If you run a small shop, a home business or a services page in Pakistan, your customers are already on WhatsApp. The WhatsApp Business catalogue turns that chat into a proper shop: customers open your profile, browse your products with photos and prices, add items to a cart and send you the order — all without leaving WhatsApp, and all without you paying for a website.
This guide walks through the full setup: adding your first products, the fields that matter, the real limits, how to organise a growing range, how to share your shop with one link, how orders actually arrive, and which products WhatsApp does not allow at all.
What the WhatsApp Business Catalogue Actually Is
The catalogue is a storefront that lives inside your WhatsApp Business profile. A customer opens a chat with your business, taps the shopping button next to your business name, and sees your products with images, prices and descriptions. They can also reach the same catalogue from your business profile page.
That is the whole idea: no separate app, no website bill, no marketplace commission. Your WhatsApp number becomes the shop, and every product conversation starts in a chat you already know how to use. For a clothing seller in Karachi, a mobile accessories shop in Lahore or a home baker in Islamabad, it replaces the daily routine of sending the same photos and price lists to every new customer who asks.
Fifteen Minutes Covers Your First Items, Not a Full Shop
Let us be honest about the title of this guide, because no WhatsApp source promises any setup time. Fifteen minutes is realistic for one thing only: adding your first few products when your photos and prices are already ready on your phone. You open the catalogue, add an item, upload its photos, type the name and price, and save. Repeat that a few times and your shop exists.
Two things sit outside those fifteen minutes. First, every new item goes through a review before customers can see it, and review time is not in your control. Second, a full range takes longer: a catalogue can hold up to 500 items in the free app, and nobody photographs and prices 500 products in fifteen minutes. So treat the fifteen minutes as your launch, not your whole stock — get the first items live, then keep adding a few products every day.
Set Up Your Catalogue on Android and iPhone
On Android:
- Open WhatsApp Business and tap the three dots (⋮) at the top.
- Tap Business Tools, then Catalog.
- Tap Add New Item.
- Tap the + or Add Images and pick photos from your Gallery or take new ones with the Camera.
- Fill in the item details — name, price and description.
- Tap Save.
On iPhone:
- Open WhatsApp Business and go to Settings.
- Tap Business Tools, then Catalog.
- Tap Add New Item, add your images with + / Add Images, enter the details and tap Save.
One warning before you go hunting for a button: menu names can differ slightly by app version. Some phones show an extra Settings step on the way, and newer versions of the app have a dedicated Tools tab. The core path — Business Tools, then Catalog, then Add New Item — stays the same, so follow the labels on your own screen if they are worded a little differently.
What Goes Into Each Product: The Fields
Every item in the catalogue is built from a small set of fields. Only two things are truly required: a name and at least one image. Everything else helps the customer decide faster.
| Field | Required? | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Yes | The product name the customer sees first |
| Images | Yes, at least one | Up to 10 images per item |
| Price | No | Optional — currency follows your SIM country code |
| Description | No | Your selling details; keep it short and clear |
| Link | No | Under More Fields — sends customers to a website or product page |
| Product code | No | Under More Fields — your own SKU for stock tracking |
A few points deserve attention. You can add up to 10 images per item, which is plenty for front, back and detail shots of a shirt, a shoe or a phone cover. Current guides also describe adding a video to an item; one widely used guide reports videos of up to 50 MB, but WhatsApp does not publish that figure officially, so treat it as a guide-reported limit rather than a rule.
The price field is optional, and the currency is decided by the country code of your SIM. On a Pakistani number starting with +92, your prices show in PKR automatically. Keep descriptions short: guides disagree with each other about the exact description limit, and no official figure is published, so write the important points early instead of relying on a long description. And if the price field does not appear in your app at all — it is not available everywhere — simply put the price at the very start of the description so customers still see it.
The Link and Product code fields sit under More Fields. The link is useful if you have a website or a fuller product page; a website is not required to use the catalogue. The product code is for your own records, so your stock list and your catalogue use the same codes.
