Why teams choose Klaros for WhatsApp
Klaros is a self-deployed WhatsApp CRM: it runs on your own Cloudflare account, connects your own WhatsApp Business Account directly to Meta's Cloud API, and charges a flat licence with zero per-message markup. Teams choose Klaros when they want to own their WhatsApp stack, pay Meta directly at Meta's published rates, and keep every contact and conversation in infrastructure they control.
Zero markup
Klaros is never in the payment path for messaging. Meta bills you at its published rates, so a markup is architecturally impossible, not merely waived.
Self-deployed
Klaros runs on Cloudflare Workers, D1 and R2 in your own account. Your WhatsApp Business Account, your data, with full export at any time.
Flat licence
Hosted from ₹699 a month billed annually, or self-deployed at ₹39,000 a year. The licence never scales with how many messages you send.
API on every plan
Klaros ships an OpenAPI 3.1 REST API, HMAC-signed webhooks and an MCP server for AI tools. None of it sits behind an enterprise tier.
Who Klaros is built for, and who it is not
Klaros suits a business that wants to own its WhatsApp stack and is comfortable holding its own Meta Business verification. It is deliberately not built for everyone, and saying so up front saves both sides time.
| If you are | Why Klaros fits | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| A technical founder or operations lead | Owns the WhatsApp Business Account, deploys on their own Cloudflare account, and has a full REST API from day one. | How it is deployed |
| A high-volume WhatsApp sender | Pays Meta directly instead of a 15-25% reseller markup on every template send. | Cost calculator |
| A jeweller who prices by the day's gold rate | Prices are computed from the metal rate, gold pieces of 2 g or more are held back until their BIS HUID is recorded, and stones are itemised. | For jewellers |
| An agency running WhatsApp for clients | Self-deploys one instance per client on the client's own WhatsApp account and passes Meta's true rate through. Not a white-label reseller programme. | For agencies |
| A data-sensitive or regulated business | Gets a consent ledger, GDPR erasure and export, and a deployment it controls. | Opt-in proof |
| A developer building on WhatsApp | Gets an OpenAPI 3.1 spec, an MCP server and HMAC-signed webhooks on every plan. | API reference |
| An operations lead in construction or field sales | Turns WhatsApp into structured capture, watchdog alerts and auto-generated digests through the entity engine. | Use cases |
| An online store or small retailer | Gets order tracking from received to fulfilled, payment requests from any provider's link, a shared inbox and a live view of what Meta charges. | Use cases |
Klaros is the wrong choice if you need:
- A fully managed, done-for-you service where a vendor handles Meta onboarding and builds the bot for you. A managed WhatsApp vendor fits better.
- Native in-chat checkout or WhatsApp Pay today. Klaros tracks orders and sends payment requests from your own payment gateway link, but there is no in-chat checkout that skips a gateway.
- A no-code drag-and-drop chatbot builder today. The branching engine is built and live; the visual canvas for authoring it is still ahead.
- Instagram, Facebook or SMS in the same inbox. Klaros is WhatsApp-only by design. Omnichannel platforms such as Respond.io or SleekFlow are built for that: see the comparison pages.
- A local vendor who operates the bot for you in your language and time zone.
- A reseller or white-label arrangement to bill messaging to your own end clients.
- A 50+ agent call centre with SSO and department-level queue routing. Auto-assignment and capacity caps are shipped; Salesforce-grade role hierarchies and SSO are not planned.
What you own with Klaros
The practical difference between a multi-tenant WhatsApp platform and a self-deployed one is who holds the account, the data and the billing relationship. The multi-tenant column describes the model most WhatsApp platforms use; individual vendors differ, so check yours.
| What | Multi-tenant WhatsApp platform | Klaros |
|---|---|---|
| WhatsApp Business Account and phone number | Often onboarded onto the vendor's own account | Yours, registered to your own Meta Business account |
| Where the contact database lives | In a shared database with other customers | Your own D1 database when self-deployed; a single-tenant instance when hosted |
| Messaging billing | Through the vendor, typically with a 15-25% markup | Meta bills you directly at Meta's rate. Klaros is not in the payment path |
| Export | Varies by vendor | Contacts, conversations, media, consent records and cost history, on demand, in both modes |
| Consent records | Varies by vendor | An append-only ledger with GDPR erasure and export |
| If the vendor stops | Service stops | A self-deployed instance keeps running in your Cloudflare account |
Full detail, including what a licence permits and what happens if Klaros disappears, is on the deployment page.
