# What ONPAD is

> A WhatsApp Business platform for Indian businesses, built on Meta's official Cloud API.
> Source: https://onpad.in/docs/what-is-onpad

ONPAD is a WhatsApp Business platform for businesses in India. It runs on the official **WhatsApp Business Cloud API** from Meta, so every message goes out from your own verified WhatsApp Business number — not from a shared number, and not from an unofficial connection that can be shut off without warning.

## What you can do with it

**Shared team inbox.** One WhatsApp number, answered by your whole team. Conversations can be assigned to a person, marked read, closed and reopened, so two people never reply to the same customer.

**Contacts.** Store your customers with name, phone, email, company and tags. Import them in bulk from a CSV file. Every contact shows its own conversation history.

**Templates.** WhatsApp requires pre-approved messages for anything you send first. Templates are where you write them, submit them to Meta for approval, and see whether they were approved or rejected.

**Campaigns.** Send an approved template to a list of contacts, schedule it for later, and watch delivery as it happens — sent, delivered, read, failed, with the reason for each failure.

**Automations.** Workflows that run on a trigger without anyone watching, so a reply or a tag can start a sequence on its own.

**AI Agent.** An assistant trained on your own business information that can answer customers for you.

**Analytics.** Message volume, delivery rates, replies, team workload and campaign results.

**API.** A REST API for sending messages from your own software — your website, your CRM, your order system. See the [API reference](https://onpad.in/docs/api).

## What ONPAD is not

ONPAD is the software. A few things belong to other people, and it matters to know which:

- **WhatsApp is Meta's.** The rules about what you may send, which messages need approval, and how much Meta charges are all Meta's, not ONPAD's. ONPAD cannot approve a template or waive a charge.
- **Your WhatsApp Business Account belongs to you.** It sits in your own Meta Business Manager. If you ever leave ONPAD, the account and the number stay yours.
- **ONPAD does not supply phone numbers.** You bring your own. See [Before you start](https://onpad.in/docs/before-you-start).

## Who it is for

Businesses that already talk to customers on WhatsApp and have outgrown a phone. The usual signs: more than one person needs to answer, you want to message a list rather than one person at a time, or you want your website or CRM to send WhatsApp messages on its own.

If a single person answering from the WhatsApp Business app is working for you, you do not need this yet.

## Where to go next

- New to the WhatsApp Business API? Read [WhatsApp Business API](https://onpad.in/docs/whatsapp-business-api) next — it explains how it differs from the WhatsApp you already use.
- Ready to sign up? [Before you start](https://onpad.in/docs/before-you-start) lists what you need to have ready.
- Want to know the costs first? [What it costs](https://onpad.in/docs/what-it-costs) separates Meta's charges from ONPAD's.