WhatsApp Broadcast List vs WhatsApp Group: What's the Difference?

A WhatsApp broadcast list sends the same message to a set of contacts at once, but each recipient gets it as a private, individual chat with the sender - recipients can't see who else received it, and any reply goes back to the sender alone, not to the whole list. A message only reaches a recipient who already has the sender's number saved, and each list is capped at 256 contacts.

A WhatsApp group is a shared chat room where every member can see the other members' numbers and messages, and anyone in the group can message the whole group - it's built for many-to-many conversation, not one-way distribution.

For marketing sends, a broadcast list is almost always the right structure: it keeps the interaction business-like and private, since customers don't see each other's numbers or conversations, and it's what businesses use for scheduled announcements, offers, and back-in-stock alerts. A group is better suited to cases where the interaction itself is the point - a community of customers discussing a topic together, or a small collaborative cohort - since it deliberately trades away the privacy of a broadcast for open, multi-way conversation. The two aren't a matter of one being generally better; a broadcast list is for reaching people cleanly, while a group is for getting them talking to each other.