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WhatsApp Link Generator: Create a WhatsApp Link or WhatsApp QR Code for Click to Chat

Type your business number, add the message you want customers to start with, and copy a wa.me link that opens a chat without anyone saving your number. The QR code is generated on our own server, so your number is never sent to a third party.

What a link cannot do → Link formats explained

Number formatting rules on this page follow WhatsApp's own click to chat documentation.

WhatsApp link generator

No sign in

Your WhatsApp number, with country code

Digits only are used. The plus sign, spaces, dashes and brackets are stripped for you.

Pre-filled first message (optional)

Your link

Enter a number with its country code to build the link.

Test it

Short answer: a WhatsApp link is a URL in the form https://wa.me/<number> that opens a chat with your business, and the person clicking it never has to save your number. Write the number in full international format: WhatsApp's own instruction is to omit any zeroes, brackets or dashes, so (415) 555-0132 in the US becomes 14155550132. Add ?text= and a URL encoded message to pre-fill the customer's first line. Creating the link costs nothing. The limit is direction: a click to chat link can only ever be used by one person, one conversation at a time, and only when they click first.

Last updated August 2026. Number formatting follows WhatsApp's click to chat help documentation. Pricing behaviour described further down reflects Meta's announced changes for October 1, 2026.

The four WhatsApp link formats, and when to use each

Most guides show one format and stop. There are actually four addresses in circulation, they behave differently, and picking the wrong one is a common reason a link works on the marketer's phone and fails on a customer's.

Format	What it does	Best for
wa.me/14155550132	Opens a chat with that number, empty message box.	A plain chat button where you do not want to put words in the customer's mouth.
wa.me/14155550132?text=Hi	Opens the chat with the message already typed, ready for the customer to edit or send.	Almost everything. The pre-filled line is your only free attribution signal.
wa.me/?text=Hi	No recipient. Opens WhatsApp with the message typed and asks the user to choose who to send it to.	Share and refer buttons, where the customer picks a friend.
api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=	The older long form. Same result, longer address, and it takes phone and text as separate parameters.	Legacy systems that already build this address. New work should use wa.me.

The WhatsApp chat widget that floats in a website corner is one of these links with styling around it, and a click to WhatsApp ad is Meta placing the same behaviour behind an ad unit.

How to create a WhatsApp link in four steps

Strip the number to digits

Keep the country code, drop everything else. WhatsApp's guidance is to omit any zeroes, brackets or dashes. No plus sign either.

Add it after wa.me/

The digits go straight after the slash, with nothing between them. That single address is already a working link.

Encode the message

Spaces become %20 and a line break becomes %0A. The generator above handles this, which is where hand-built links usually break.

Test it as a stranger

Open it on a phone that has never saved your number. Your own phone is the one device that cannot tell you whether the link works.

WhatsApp QR code generator: the print version of the same link

A WhatsApp QR code is not a separate feature. It is your wa.me link encoded as a square, so everything that works in the link works in the code, pre-filled message included. Scanning it on a phone opens the chat exactly as tapping would. The generator at the top of this page renders the code on our own server rather than calling an outside QR service, so the number you type is not handed to a third party.

There is a second route worth knowing. If you run the WhatsApp Business app, it produces a QR code for your number in its business tools, alongside a short wa.me link. That version is convenient and it is tied to your account, but it carries no pre-filled message, so every scan lands you a conversation that opens with whatever the customer decides to type. When you are putting a code on a menu, a delivery box, a trade show banner or a yard sign, the pre-filled message is usually the whole point, because it tells you which piece of print produced the conversation.

Where do I find my WhatsApp click to chat URL? If you are looking for a link that already exists rather than building one, it is in the WhatsApp Business app under its business tools, listed as a short link alongside the QR code. That short link is generated by WhatsApp from your number, so you cannot choose the wording and you cannot attach a pre-filled message to it. On the standard consumer WhatsApp app there is no such screen at all, which is why people hunt for it and come up empty. In that case there is nothing to find: you build the address yourself from your number, which is what the generator at the top of this page does.

Print sizing catches people out more than encoding does. A QR that has to be scanned from across a room needs to be physically large, and a code with a long pre-filled message contains more data, which makes its grid finer and harder to scan at distance. If a code is going on something people scan from more than a couple of feet away, keep the pre-filled message to a handful of words.

Where US businesses put a click to chat link

🖥️

Website chat button

A fixed corner button beats a contact form for anything time sensitive. Give each page template its own pre-filled message so you know what the visitor was reading.

📸

Instagram and TikTok bio

Social profiles allow one link. A wa.me address turns that slot into a conversation instead of a homepage the visitor bounces from.

✉️

Email signature and invoices

A reply-by-WhatsApp line on an invoice gets payment questions answered the same day. Pre-fill it with the invoice number placeholder your system already merges.

🏷️

Packaging and print

A QR on the box routes support away from bad phone hold times. Use a distinct pre-filled message per product line and the routing does itself.

📣

Paid ads

Meta's own click to WhatsApp ad format opens the chat natively, and it carries a longer free reply window than an ordinary inbound message does.

🧾

Google Business Profile

For local service businesses the appointment link field will accept a wa.me address, which puts a chat option directly in the map result.

What a WhatsApp link cannot do

This is the part the other link generators leave out, and it is the part that decides whether WhatsApp becomes a real channel for you or a novelty button. A click to chat link is inbound only. It waits. Someone has to find it and tap it. Nothing about the link lets you start a conversation, reach a list, schedule anything, or follow up with the two hundred people who messaged you last month.

There is also a clock. When a customer messages you first, that opens a 24 hour customer service window, and inside it you can reply in free-form text without using an approved template. Once the window closes, a plain reply will not deliver at all: reaching that person again requires an approved template message sent through the official Business Platform. Plenty of businesses discover this at 25 hours, when a hot lead stops receiving anything they type.

