Create your Meta app and business portfolio
The developer account, the business portfolio, and the one app all three channels attach to.
Three things live on Meta's side and they are easy to confuse, so it is worth naming them before you start.
| Thing | What it is |
|---|---|
| Developer account | Your personal Facebook login, enabled for development |
| Business portfolio (formerly Business Manager) | The company container that owns assets and people |
| App | The integration that talks to the API — where your app secret lives |
| WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) | The container for your WhatsApp numbers |
| Facebook Page | What Messenger and Instagram messages are addressed to |
The portfolio owns the WhatsApp Business Account. The app is what we authenticate as. Both have to exist, and they have to be connected to each other.
One app covers all three channels. WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram are three products you add to the same app, not three apps. Everything on this page is done once, whichever channel brought you here — and if you add a second channel later, you come back only for that one product and its webhook subscription.
1. Register as a developer
Go to Meta for Developers (opens in a new tab) and register. This uses your ordinary Facebook login — there is no separate developer identity to create, which surprises people who expected one.
2. Create a business portfolio
If your company already has one, use it; do not make a second. A portfolio you create for this will also be the one you later put through business verification, so it should carry your real business name and details from the start.
Renaming it afterwards is possible but re-triggers review, which is a week you did not need to spend.
3. Create an app
Create an app and choose the use case that covers WhatsApp messaging. During creation, Meta asks which business portfolio the app belongs to — connect it to the portfolio from step 2 now. Connecting it later is a settings change most people cannot find, and an app attached to no portfolio cannot own a system user, which is where your permanent token comes from.
Then add the products you need. They are separate entries in the app's sidebar, and adding one does not add the others:
- WhatsApp, which creates a WhatsApp Business Account and gives you the API Setup page, where the phone number ID and the WhatsApp Business Account ID are shown.
- Messenger, for Facebook Page messages. It needs your Page connected to the app.
- Instagram, for DMs to an Instagram professional account. It needs the same Page, plus the Instagram account linked to that Page.
Add only what you are connecting today. A product you added and never configured does no harm, but it does leave a webhook section in the console that looks like something you forgot.
4. Collect the app secret
App settings → Basic → App secret. You have to re-enter your password to reveal it.
The app secret is not a password for the API — it is the key Meta signs its webhook requests with, and it is how we prove an inbound message really came from Meta and not from someone who found the URL. That is why we ask for it and why we never display it back to you, even masked.
Next, depending on the channel:
- WhatsApp — add and verify your phone number.
- Instagram — connect your Instagram account.
- Messenger — connect your Facebook Page.
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