Broadcast lists send messages. Buddy builds the relationship around them.
A WhatsApp broadcast list sends one message to many people who have already saved your number. That is a real feature and for some businesses it is enough. Here is precisely where it stops.
Permission-based. Built with the WhatsApp Business Platform.
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- Creators
- Ecommerce
- SaaS
- Education
- Communities
- Restaurants & Hospitality
Subscriber management
A broadcast list is a list of phone numbers.
There is no name, source, tag, or history attached beyond what is in your phone contacts. In Buddy a subscriber is a record: who they are, where they came from, what they agreed to, which audiences they belong to, and what they have done since.
Where the two differ
What you get.
Broadcast lists only reach people who saved your number.
That is WhatsApp's own rule, and it acts as a rough proxy for permission. It is not a consent record: it does not say when someone agreed, to what, or whether they have since changed their mind. Buddy stores that explicitly and honours opt-outs across every send.
You can make several lists. You cannot query them.
Splitting an audience means building and maintaining separate lists by hand. Buddy builds audiences from attributes and behaviour, so the group updates itself as people buy, join, enrol, or go quiet.
A broadcast goes when you press send.
There is no scheduling and no queue. Buddy schedules a campaign, sends it at the time you choose, and keeps the record of what went to whom.
You can see delivery and read ticks, per person.
What you cannot see is the campaign: how many opened, how many clicked, how many replied, how many opted out, and how that compares with the last one. Buddy reports on the send, not the individual chat.
Nothing happens unless you do it.
There is no welcome message, no follow-up after a purchase, no win-back for someone who has gone quiet. Buddy triggers those from customer events without you being online.
A broadcast list belongs to one phone.
It cannot be shared, reviewed, or handed over. Buddy is a workspace with roles, so more than one person can build, approve, and send without passing a handset around.
Nothing flows in.
A broadcast list has no idea what happened in your store, your course platform, or your booking system. Buddy Connect and the API bring that activity in so the message can respond to it.
Be honest about this.
A small, stable audience you know personally, occasional messages, no segmentation, no reporting needs, one person sending. A broadcast list does that job for free and you should use it.
- Small audience
- Occasional sends
- One sender
- No reporting needed
The point where it stops scaling.
You cannot remember who bought what, different groups need different messages, you want to know what worked, follow-ups are being missed, or more than one person needs to send.
- You need segments
- You need reporting
- Follow-ups are slipping
- More than one sender
FAQ
Questions, answered.
Yes. WhatsApp only delivers a broadcast to recipients who have your number saved in their contacts. It is the mechanism that stops broadcasts being used for cold outreach.
Still have questions?
Reach out to Sarah, the founder. She reads and replies to every message.
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