White-label WhatsApp API for Kenyan bulk-SMS companies, hosting providers and agencies

Why Kenyan resellers are adding WhatsApp

Kenyan SMEs already buy messaging from someone: bulk SMS for reminders, short codes for promotions, USSD for menus. Their customers, meanwhile, reply on WhatsApp. The companies best placed to sell the WhatsApp Business API are the ones already selling those services, because they have the clients, the billing relationship and the support desk. Local providers sell WhatsApp API packages with setup fees and monthly plans in the thousands to tens of thousands of shillings (see WhatsApp API providers in Kenya compared), so there is room for a partner with its own pricing.

This page is for:

• Bulk-SMS and short-code companies whose clients want statements, receipts and reminders with buttons and PDFs, not 160-character texts. Our article on moving from SMS reselling to WhatsApp covers the transition.
• Web hosting and domain companies that sell hosting and business email to SMEs and want a recurring product that is not another hosting plan.
• Digital agencies in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu that run Facebook and Instagram ads and want to own the conversation after the click.
• Software vendors for SACCOs, schools and clinics that want reminders on WhatsApp inside the product they already sell.

It is not a fit if you want to sell a 'bulk WhatsApp' blaster with no rules. The official API needs opted-in contacts, approved templates and someone watching quality ratings and messaging limits. Partners who do well sell it as a managed service.

What carries your brand

Not yours to brand: Meta's Embedded Signup window, which is Meta's own screen, and the WhatsApp messages, which carry your client's display name.

How the money works

Keep three flows apart when you price.

1. Your clients pay you. You create plans in KES in the partner panel. Inside the panel, clients can pay through your own Stripe account (cards) or by bank transfer with proof of payment; your own payment gateways, custom domain and senders come with the Growth and Enterprise partner plans. M-Pesa is not a built-in gateway. If your clients pay by M-Pesa, as most Kenyan SMEs will, they pay into your own Paybill or Till, and you activate their plan or add balance to their wallet from the partner panel. You keep your existing M-Pesa reconciliation.
2. You pay Broadchat. You pay a cost price per client account per billing cycle (monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly), debited from your prepaid partner wallet when a client buys or renews. You top up the partner wallet by international bank transfer, or by card through Stripe where enabled for your account. The cost price depends on volume, billing cycle and modules, so it is quoted on request; ask which currency your partner wallet is billed in.
3. Messaging passes through wallets. Each client prepays a messaging wallet at the rates you set, as a percentage or flat markup over Meta's base rate per country and category. Your margin (your rate minus Meta's base) is settled into your main partner wallet every week, on Sunday night East Africa Time.

A worked example (illustrative only)

Otieno runs a bulk-SMS company in Kisumu with 150 SME clients. In the first quarter he moves 25 of them, mostly schools and SACCOs, to a WhatsApp plan he prices at KES 4,500 a month. His platform cost is whatever Broadchat quotes per client account; call it C. His subscription margin is 25 × (KES 4,500 − C) a month.

On messaging, Meta's base rate for a utility message to a Kenyan number is US$0.0040 (Meta rate card effective 1 Oct 2026). If Otieno charges his clients the equivalent of US$0.0055 and they send 60,000 utility messages a month between them, his margin is 60,000 × US$0.0015 = US$90, about KES 11,610 at an illustrative KES 129 to the dollar. These figures are made up to show the arithmetic, not a forecast; the reseller profit calculator lets you try your own, and how reseller margins work explains the pricing choices.

One product for East Africa

Meta puts Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia and most other African countries in one Rest of Africa price group. A Nairobi partner can sell the same plans to a Kampala clinic or a Dar es Salaam logistics firm with the same messaging rates, and the platform prices each message by the recipient's country automatically. Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt have their own rates on Meta's card; set those separately if you sell there.

Onboarding a Kenyan client

1. Check the paperwork. The client's legal name as registered with the Business Registration Service, its KRA PIN, a website on HTTPS that shows the legal name, and the number that will be the WhatsApp number.
2. Create the client account in your partner panel and assign a plan.
3. Connect the number with the client through Embedded Signup, inside the client's own Meta business portfolio. The documents are covered in how to get the WhatsApp Business API in Kenya.
4. Write the first templates together: a payment or contribution receipt (utility), a reminder (utility) and one opted-in promotion (marketing), in English, Kiswahili or both.
5. Import opted-in contacts with a tag that records where consent came from, which helps the client meet WhatsApp's policy and the Data Protection Act 2019. Schools, SACCOs and clinics must also be registered with the ODPC regardless of size.
6. Watch the first two weeks: quality rating, template status and the messaging limit, which starts at 250 people a day for a new portfolio.

What you should know before you sign up

• Broadchat is not a Meta Business Solution Provider; numbers are connected through Meta's Embedded Signup and messages go through the Cloud API.
• No built-in M-Pesa: neither for your clients' customers nor for your own client billing. Payment links from your own provider can be added to templates and chatbot replies; a developer can connect M-Pesa confirmations through webhooks.
• The panel is available in 23 languages, not yet in Kiswahili; templates and chatbot replies can be in Kiswahili.
• There is no billing-system module for hosting companies; sell WhatsApp as its own product. Enterprise partners get the Partner API to list client accounts and top up client wallets from their own systems.
• Meta decides template approval, verification, display names and messaging limits. Nobody can promise them, and you should not either.

The global partner program page lists every partner feature, and WhatsApp Business API in Kenya is the page to send end clients who want to understand what they are buying.