Why are WhatsApp APIs sold like SaaS instead of infrastructure?
Recently we implemented WhatsApp for things like Otp, alerts, or reports for our clients, I hit the same pattern:
You don’t just get an API — you get a full SaaS product Dashboards, chatbots, CRMs, limited functionality via APIs… even if you don’t need them and on top of that, markup on Meta’s per-message pricing.
But for most use cases, WhatsApp is just transactional infra — like email or SMS.
So I started building something with a different approach:
\- Treat WhatsApp like infrastructure, not SaaS.
\- No markup — pay Meta directly
\- Just API + webhooks (no forced UI layer)
\- Same schema as Meta (no lock-in)
\- Flat infra fee instead of per-message margin
Before going deeper, I wanted a sanity check from people who’ve actually built these things -
Do you also see WhatsApp as infra APIs to integrate in your product ? Or do most teams actually prefer the all-in-one SaaS layer?
Would love honest takes (including why this might be a bad idea). Thank you.