Three things share the WhatsApp name. Here’s what each one is for, and which one you need for quotes and invoices.
13 October 2026 · 5 min read · Updated 13/10/2026
“Should I be on WhatsApp Business?” comes up as soon as customers start messaging you about jobs. The answer depends on how many messages you’re juggling — and it has nothing to do with whether you can invoice on WhatsApp.
The app you already have. You can message customers, send photos of the job, voice notes and PDF quotes and invoices. Plenty of sole traders never need anything else. The downside is that work and family chats sit together, and there’s no business profile.
A free, separate app from Meta, “built with the small business owner in mind”. It adds a business profile (address, hours, website), quick replies for the questions you answer every day, labels to sort chats (new enquiry, quoted, booked, paid), away messages, and a catalogue — a mobile storefront of up to 500 items. You can run it on a second number, or move your existing number across. It doesn’t create invoices, and WhatsApp’s payment feature isn’t available in the UK.
This isn’t an app you install. It’s what software companies use to build bots and automated messaging — booking systems, delivery updates and tools like GraftG. It has its own rules, such as the 24-hour customer service window, and Meta charges businesses per message for some message types. As a tradie you use it indirectly, by messaging a tool that’s built on it.
The cleanest setup for many tradies is two numbers on one phone: ordinary WhatsApp on your personal number, and the WhatsApp Business app on a work number (a second SIM or eSIM works). Customers get a business profile and your hours; your family chat stays out of it; and you can mute work after hours without missing the group chat.
If you’d rather keep one number, you can move it to the WhatsApp Business app — your chats come across with it. Either way, tell regular customers if your number changes, and never send bank-detail changes by message.
Either app works. A WhatsApp invoicing bot like GraftG doesn’t care which you use — you message its number from the phone number you signed up with, and it sends the PDF back for you to forward. If you switch to the WhatsApp Business app on the same number, it carries on working.
Our suggestion: stay on ordinary WhatsApp until customer messages start getting lost, then move to the WhatsApp Business app for the labels and quick replies. Either way, let a tool do the paperwork — the WhatsApp invoicing apps comparison covers the options.
No. Ordinary WhatsApp is enough to message customers and send PDF quotes and invoices. The free WhatsApp Business app helps once you have lots of customer chats, with labels, quick replies and a business profile.
No. GraftG works with ordinary WhatsApp or the WhatsApp Business app — you message its number from the phone number you signed up with.
It can send a PDF invoice you made elsewhere, like any WhatsApp chat, but it does not create invoices. Its catalogue lists products and prices; it is not an invoice and has no invoice numbering.
Yes, the WhatsApp Business app is free to download and use for chatting with customers. Charges from Meta apply to businesses sending messages through the WhatsApp Business Platform (the API), not to the app on your phone.
Yes, as two separate apps on two different numbers — for example your personal number on WhatsApp and a work SIM or eSIM on the WhatsApp Business app.
The WhatsApp Business app is a free phone app for small businesses to chat with customers. The WhatsApp Business Platform (API) is for software and bots to send messages at scale, with rules such as the 24-hour customer service window and per-message charges.
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