A WhatsApp catalogue maker is a tool that turns your product list into a single shareable page or product set that customers can browse inside — or alongside — a WhatsApp chat. You have two realistic options: the catalogue built into the free WhatsApp Business app, which lives inside WhatsApp but is limited to 500 items and cannot take an order; or a web-based store page you send as a link, which has no item cap, shows prices and variants properly, and puts an order back into your chat as a pre-filled message.
This guide covers both honestly, shows where each one breaks, and explains how to pick. If you already know you want the link-based route, Follow My Site includes a WhatsApp Store on every plan — the cheapest entry is ₹200 plus 18% GST, so ₹236 for the first month.
What a WhatsApp catalogue actually is
There are two different things people mean by the phrase, and conflating them is why so much advice online is useless.
1. The native WhatsApp Business catalogue. A feature inside the free WhatsApp Business app. You add items with a photo, name, price, description and a link. Customers tap your profile, tap Catalogue, and browse without leaving WhatsApp. It is free and it is genuinely convenient.
2. A catalogue page you share as a link. A web page listing your products, which you paste into the chat. The customer taps the link, browses a real page, picks what they want, and taps a button that opens WhatsApp again with their selection already written into the message box.
The first is a catalogue in WhatsApp. The second is a catalogue for WhatsApp. Most businesses end up needing the second one, and almost always for the same three reasons.
Where the native WhatsApp catalogue runs out
| Limit | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| 500 items maximum | Fine for a boutique. Not fine for a hardware shop, a pharmacy, a parts dealer or anyone with sizes and colours as separate SKUs. |
| No cart and no order | A customer can browse but cannot submit anything. They have to type out what they want, and you have to piece the order together from a conversation. |
| One flat list | There are collections, but no real categories, filters or search. Past about 60 items, browsing on a phone becomes scrolling. |
| No variants | A shirt in four sizes and three colours is twelve separate catalogue entries, each with its own photo. |
| Shareable only through your profile | You cannot put a native catalogue in an Instagram bio, on a printed poster, in an email signature or on a visiting card. |
| Item review by Meta | Items can be rejected, and certain categories are not allowed at all. |
None of this makes the native catalogue bad. It makes it a product browser, not a shop. We go through the specific failure modes and their workarounds in WhatsApp catalogue limitations and how to fix them.
What a link-based catalogue maker does differently
A web catalogue solves the three things above by not being inside WhatsApp at all — while keeping WhatsApp as the place the conversation and the payment happen.
- No item limit. List as many products or services as your storage allows.
- The order arrives as a message. The customer taps Order on WhatsApp and their chat opens with the items, quantities and total already typed. You reply, confirm, and take payment however you already do.
- One link, everywhere. The same URL goes in your Instagram bio, your Google Business Profile, a poster, a QR code on your counter, an email signature or a printed card. The native catalogue cannot leave WhatsApp.
- Prices and variants shown properly. Sizes, colours, units and price-on-request all fit on one product, not twelve.
- It is a page, so it can be found. A web page can carry a title, a description and structured data. A native catalogue cannot be indexed by Google at all.
How to build one with Follow My Site
Follow My Site is a digital business card builder, and the WhatsApp Store is one of the sections you can switch on inside your card. That matters more than it sounds: the catalogue sits on the same page as who you are, how to reach you, your gallery and your enquiry form — so a customer who arrives for a product also sees a business.
- Get a card. Pick a plan on the pricing page and pay. Your account is created automatically and your login is emailed to you. The Monthly plan is ₹200 plus 18% GST — ₹236 — and there is a 7-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee if it is not what you expected.
- Choose a template. There are 37. Browse them in the template gallery first if you want to see the finished look.
- Turn on the WhatsApp Store in your dashboard and set the WhatsApp number that orders should arrive on.
- Add products. Name, photo, price, description, category. Use categories from the start — reorganising 80 products later is tedious.
- Set your currency and order message. The order message is what lands in your chat; keep it short enough to read on a notification.
- Test it on your own phone. Open the link, add two items, tap order, and check the message that arrives. Do this before you share the link anywhere.