The Green Clock: Review Before Your Item Goes Live
When you tap Save, the item does not appear in your shop instantly. A green clock icon shows on the new item while WhatsApp reviews it for policy compliance, and the item becomes visible to customers only after that review passes. In typical experience the review is fast — often a matter of minutes — but it can take up to a day, so do not panic if a clock is still showing after an hour, and do not promise a customer an item that is still under review.
Sometimes an item is rejected instead. The catalogue shows you a reason — common ones reported by sellers and guides are unclear images, a restricted product category, or misleading pricing or descriptions. A rejection is not the end of the item: fix the problem the reason points to, save again, and the item goes back into review.
One Catalogue, 500 Items: Know the Real Limits
Two limits shape how you should plan your shop. First, the free WhatsApp Business app catalogue holds a maximum of 500 items. That is generous for almost any small or medium business — older guides that mention a limit of 25 items are simply out of date.
Second, you can have only one catalogue active and connected to your number at a time. There is no second catalogue for a second category, a second brand or a sale section. That is deliberate: WhatsApp gives you one shop per number, and the way to organise inside it is Collections, covered next. If your range grows past one shop’s logic, the answer is better organisation, not a second catalogue.
Use Collections Instead of a Second Catalogue
Collections are categories inside your single catalogue — for example Bestsellers, New Arrivals, Sale or Gift Sets. If you see Collections on your Catalog screen, you can create one like this:
- Open Business Tools, then Catalog, then Collections.
- Tap Add Collection (or Add new collection).
- Enter a name, tap Next, select the items that belong in it, and tap Done.
Collections are reviewed before customers see them, just like items, and you can edit them later — add or remove items, rename a collection or change the order they appear in. WhatsApp does not officially publish a maximum number of collections or a maximum number of items inside one collection, so any guide that quotes you such a figure is guessing; in practice, make as many clear categories as your customers need.
Out of Stock? Hide the Item, Do Not Delete It
Stock in the app is manual — there is no automatic inventory that updates itself when you sell the last piece. When an item runs out, do not delete it and lose your photos and description. Open the catalogue, tap the item, open More Options and choose Hide. You can also hide several items at once by long-pressing one and selecting the others. Hidden items stay visible to you in the Catalog Manager with a hidden note, and when stock returns you simply unhide the item instead of creating it again.
You can also edit any item at any time — name, price, description, images and availability. Just know that an edited item may go through a short re-approval before the updated version shows to customers, so make price corrections before a big sale day, not during it.
Share Your Catalogue Everywhere
A catalogue nobody sees sells nothing, so share it in three ways. Inside a chat, tap the paperclip icon on Android (the + icon on iPhone), tap Catalog, and send either the whole catalogue or only the specific products that fit the conversation. From the catalogue itself, you can also forward a single item into any chat or group.
For sharing outside chats, use your catalogue link. In the Catalog Manager, tap the link icon (on iPhone, the ⋯ menu at the top right) to send the link through WhatsApp, copy it, or share it by email and other apps. The link format is wa.me/c/ followed by your full number with country code — for example, wa.me/c/92XXXXXXXXXX. Notice the /c/ in the middle: your normal chat link is wa.me/92XXXXXXXXXX, and the catalogue link is a different link that opens your shop instead of a chat. Put the catalogue link in your Instagram bio, your Facebook page and your shop’s signboard QR code, and every visitor lands directly on your products.
How Customers Order: The Cart Ends as a Chat Message
Here is the buying flow from the customer’s side. They open your catalogue from your profile or the shopping button in the chat, tap a product, and tap ADD TO CART — or MESSAGE BUSINESS if they want to ask a question first. From VIEW CART they can adjust quantities or add more items, and when they are done they send the cart to you.
That last step is the part many sellers misunderstand: the order arrives as an ordinary chat message in your WhatsApp. There is no separate order dashboard in the free app and no order-management screen where orders queue up. You read the cart message, confirm availability, and then arrange everything else inside the same chat — delivery address, delivery charges, and payment.