What Klaros costs, the whole picture
Klaros has three prices. Hosted, Founding Partner: a free 14-day trial, then ₹699 a month billed annually (list ₹999 a month, limited to 10 customers). Hosted, Growth Cloud: ₹1,499 a month billed annually, or ₹2,499 billed monthly, with up to 3 WhatsApp numbers. Self-deployed Pro: ₹39,000 a year, about ₹3,250 a month, one flat licence per deployment. All three have zero messaging markup. Messaging itself is paid to Meta.
Worked example, 10,000 marketing messages a month to India at the 0.8631 rupee rate Meta charged on a live account (see the WhatsApp roadmap for how it was measured):
| Line | Per month | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Meta's messaging charge | ₹8,631 | The same on any platform, paid to Meta. |
| A 15-25% reseller markup on top | ₹1,295 to ₹2,158 | About ₹15,500 to ₹25,900 a year. Klaros charges none. |
| The platform's own subscription and seat fees | varies | Charged on top of the markup by many platforms. Not included in the line above. |
| Klaros licence | ₹699, or about ₹3,250 self-deployed | Flat. Five team seats are included on the Founding Partner and self-deployed plans, with more as flat add-ons. |
Enter your own volume in the cost calculator, see the plans on the pricing page, and read the research behind the markup range in the BSP markup index.
How setup works
Klaros does not quote a single set-up time, because the slow steps are Meta's: business verification and template review. What Klaros controls is short.
- Start hosted, on the free 14-day trial. Connect your own WhatsApp Business Account and send real messages before anything is deployed anywhere.
- Import your contacts from CSV, vCard or JSON, or sync them from Google, Outlook or iCloud.
- Submit your message templates to Meta. Their review decides how soon a template can be sent.
- Send your first broadcast to contacts whose consent is recorded.
- Self-deployed only: license a deployment, have Klaros provisioned into your Cloudflare account alongside you, then migrate your hosted data across.
You will need: a Meta Business Manager account that Meta has verified; a phone number for WhatsApp Business, new or existing; a payment method on your Meta account; and, for self-deployed, a Cloudflare account you own.
Moving from another WhatsApp platform
Whether you are on WATI, Interakt, AiSensy, Gallabox, Respond.io or Gupshup, one question decides how hard the move is: whose Meta Business account holds my WhatsApp Business Account and phone number?
- If it is yours, you connect it to Klaros. You are changing the application on top of the WhatsApp account, not the account.
- If your vendor holds it, ownership has to move to your own Meta Business account first. That runs on Meta's side and the vendor's, and its duration is theirs.
- Chat history does not carry over. Meta's API does not allow importing prior conversations. Contacts do carry over, from CSV, vCard or JSON.
- You can run both at once. Klaros can run on a second number beside your current platform so you can compare your real bill before committing.
Founding Partner plans include founder-guided onboarding and migration. See the alternatives hub for platform-by-platform comparisons.
What Klaros cannot do, stated plainly
| Capability | Status | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Visual drag-and-drop chatbot builder | In development. The branching engine is live; the canvas is ahead. | Sequences, Flows from 15 blueprints, and the API with n8n, Zapier or Make through webhooks. |
| WhatsApp Pay and in-chat checkout | Not planned. | Payment requests carrying any provider's payment link. |
| Instagram, Facebook and SMS inboxes | Not planned. WhatsApp-only by design. | Use a dedicated tool for those channels. |
| Enterprise SSO and department-level queues | Not planned. Round-robin, least-busy, sticky and skill-based routing are shipped. | An enterprise vendor. |
| Vendor-run onboarding for every customer | Not the model. Founder-guided onboarding and migration are included for Founding Partners. | Founding Partner programme. |
| A published Zapier or Make app | Planned. The integration path works today through webhooks and the REST API. | Generic webhook and HTTP modules. |
| Established regional proof | Klaros is newer than the managed platforms it is compared with, and they have more public customer references. | The comparison pages say where managed vendors win. |
The shipped list, the in-development list and the not-planned list are all on the roadmap and in llms.txt.
