BSP (Business Solution Provider)

A BSP is a company Meta has approved to give businesses API access to WhatsApp, handling the technical connection and message delivery, since a business cannot get WhatsApp Business API access directly from Meta.

Meta runs WhatsApp’s infrastructure but doesn’t sell API access itself — that sits behind a small, vetted set of BSPs, each responsible for onboarding numbers, keeping delivery working and staying inside Meta’s messaging and template rules on the businesses they carry. A platform built on WhatsApp either is a BSP itself or, more often, sits on top of one.

The distinction worth knowing: the BSP is the pipe, not the product a business actually uses day to day. The assistant, the shared inbox, the automation rules — that layer is built by whoever the business signed up with, and is usually the reason they chose that vendor over another BSP-backed one.

Where WhatsApp fits into a full assistant, on the WhatsApp assistant page.