One date to put in the calendar. From October 1, 2026, Meta is making service messages chargeable, which means the free-form replies you send inside that 24 hour window stop being free. A lot of published advice still says replies inside the window cost nothing with no end date attached, and from October that advice is simply wrong. If your plan for WhatsApp is built on unlimited free conversation, price it again.

Capability	wa.me link	WhatsApp Business app	WhatsApp Business Platform
Customer starts the chat	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pre-filled first message	Yes	Short link only, no message	Yes
You start the conversation	No	Only numbers saved on the device	Yes, via approved templates
Send to a list at once	No	Broadcast list capped at 256, and only to people who saved your number	Yes, subject to your messaging limit
Multiple agents on one number	Not applicable	Primary phone plus four companion devices	Yes
Cost	Nothing	Nothing	Per delivered template, by category and country

The broadcast list row is the one that surprises people most: on the free app, a broadcast silently fails to reach anyone who has not saved your number in their contacts. Full detail sits on the WhatsApp bulk messaging platform page, and the rules Meta enforces are covered under WhatsApp bulk messaging rules.

Can you track clicks on a WhatsApp link?

Not inside WhatsApp, and this is the single biggest blind spot for anyone spending money to drive chats. Appending a UTM tag to a wa.me address does not carry it into the conversation. The chat opens, your analytics never hear about it, and the conversation arrives with no indication of where it came from.

Two workarounds actually hold up. The first is a redirect you own: point the button or the ad at a URL on your own domain, log the click there with whatever analytics you already run, then send the browser on to wa.me. You get a real click event, the customer notices nothing, and the redirect can carry the campaign detail into the pre-filled message it forwards.

The second is simpler and free: vary the pre-filled message by placement. If the code on your packaging pre-fills "Hi, question about my order" and the Instagram bio pre-fills "Hi, saw you on Instagram", then the first line of every incoming chat tells you the source with no tooling at all. It is crude, and it breaks whenever a customer deletes the text before sending, but it costs nothing and it works on day one.

Once conversations arrive in volume, attribution stops being the hard part and routing starts. That is where a WhatsApp shared inbox earns its place, and where the number of people who can answer at once starts to matter more than the link itself.

Frequently asked questions

How do I create a WhatsApp link?

Take https://wa.me/ and add your phone number in full international format with no plus sign, no leading zero and no brackets or dashes. A US number written (415) 555-0132 becomes https://wa.me/14155550132. To pre-fill the first message, add ?text= and your message with URL encoding. The link opens a chat with your business even if the person has never saved your number.

What is a WhatsApp click to chat link?

A click to chat link is a normal web URL that opens a WhatsApp conversation with a specific number. It works on a phone and in WhatsApp Web, and the person clicking does not need your number in their contacts. Businesses use it as a chat button on a website, a link in an Instagram bio, a QR code on packaging, or the destination of an ad.

Is a WhatsApp link free to create?

Yes. A wa.me link is just a URL, so there is nothing to buy and no account to connect. You can build one by hand in a text editor. Costs only appear later, when you move from answering one chat at a time to sending template messages outbound through the WhatsApp Business Platform, which Meta bills per delivered template.

How do I create a WhatsApp QR code?

Encode your finished wa.me link in any QR generator, including the one on this page. Scanning it opens the same chat with the same pre-filled message. If you use the WhatsApp Business app, it also produces a QR code for your number under its business tools, though that version cannot carry a pre-filled message the way a wa.me link can.

Where do I find my WhatsApp click to chat URL?

In the WhatsApp Business app it is under the business tools, shown as a short link next to your QR code. The consumer WhatsApp app has no such screen, so there is nothing to find there. In both cases you can simply build the address yourself: it is https://wa.me/ followed by your number in international format, and unlike the app's short link, one you build can carry a pre-filled message.

Why is my WhatsApp link not working?

The usual cause is number formatting. A plus sign, a space, a dash, a bracket or a leading zero left in the address will break it, and so will leaving the country code off. The other common causes are pointing the link at a number that has no WhatsApp account on it, and writing the pre-filled message without URL encoding so the text stops at the first space or ampersand.

Can I send a WhatsApp message without saving the contact?

Yes, and that is the whole point of a click to chat link. Opening https://wa.me/ followed by a number starts a chat with that number without adding it to your address book. It works in both directions, so your customers can reach you without saving your number and you can open a chat with a number you were given without creating a contact for it.

Does a WhatsApp link send the message automatically?

No. The text parameter only types the message into the input box. The person still has to press send, and they can edit or delete your wording first. That is deliberate on WhatsApp's part, and it is why a pre-filled message should be short and written in the customer's voice, such as "Hi, I would like a quote", rather than a paragraph they will delete.

Can I use a WhatsApp link to send bulk messages?

No. A click to chat link only ever opens one conversation, and it has to be the customer who clicks it. There is no way to make a wa.me link fan out to a list. Sending outbound messages to many recipients requires approved template messages on the official WhatsApp Business Platform, and WhatsApp's terms of service prohibit the browser extensions that claim to automate the app instead.

Can I track clicks on a WhatsApp link?

Not inside WhatsApp. Query parameters you add for analytics are not passed into the conversation, so a UTM tag on a wa.me address tells you nothing once the chat opens. The workaround businesses use is to point the ad or button at a redirect on their own domain, record the click there, then forward to wa.me, and to vary the pre-filled message per placement so the first inbound line identifies the source.

When one chat at a time stops being enough

The link brings people in. Reaching them again a week later is a different job. WaBulkSend will run the campaigns, templates and scheduling behind your WhatsApp number on the official Business Platform.

Join the waitlist