WhatsApp groups and the API on a Coexistence number

Does WhatsApp have a Groups API?

Yes. Meta's Groups API lets a business create, list and update groups on a Cloud API number, send text, media and template messages into them, manage the invite link, approve or reject join requests and remove participants.

It is deliberately small. Groups are invite-only, joined through a link the business sends, and Meta's limits describe something closer to a project room than a community.

• Up to 8 participants per group.
• Up to 10,000 groups per business number.
• One Cloud API business per group.
• Text, media, text-based templates and media-based templates.

Can a Coexistence number use it?

No. The Groups API page states it is not available for WhatsApp Business app phone numbers, and that phrase links to Meta's own guide for onboarding WhatsApp Business app users, which is Coexistence. The eligibility condition is also an Official Business Account, a status Meta's OBA page says it does not grant to WhatsApp Business app phone numbers.

So the exclusion is set by Meta for every provider. A number shared between the app and the API cannot create groups through the API, cannot send into them and receives no group events.

What happens to the groups already in the app?

They stay in the app and keep working there. Meta's Coexistence documentation lists group chats among the things that are not synchronised when a number is onboarded, so neither their history nor new group messages reach the API.

The team on the phone can still create groups, post in them and read them exactly as before. Software simply has no view of that traffic. If a workflow depends on a group, such as staff coordinating deliveries, it carries on in the app, and any automation around it has to be built from one-to-one conversations instead.

What should I use instead of groups through the API?

One-to-one conversations, which is what the platform is built around. A message that would have gone to a group of customers goes to each of them individually, inside the 24 hour customer service window as free text, or outside it as an approved template.

If a business genuinely needs API-managed groups, the Groups API requires a number that is registered on Cloud API alone and holds an Official Business Account, which means leaving Coexistence for that number. That is a structural decision about the line, not a setting, and it removes the app from it.

Common mistakes

• Reading that a Groups API exists and assuming it covers a Coexistence number. Meta excludes Business app numbers.
• Expecting group history to appear in the API after onboarding. Group chats are not synchronised.
• Planning a group-based workflow around an 8 participant limit without checking it fits.

Frequently asked questions

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