Without the country code: just the number, as you would dial it locally.
This is what appears already typed in the chat when it opens. The person only has to press send.
Common messages
How the chat will look
Hi, I found you on your website and I would like to know about…
now
Button for your website
How to use it
01
Type your number
Pick the country and type the number as you would dial it locally. Spaces, dashes and the "+" are cleaned up for you.
02
Write the opening message
It is the text the person sees already typed when the chat opens. The more specific, the less effort it takes to start.
03
Copy what you need
The link for your social profiles and ads, the QR code for print, and the button to paste on your website.
Which number to put in?
Almost every link that fails to open the chat fails because of the number, not the URL. These are the four rules.
- No spaces, dashes or brackets
- The URL only accepts digits. They are cleaned up here, but if you build the link by hand, "300 123 4567" does not work and "3001234567" does.
- No national trunk 0
- In many countries you dial a 0 first to call another city. That 0 is not part of the international number: "0612…" in Spain is "612…".
- The country code, without "+"
- The link always carries the full number in international format, but without the plus sign: 57 for Colombia, 52 for Mexico, 34 for Spain.
- In Colombia, ten digits starting with 3
- Mobile numbers are 3XX XXX XXXX. A Bogotá landline has the 601 code in front of its seven digits, but a landline rarely has WhatsApp.
The link is the first step
Putting a WhatsApp button on a website takes a minute. The expensive part comes afterwards: answering when the message arrives on a Saturday night, booking the appointment without five messages back and forth, and getting the contact into the CRM instead of the phone of whoever happened to answer that day.
That is exactly the work we do when we automate customer contact: the after-hours reply, booking from inside the chat, and moving the contact into your system without anyone copying data by hand.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need WhatsApp Business to use the link?
No. The link works with any WhatsApp account, personal or Business. The Business version adds things a business finds useful — a profile with hours and address, quick replies, greeting and away messages, a catalogue — but the link itself is the same for both.
What is the difference between wa.me and api.whatsapp.com?
None in the result: both open the same chat with the same message. wa.me is the short form WhatsApp documents today and the one to use on social profiles and in print. api.whatsapp.com is the older one; it still works, and some link managers, ad platforms and blockers treat it differently, so it is offered in case the short one gives you trouble somewhere specific.
Does it work on a computer, not just a phone?
Yes. On a phone it opens the app directly. On a computer it opens WhatsApp Web, or the desktop app if it is installed, with the same number and the same message already typed. If the person does not have WhatsApp on that device, they see a WhatsApp page inviting them to install it.
Can I find out how many people click the link?
WhatsApp does not count it for you. What you can measure is the click on your website: any analytics tool records a click on an outbound link, and if you place the button on several pages you will see which one converts best. For the reverse path — knowing which campaign brought the person to your page before they wrote to you — there are UTM parameters on the campaign link.
Can I put several numbers in the same link?
No: one link opens a chat with one number. If several people answer, the options are one link per person — on the website, one button per department —, a shared WhatsApp Business account with several linked devices, or the WhatsApp Business API, which is the one that lets you distribute conversations across a team.
Is my number stored anywhere?
No. The link is put together in your browser with plain string arithmetic: there is no request to any server of ours, nothing is logged, and this site uses no tracking cookies. The QR code is drawn right here as well. The only thing that leaves your browser is whatever you copy and paste somewhere else.
Can I use line breaks and emojis in the message?
Yes. The message is encoded to fit in a URL — every line break, emoji or accented letter becomes a safe character sequence — and WhatsApp decodes it when the chat opens, so it arrives exactly as you wrote it. Keep it short: it is the first message of a conversation, not a form.
To measure which campaign each visit comes from before they message you, build the campaign link with the UTM link builder.
And when the message arrives at eleven on a Saturday?
The button is the start of a conversation. Replying in time, booking from the chat and moving the contact into your system without copying it by hand is what turns that message into a customer.
We reply within one business dayBogotá · UTC−5