Wati is a solid WhatsApp Business API tool, priced per agent in US dollars. 3650HQ covers the same WhatsApp inbox and templates, adds Instagram, Messenger, Telegram and email in the same view, and is priced in naira with no per-seat fee. It can also send invoices, collect payment to a virtual account, and book delivery inside the same chat.
| Feature | 3650HQ | Wati |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Prepaid credits, no per-seat fee | Per-agent, billed in USD |
| Currency | NGN, GHS, KES, ZAR, USD | USD |
| Channels | WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, email | Primarily WhatsApp |
| Voice-note transcription | Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Swahili, Zulu, English | Not African-language focused |
| In-chat invoicing & payment | Yes, virtual bank account per invoice | Not built for this |
| Delivery booking | Automatic on payment | Not offered |
If your team is WhatsApp-only, already deep in a US-dollar billing setup, or needs a specific Wati integration your stack depends on, Wati is a mature, capable choice. 3650HQ is the better fit if you sell across more than one DM channel, want naira pricing, or want the sale (invoice, payment, delivery) to happen inside the chat.
Wati is a mature WhatsApp Business API product with a large customer base, and it is good at the thing it is built for: giving a team a shared WhatsApp inbox, template management and chatbot automation, with an established integration ecosystem around it. If WhatsApp is the only channel that matters to you, it is a credible choice and has been for years.
Its pricing is shaped around that: plans billed per agent, in US dollars. That model is unremarkable if you are a company in a dollar economy with a support team of a known size. It behaves differently for a business in Lagos or Accra whose headcount fluctuates and whose revenue is in naira or cedi.
Competitor pricing and features change, and this page is a snapshot rather than a live feed. Check their current plans directly before deciding — we would rather you did than take our word for it.
Feature tables tend to obscure the point. There are three real differences, and the rest is detail.
Per-agent billing means a fixed monthly cost that arrives whether or not it was a good month, and adding a seat during a busy period is a pricing decision rather than an operational one. 3650HQ charges prepaid credits against a shared workspace wallet: you pay when a message is sent, audio is transcribed or AI is used, and a quiet week costs nothing. There is no per-seat fee, so putting your whole team in the inbox is free.
3650HQ bills in NGN, GHS, KES, ZAR and USD. A dollar-denominated subscription in a market with a moving exchange rate is a cost that changes without anyone at the vendor doing anything, which makes it hard to plan against.
This is the substantive one. Wati is an inbox: the conversation happens there and the sale finishes somewhere else, typically in an invoicing tool, a payment link and a courier app. 3650HQ closes the loop in the thread — send an invoice, generate a virtual bank account for it, verify the transfer server-side, and book a courier once it clears. If the conversation is where your sales actually happen, that difference is the product rather than a feature.
Voice notes in Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Swahili and Zulu are transcribed automatically. Tools built for other markets transcribe English and stop, which is not much use when the customer placing the order is not speaking it.
Migration is the part comparison pages skip, so here it is plainly. You reconnect your WhatsApp Business number through 3650HQ's own onboarding, and you rebuild your message templates.
Templates have to be rebuilt because approvals are tied to your Meta Business account and the tool that submitted them, not held in escrow somewhere portable. That is a real cost in time and it is not unique to leaving Wati — it applies to moving between any two WhatsApp API providers.
Your existing conversation history stays where it is. Practically, most businesses run the changeover at a quiet point and accept that the archive lives in the old tool.
One question usually settles it: does your sale finish inside the conversation, or does the conversation just start it?
If your team answers WhatsApp messages and the order is completed in other systems, you want the best WhatsApp inbox, and Wati is a strong answer. If the invoice, the payment and the delivery all currently happen by hand in the same thread as the chat, then an inbox alone leaves most of the work where it was, and closing that loop is what 3650HQ is for.
3650HQ has no monthly per-agent fee. You pay from a shared prepaid credit wallet, priced in naira. Wati bills per agent in US dollars. Which is cheaper depends on your team size and message volume, but 3650HQ removes the fixed monthly cost entirely.
You'll need to reconnect your WhatsApp Business number through 3650HQ's own onboarding and rebuild your message templates, since template approvals are tied to your Meta Business account rather than to Wati specifically.
Yes. Create a template, submit it to Meta, sync its approval status, and send it, the same official Cloud API flow Wati uses.
Both run on the official WhatsApp Business Cloud API with Meta-approved templates. 3650HQ adds Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Gmail, any IMAP or SMTP mailbox and TikTok into the same inbox.
Your existing history stays in Wati. Conversation archives do not transfer between WhatsApp API providers in either direction, so most businesses switch at a quiet point and leave the archive behind.
No. 3650HQ has no per-seat fee, so adding an agent costs nothing. Your bill tracks messages sent, audio transcribed and AI used, not headcount.