The WhatsApp Business Catalog, Step by Step

The catalog lives inside the app: in the Tools tab, tap Catalog. Each item must have a unique name, at least one image and the country of origin. It can also have a price —where WhatsApp allows it—, a sale price, a description, a link to your website and a code, and up to 10 images or videos. You build it on your phone, with no software and no help.

What to upload, and what not to

Upload what you sell often, not everything you have. The point of the catalog is that a customer finds what they came for in ten seconds; three hundred products with no order do exactly the opposite.

For each item:

• A photo of the product alone, on a clean background. Collages with text on top look bad and are also among the things the review rejects most.
• A name in the customer’s words. «Chocolate cake, 8 slices», not «SKU-4471».
• The price, if WhatsApp lets you and if you can. If you work to order, put the base price and explain in the description what changes it.
• A short description with what people always ask you: sizes, delivery time, whether installation is included.
• A link to that product or service’s page on your website, when there is one.

What WhatsApp rejects

Every image, video and item is reviewed, and an item is only visible to your customers once WhatsApp approves it. The underlying rule is Meta’s Commerce Policies, which also apply to the WhatsApp Business catalog. Among other things, they ban:

• alcohol, and tobacco and its accessories;
• medical and health products, ingestible supplements included, and prescription products;
• weapons, ammunition and explosives;
• animals;
• gambling;
• adult products;
• used cosmetics;
• subscriptions and digital content.

Event tickets and gift cards are only allowed for approved sellers.

If an item is rejected, you can request another review from the app itself. What you shouldn’t do is keep pushing what the policy doesn’t allow: Meta warns that repeated violations can lead to action on the account, up to suspending access to commerce features.

How your customer sees it

It’s worth knowing before you upload anything, because it explains which photos to use. Someone opening your profile sees a grid of photos with the name and price underneath; tapping one opens the product page with the full description and a button to send it to you in the chat. They can gather several items into one order and send them all at once, and it arrives in your conversation as a list, not as five separate messages.

So the first thing that decides whether a product gets looked at is the thumbnail, and the second is the price. The description is read by people who are already interested.

How it’s actually used

Three things change the catalog’s results more than the number of products:

1. Share single items, not the whole catalog. Every product has its own shareable link: send the customer exactly the one they asked about.
2. Mention it in your greeting. Your greeting message can say «have a look at the catalog here» and save you the first round of questions.
3. Review it every month. A catalog with old prices produces the worst possible conversation: explaining that what the customer saw no longer costs that.

Three mistakes that cost a lot

Old prices. The most common and the most expensive: the customer arrives convinced of a price that no longer exists, and the conversation starts with a correction. If your prices move often, use ranges and say in the description what they depend on.

Products you don’t have. A catalog is a promise that the thing exists. If something is out of stock for a month, remove it or say so in the name.

Photos in different sizes and backgrounds. The grid looks messy and the business looks improvised. It’s the easiest flaw to fix: same proportions, same background, same light.

When the catalog stops being enough

The catalog is a shop window, not a store. It falls short when:

• You need to take payments online instead of arranging payment in the chat.
• You have inventory that changes and you can’t keep editing it by hand.
• You sell variants —sizes, colors, flavors— and each one needs its own price and stock.
• You want Google to show your products: that’s the job of your website and your Business Profile, not the app.

At that point the question is no longer the catalog but whether an online store makes sense for you, which is a decision about cost and time more than technology: it’s answered in when an online store makes sense. And if what you need is to be found before any of that, that’s the job of your website and your Google profile, not the app.

Official sources

• About the catalog and how to create and manage a catalog — WhatsApp Help Center, checked on September 27, 2026.
• Commerce Policies — Meta, and the WhatsApp Business Commerce Policy, which points to them.