> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://limechatai.gitbook.io/limechat-product-guide/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://limechatai.gitbook.io/limechat-product-guide/helpdesk/tickets/understanding-groups-on-whatsapp-api-business-accounts.md).

# Understanding Groups on WhatsApp API Business Accounts

### 1. Overview

LimeChat CRM supports **WhatsApp Groups** for eligible WhatsApp API business accounts. This allows businesses to create and manage group-based customer conversations directly from CRM, instead of coordinating the same discussion across multiple 1:1 tickets. 

This feature is designed for use cases where multiple participants need to stay in the same conversation thread, while still allowing teams to manage that conversation operationally inside LimeChat CRM.

### 2. What problem does this solve?

WhatsApp Groups helps solve a set of operational gaps that are hard to manage in regular 1:1 WhatsApp conversations:

* **Multi-party coordination:** multiple customer-side stakeholders can participate in the same conversation instead of requiring separate tickets.
* **Single source of truth:** all group messages stay inside one ticket journey instead of being fragmented across multiple chats.
* **Faster collaboration:** agents can handle updates, clarifications, and coordination in one shared thread.
* **Better visibility:** support and operations teams can see the entire group conversation in one place.
* **Reduced ticket sprawl:** instead of one issue generating multiple 1:1 threads, one group ticket can hold the complete context.

### 3. Eligibility and guidelines

WhatsApp Groups is **not universally available on every business number**.

#### Eligibility requirements

* The business must have an **Official Business Account (OBA)**.
* The phone number must be an **eligible Groups-enabled number**.
* The business must have at least a **100K messaging limit / TIER\_100K**. Meta’s docs describe this in terms of the business phone number/business portfolio being used to message **100K or more unique WhatsApp users in a rolling 24-hour period** for that tier.
* Groups is still subject to other product constraints such as **no Coexistence** and **no Multi-solution Conversations numbers** for Groups usage, based on Meta’s Groups documentation.

#### Important limitations

Meta currently documents the following core limits and constraints for Groups:

* **Maximum 8 participants per group**
* **Maximum 1 Cloud API business per group**
* **Maximum 10,000 groups per business number**
* **Calling API is not supported in groups** 

#### Supported message behavior

Meta documents that Groups APIs support sending and receiving messages in groups, and the Message API supports `recipient_type = group`, where the `to` field takes a `group-id` instead of a phone number. Meta also notes support for text, media, and template-based group messaging. 

#### Pricing note

Groups API follows **Cloud API per-message pricing**, not a special separate group-conversation pricing model. Meta also notes that performance metrics are not available for templates used in groups. 

### 4. How the feature is structured

At a high level, the feature works in two parts:

#### A. Group creation and management

LimeChat uses Meta’s Groups APIs to:

* create a group,
* generate the group invite link,
* manage group lifecycle,
* and enable messaging to the group once members join. Meta’s Groups API lifecycle includes group creation, invite-link creation, and group querying/management endpoints. Meta also notes that once a user joins the group, a webhook is triggered, after which the business becomes eligible to message the group.

#### B. Ticketing and agent workflow

On LimeChat CRM:

* the group is represented as a **group ticket**,
* the ticket is assigned to the creating agent,
* participants can later be invited into the group,
* incoming messages from multiple group members are visible within the same ticket,
* and the ticket follows the inbox-level resolution/closure logic configured on CRM.

***

### 5. Key nuances to understand

There are a few important nuances teams should understand before using this feature:

#### 5.1 Group access is number-dependent

Even if the business has WhatsApp API enabled, the specific business phone number must still be eligible for Groups. If not, Meta may return error `131215` indicating that the number is not eligible for Groups APIs.

#### 5.2 The business number is part of the group

Meta states that the business phone number used to create the group is automatically added to the group as the **creator and admin**. That is why, in practice, with a max group size of 8, the business account occupies one seat and the remaining capacity is for customer-side participants. 

#### 5.3 Group messaging starts only after join

Creating the group is not enough. Meta notes that once a user joins the group, a webhook is triggered, and only then can the business start messaging the group. This is important for understanding why invite flow and join flow are critical parts of the journey. 

#### 5.4 Groups are not the same as standard tickets

A group ticket differs from a regular 1:1 ticket because:

* messages can come from multiple end users,
* invite and participant management are part of the workflow,
* and the same conversation thread is shared across members.

#### 5.5 Invite flow is operationally important

Since participants must join using the invite link, sending that link properly becomes a key part of the product flow. In LimeChat CRM, this is handled by letting users pick a template and inject the group invite link into a variable before sending the invitation.