- Share it. The card has its own QR code, so the same catalogue works on a counter sticker, a flyer and a WhatsApp status.
Every plan includes at least one WhatsApp Store. Monthly gives you one, Yearly two and Lifetime five — useful if you run more than one brand or want a separate wholesale list.
Native catalogue or link catalogue — how to choose
| If this is you | Use |
|---|---|
| Under 40 products, no variants, you are happy taking orders by chat | The free WhatsApp Business catalogue. Do not pay for something you do not need. |
| More than 500 items, or sizes and colours | A link catalogue. The native one cannot hold it. |
| You want the catalogue in your Instagram bio or on a poster | A link catalogue. Native catalogues cannot be linked to. |
| You keep rebuilding orders out of long chat threads | A link catalogue, for the pre-filled order message alone. |
| You quote rather than sell fixed prices | A link catalogue with price-on-request, plus the enquiry form. |
| You want to be found on Google | A link catalogue. A native one is invisible to search engines. |
Plenty of businesses run both: the native catalogue as a quick browse for people already in the chat, and the link for everywhere else. There is no conflict.
Five things that make a catalogue actually sell
- Put a price on everything, even if it is a range. "Price on request" on every item reads as expensive. A range reads as honest.
- Shoot photos the same way. Same background, same distance, same light. Consistency does more for a catalogue than any individual photo.
- Write the first four words carefully. On a phone, product names truncate. "Cotton kurta — navy, XL" survives truncation. "Beautiful premium quality handcrafted…" does not.
- Keep categories under eight. More than that and people scroll past the whole navigation.
- Answer the delivery question on the page. If you deliver only locally, say where. Half the chat messages you answer are about this.
There is more on photo sizing, ordering and layout in WhatsApp catalogue design tips.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free WhatsApp catalogue maker?
Yes — the WhatsApp Business app itself, free from the App Store or Play Store, with the limits in the table above. If you need a link-based catalogue with no item cap and order messages, that is a paid product. Follow My Site's starts at ₹200 plus 18% GST (₹236) per month and has no free plan or trial; the 7-day money-back guarantee is the way to try it without risk.
Do I need WhatsApp Business to use a link catalogue?
No. A link catalogue sends its order message to whatever WhatsApp number you set, personal or Business. WhatsApp Business is still worth having for the away messages and labels, but it is not required.
Can customers pay inside the catalogue?
Not in the Follow My Site WhatsApp Store — it carries the order into your chat, and you collect payment the way you already do, by UPI, bank transfer, link or cash. If you need checkout and payment on the page itself, you want an e-commerce platform, not a card. The comparison is set out in WhatsApp Store vs online store.
How many products can I add?
There is no fixed item count — the practical limit is image storage: 25 MB on Monthly, 45 MB on Yearly, 100 MB on Lifetime. Compressed product photos are usually 60–150 KB each, so even the smallest plan holds a sizeable list. Resize photos before uploading and you will not run into it.
Will a WhatsApp catalogue show up on Google?
A native WhatsApp catalogue will not — Google cannot crawl inside WhatsApp. A link catalogue is an ordinary web page with its own title, description and SEO fields, so it can be indexed like any other page. Being indexed is not the same as ranking, and a new page takes time either way.
Can I have more than one catalogue?
Yes, on the right plan. Monthly includes one WhatsApp Store, Yearly two and Lifetime five. Separate stores are useful for retail versus wholesale pricing, or for two brands run by the same person.
The short version
If your list is small and you are content taking orders by conversation, use the free WhatsApp Business catalogue and spend nothing. If you have outgrown 500 items, need variants, want the catalogue somewhere other than WhatsApp, or you are tired of assembling orders out of chat threads, you need a link-based catalogue — and you can have one on a page that also works as your digital business card.
Follow My Site includes a WhatsApp Store on all three plans: ₹236 for a month, ₹1,062 for a year, or ₹1,711 once for Lifetime, all including 18% GST. Start monthly at ₹236 or pay once at ₹1,711. Hindi mein yahi jaankari: WhatsApp catalogue kya hota hai. Restaurants have their own version of this problem — see cards for restaurants and cafes.