow multiple users; it’s tied to one WA number phone.
Businesses who are serious about customer messaging need the WhatsApp Business Platform (formerly the Business API); Meta’s infrastructure for sending messages programmatically at volume, through approved software.
To access it, you need:
- A verified Meta Business Account
- Access through a Business Solution Provider (BSP)
- A dedicated phone number with no prior WhatsApp registration. Existing numbers can’t simply be switched over
- A display name reviewed and approved by Meta
Message templates and what you can actually send
The Platform distinguishes between two message types.
- Service messages: this is user-initiated, and business is expected to reply within a 24-hour window, with no template restriction.
- Template messages: these are business-initiated, or anything sent outside that 24-hour window. Must be pre-approved by Meta before use, and fall into three categories:
- Marketing: promotional content, offers, re-engagement. Requires explicit opt-in.
- Utility: transactional messages tied to a customer action: confirmations, reminders, updates.
- Authentication: OTPs and verification codes.
Every template is reviewed before it can be used. Approval typically takes minutes; the first time you send for approval, this will take up to 24 hours.
RCS: what it is and how it works
RCS (Rich Communication Services) is the upgrade to SMS, available on smartphones. This was initiated by Google and has been supported on Android for several years; Apple added it in iOS 18 in 2024, giving it near-universal reach without requiring any app download.
What RCS enables beyond SMS:
- Rich cards: image or video, title, description, and action buttons
- Carousels: up to ten rich cards in a horizontally scrollable message; total media must stay under 100 MB
- Suggested replies and actions: predefined buttons triggering replies, URLs, calls, or location sharing
- Verified sender profile: brand name and logo in the conversation, not a phone number. This requires approval and is key to branding and trust with end-users.
- Read receipts, engagement reporting and typing indicators
To send RCS business messages, a sender profile must be verified through Google’s Business Communications Developer Console: brand details, logo, website, and number ownership confirmed. The process is more involved than WhatsApp’s and can take weeks.
The template challenge
Each channel has its own content rules and formatting specifications. A template built for WhatsApp doesn’t simply transfer to RCS. Meta’s requirements differ from Google’s & Apple’s. Getting templates compliant and effective across multiple channels simultaneously is the kind of work that sits at the intersection of design, technical specification, and platform knowledge.
It’s also where most businesses quietly give up, or ship something that’s technically non-compliant and wonder why delivery rates are poor.
Where Lyberate comes in
This is the problem Lyberate is built to solve.
Lyberate is an AI-powered mobile engagement platform that lets businesses create and send rich, branded content, called “stories”, across WhatsApp, RCS, and SMS.
It absorbs the compliance and formatting complexity so businesses can focus on the message, not the channel specs.
Three key things it doess:
- Create – AI-assisted story creation from a prompt, producing on-brand content in seconds, saving time
- Share automatic conversion in seconds into the correct formatted templates for each channel, ready to review and send
- Engage – optimises and delivers on the best channel or uses auto-pilot feature to send on the channel that is active for end user. Track engagement data across channels.
RCS adoption grew 550% in 2024. WhatsApp has 3.3 billion monthly active users. The infrastructure is ready. The barrier has always been the overhead of using these channels properly. That’s what Lyberate removes.
See it in action
We worked with Lyberate on their website and platform UI, if you’d like to see what that looks like, visit lyberate.com.
On Friday, 15th May, 12–1 pm, we’ll be joined by Lyberate’s team to run a live demo, walking through how the platform works end-to-end, from story creation to multi-channel delivery.
If you can’t make it, visit Lyberate’s website and request a personal demo.