Payment is not completed inside WhatsApp in Pakistan. WhatsApp’s own policy is clear that it is not responsible for processing, paying for or fulfilling your sales — as the business, you alone are responsible for the transaction, the sale terms and the taxes. In practice, Pakistani sellers settle payment the usual ways: cash on delivery, a JazzCash or Easypaisa transfer, or a bank transfer, and confirm the receipt in chat before dispatching.
What You Cannot Sell: The Prohibited Categories
Every catalogue must follow the Meta Commerce Policy, and WhatsApp’s own Business Policy lists categories that cannot be sold through its commerce features. These prohibitions apply regardless of any local licence or registration your business holds — having a licence does not make a banned category allowed on WhatsApp. The list includes:
- Illegal products or services, and hazardous goods and materials
- Firearms, and alcohol and tobacco
- Drugs of any kind, and medical and healthcare products
- Endangered species, and live non-endangered animals other than livestock
- Real, virtual or fake currency, including ICOs and binary options
- Body parts or fluids
- Fraudulent, misleading or deceptive business models and services
- Real-money gambling and gaming, adult products and services, and dating services
- Multi-level marketing, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, debt collection and bail bonds
WhatsApp’s wider commerce rules also treat areas such as counterfeit goods and unauthorised-access products strictly, so check the policy before listing anything unusual. If you break the rules, WhatsApp may limit or remove your access to the Business services — check your category against the policy first, not after a rejection.
Free in the App, Charged on the API: The Money Difference
The catalogue in the free WhatsApp Business app costs nothing to create and nothing per product. You may have read about WhatsApp charging businesses per conversation — that pricing belongs to the WhatsApp Business Platform (API), the system large companies use through software providers. Those per-conversation charges are not a catalogue fee, and they do not apply to a shop you run from the free app on your phone.
| Free Business app | Business Platform (API) | |
|---|---|---|
| Catalogue | Included, free | Managed via Meta Commerce Manager |
| Charges | None for listing products | Per-conversation charges apply |
| Best for | Small shops and sellers | Large businesses with high message volume |
Current guides also describe creating and editing the catalogue from WhatsApp Web and the desktop app, which is handy when your product photos live on a computer. And if a business outgrows the phone app entirely, the API route manages the catalogue in Meta Commerce Manager — the same catalogue system behind Facebook and Instagram Shops, with one catalogue connected to each WhatsApp Business Account. For most Pakistani sellers reading this guide, the free app is the right place to start and stay for a long time.
The steps, fields and limits in this guide follow the catalogue walkthrough published by respond.io, checked against WhatsApp’s own Business Policy page in October 2026. Menu names and limits can change as the app updates, so if a screen on your phone looks slightly different, follow the labels you see.
Also read: WhatsApp Business Pricing Change Explained and WhatsApp Communities vs Groups vs Channels
FAQs
Is the WhatsApp Business catalogue really free?
Yes. Creating and using the catalogue in the WhatsApp Business app is completely free, with no charge per product. The per-conversation charges you may have heard about belong to the separate WhatsApp Business Platform (API) used by large businesses — they are not a fee for listing products in the app.
How many products can I add, and can I create a second catalogue?
The free app catalogue holds up to 500 items, and only one catalogue can be active on your number at a time. For a second category, do not look for a second catalogue — create a Collection inside the one catalogue, such as Sale or New Arrivals, and group the items there.
How do customers pay — inside WhatsApp?
No. The customer sends their cart to you as a chat message, and payment happens outside the catalogue flow. In Pakistan that usually means cash on delivery, JazzCash, Easypaisa or a bank transfer, arranged and confirmed in the same chat. WhatsApp does not process the payment for you.
Why is there a green clock on my new product, or why was it rejected?
The green clock means your item is in review and is not yet visible to customers. Review is usually quick but can take up to a day. If an item is rejected, the catalogue shows a reason — unclear images, a restricted category or misleading pricing are common ones. Fix what the reason points to, save the item again, and it will be reviewed once more.