Indian businesses answer WhatsApp. They do not answer cold email at anything like the same rate. That makes it the most valuable outbound channel in this market and the one with the most ways to get yourself banned. This page is about the rules — what they are, which ones Rechlio enforces for you, and what the whole thing actually costs.
With email, you can send anything to anyone and find out later whether it worked. WhatsApp inverts that: the platform decides in advance what you are allowed to send, to whom, and when. Treating it as a cheaper email channel is the single most common way a business loses its number.
The upside of the same trade is that a WhatsApp message that does go out gets read. The constraint and the reply rate are the same fact.
You need a lawful basis for holding the number and for messaging it. A public listing is not, by itself, consent to be marketed at. Rechlio enforces opt-in verification and gives contacts a way out, because the alternative shows up as blocks, and blocks show up as a falling quality rating on your number.
A business that has not messaged you in the last 24 hours can only be reached with a message template Meta has reviewed and approved in advance. Rechlio checks the template exists and is approved before a campaign can launch, rather than discovering it at send time.
Once someone messages you, a 24-hour customer service window opens and free-form replies are allowed until it closes. Rechlio enforces the close server-side: a free-form message to a contact whose window has expired is refused with an explanation, not silently attempted. It is the one rule people most often forget, and forgetting it costs a send, a quality-rating hit, and sometimes a restriction.
Rechlio is a Meta Tech Provider. Practically, that means you connect your own WhatsApp Business account through Meta’s embedded signup, and Meta bills you directly for the conversations you have. Rechlio charges ₹0 per message on top.
Most WhatsApp tools in the Indian market sit between you and Meta and add a per-message or per-conversation markup, which is why their pricing pages are quoted in paise per message. There is no such line here — the other channels are what Rechlio charges for.
Meta’s own conversation pricing, billed to you by Meta, at whatever their current published rate is for your category and country. Rechlio does not resell it, mark it up, or estimate it for you.
The number, the WhatsApp Business account, the quality rating and the message history are on your Meta account rather than a shared one. A tool that sends from its own numbers can take them away; this cannot.
Meta’s Business and Commerce policies are the actual authority, and they change. The stable version, which has not changed in years:
And the things that end numbers:
Rechlio’s acceptable use policy is specific about what is and is not allowed on the platform, across every channel.
The default send window is Monday to Friday, 9:30am–6:30pm IST. A campaign launched outside it queues and starts on the next working morning rather than waking somebody at 2am — which is both a courtesy and, for phone and SMS channels, a regulatory matter under TRAI’s rules on commercial communication hours.
The window is a setting, not a cage: you can change it. It is on by default because the failure mode of forgetting it is losing the contact entirely.
Outbound is the easy half. WhatsApp conversations arrive in a shared inbox where a conversation carries a status, labels, an assignee and internal notes the contact never sees — so two people are not answering the same business, and the third person can see what was already said.
Incoming replies are classified automatically at ₹0.25 each — interested, not now, not interested — so the queue sorts itself. The classification decides what you look at first. It does not reply on your behalf.
| WhatsApp messageRechlio platform fee | ₹0 |
|---|---|
| WhatsApp conversationBilled to you by Meta, at Meta’s rates | Meta’s rate |
| Classifying an incoming replyInterested / not now / not interested | ₹0.25 |
| AI scoring a lead before you message itOne run against your company profile | ₹2.00 |
| Finding a business to messageFetched, website-checked and saved when unique | ₹3.00 |
Account creation and the public search preview need no card. Full discovery uses a plan quota or wallet. See pricing for details.