What Is a wa.me Link? (Click-to-Chat, Explained)

A wa.me link (also called a "click-to-chat" link) opens a WhatsApp conversation with a specific number — no need for the other person to save the contact first. It is the backbone of taking orders on WhatsApp.

The format

https://wa.me/<number>

The number is in full international format, digits only — no +, no spaces, no dashes, no leading zeros.

• Correct: https://wa.me/447911123456
• Wrong: https://wa.me/+44 7911 123456, https://wa.me/07911123456

Pre-filling a message

Add a text parameter to open the chat with a message already typed:

https://wa.me/447911123456?text=Hi%2C%20I%27d%20like%20to%20order

The text must be URL-encoded: a space becomes %20, a comma %2C, an apostrophe %27, and a line break %0A. The customer still has to press send, so nothing is sent without their action.

Where to use it

• A "Chat on WhatsApp" button on a website or link-in-bio page.
• Your Instagram or TikTok bio.
• A QR code on packaging or a flyer (encode the wa.me URL).
• An email signature or invoice.

The limitation for selling

A bare wa.me link starts an empty conversation. The customer still has to describe what they want, and you still have to work out prices and totals by hand. That is the manual part of selling on WhatsApp that eats your time.

A storefront fixes it by generating the pre-filled message for you: the customer browses a catalog, adds items to a cart, and the wa.me link that opens carries the full order — products, quantities, and total — ready to send. That is what a WhatsApp ordering system does under the hood.

Common mistakes

• Leaving the + or spaces in the number. Strip everything except digits.
• Keeping the leading zero from the local format. Use the country code instead (44…, not 0…).
• Un-encoded text. Raw spaces and punctuation break the link in some apps. Encode it.
• Using api.whatsapp.com/send in new links. wa.me is the current short form and behaves the same.

Try it

Build a catalog whose order button is a pre-filled wa.me link — free, about 90 seconds: create a WhatsApp store.