Is Klaros open source?
No. Klaros is licensed software. Self-deployed means it runs in cloud infrastructure you own (your Cloudflare account, your WhatsApp Business Account, your data) under a licence. The source is not published, and the licence carries no right to redistribute or resell. The licence is verified offline, so an expired licence shows a renewal notice and never stops messages.
How much does Klaros cost?
Hosted starts with a free 14-day trial. Founding Partner pricing is ₹699 a month billed annually (list ₹999 a month, limited to 10 customers). Growth Cloud is ₹1,499 a month billed annually, or ₹2,499 billed monthly, with up to 3 WhatsApp numbers. Self-deployed Pro is ₹39,000 a year, one flat licence per deployment. Every mode has zero messaging markup: you pay Meta directly at Meta's published rates.
Can I keep my existing WhatsApp number?
Yes, if the WhatsApp Business Account that holds the number is yours. You connect it to Klaros, so you change the application on top of the account, not the account. If your current vendor holds the account, ownership has to move to your own Meta Business account first, on Meta's timeline and the vendor's. Conversation history does not carry over, because Meta's API does not allow importing prior conversations.
What happens if Klaros stops existing?
For a self-deployed instance, messaging keeps working. It runs as a Cloudflare Worker in your account, against your own WhatsApp Business Account, with a licence checked offline, so there is no licence server to switch off. You would lose new versions, Cloud API compatibility updates and support. A hosted instance runs on Klaros infrastructure, so there you would export your data and move.
Is Klaros a WhatsApp BSP?
No. Klaros is not a Business Solution Provider and is never in your Meta billing relationship. You connect your own WhatsApp Business Account to Meta's Cloud API. Klaros is the application layer: inbox, campaigns, sequences, consent ledger, API and automation. Zero markup is structural for that reason: no messaging payment passes through Klaros, so there is nothing to add a markup to.
Does Klaros have an API?
Yes. Klaros has a REST API with an OpenAPI 3.1 specification at /api/v1/openapi.json, scoped API keys, HMAC-signed outbound webhooks, and an MCP server (@klaros/mcp-server) so AI tools such as Claude Desktop and Cursor can call it. The API is included on every plan and is not gated behind an enterprise tier.
How does Klaros handle consent and GDPR?
Klaros writes consent to an append-only ledger that records the status, the source, the evidence, the time consent happened and, separately, the time it was recorded. It supports GDPR erasure and export. The consent audit page shows the evidence Meta asks for when it reviews a WhatsApp Business Account.
Can I connect multiple WhatsApp numbers?
Yes. Klaros supports multiple WhatsApp numbers with a per-line inbox, per-line sending and display-name labels. The Growth Cloud plan includes up to 3 numbers.
How long does it take to set up Klaros?
Klaros does not publish one figure, because the slow steps belong to Meta: business verification and template review. The Klaros side is short. Start the free 14-day hosted trial, connect your WhatsApp Business Account, import contacts and send. Self-deployed adds a licence and a deployment into your Cloudflare account, done alongside you, after which your hosted data is migrated across.
Does Klaros work in India?
Yes. Klaros prices in rupees, and Meta's India rates apply to messages sent to India. Observed on a live WhatsApp Business Account through Meta pricing analytics, a marketing message to India cost ₹0.8631 and a utility message ₹0.1150. Meta changes its rates, so check the WhatsApp roadmap page for the current measurement.
Start the free 14-day trial, compare the plans, or read the philosophy behind owning your WhatsApp stack. Klaros is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Meta.