Arattai for Business Launches in India: Zoho Takes on WhatsApp With Free Messaging for Healthcare and Education
India’s business-messaging market has a new challenger.
Zoho-backed messaging platform Arattai has launched Arattai for Business, a dedicated service designed to help companies communicate with customers, automate conversations and integrate messaging into existing business systems.
The launch comes at an interesting time. Revised pricing for WhatsApp Business took effect on October 1, while Arattai’s new business offering was announced on October 2.
The biggest attention-grabbing part of the announcement is its approach to public-interest organisations: government and public services can use the Arattai Business Platform free, while healthcare and educational institutions are being offered an allowance of 1 million messages per month at no charge.
That does not mean every business can send unlimited messages for free. Pricing for ordinary commercial use of the Business Platform has not yet been fully disclosed publicly, so businesses should not assume the entire platform is free.
What Is Arattai for Business?
There are actually two different products, and understanding the distinction is important.
The Arattai Business App is aimed primarily at small and medium businesses that want to directly manage customer conversations without building an API integration.
The Arattai Business Platform is designed for organisations that need to connect messaging with their own software, automation systems or customer workflows through APIs.
According to official Arattai documentation, the Business App does not require an enterprise contract or technical setup to get started. Businesses can register with a mobile number and create a public business profile.
That makes the app potentially useful for local retailers, restaurants, home-service providers, salons, clinics, coaching centres and other businesses that mainly need a customer-chat tool rather than a complex messaging API.
Arattai Business App Features
The Business App includes several tools familiar to anyone who has used business-focused messaging applications.
Businesses can create a profile containing their:
Business name
Profile image
Description
Business category
Opening hours
The app also provides automated greeting and away messages, allowing businesses to respond when employees are unavailable.
Arattai’s documentation says automated messages can include formatted text and one supported attachment of up to 50MB, including images, GIFs, videos or PDFs.
Quick replies and conversation-management tools are also available, reducing the need for businesses to repeatedly type common responses.
1 Million Free Messages for Healthcare and Education
One of today’s most notable announcements concerns healthcare and educational organisations.
Arattai is providing those institutions with a free allowance of 1 million messages per month.
That could make the platform relevant for communications such as appointment information, institutional notices, student updates and other permitted messaging use cases.
However, the announcement does not mean every hospital, clinic, school or educational organisation automatically receives unrestricted messaging for every possible purpose.
Institutions should review the platform’s eligibility, messaging categories and applicable terms before building large-scale communication systems around the allowance.
Government and Public Services Can Use the Platform Free
Arattai is taking an even broader approach toward government communication.
Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu said the Arattai Business Platform will be free for government and public services, specifically mentioning services such as Indian Railways as an example.
Integrations with public services are still being worked on, so this should not be interpreted as confirmation that Indian Railways has already shifted its customer messaging to Arattai.
That distinction matters: the platform is available for such integrations, but specific deployments need to be separately confirmed.
Businesses Can Connect Arattai to Their Own Software
The Business Platform is more technically ambitious than a standalone messaging app.
Official documentation describes it as a REST API platform authenticated through OAuth 2.0.
It currently supports four broad messaging categories:
Promotional messages — offers, launches and marketing announcements.
Transactional messages — order confirmations, shipping updates and similar information.
Authentication messages — OTPs and verification codes.
Conversational messages — responses to customer-initiated conversations within the applicable 24-hour window.
This means a company could potentially connect Arattai to its website, CRM, e-commerce system or internal software instead of having employees manually send every message.
OTPs Can Also Be Sent Through Arattai
Authentication is an especially interesting part of the platform.
Arattai’s developer documentation includes APIs specifically designed for sending one-time passwords and verification messages.
Businesses can create authentication templates and send verification codes to customers through the platform.
This moves Arattai beyond ordinary business chat.
If the platform gains sufficient adoption, it could be used for communications currently handled through combinations of SMS, email and other messaging services.
Mini Apps Could Let Customers Do More Inside Chats
Another feature that differentiates the platform from basic messaging is Mini Apps.
According to Arattai’s official FAQ, Mini Apps are web applications that can open within Arattai.
Potential uses include:
shopping, booking services, making payments, completing forms and tracking orders without leaving the conversation.
For businesses, that creates the possibility of turning a customer conversation into a broader service experience rather than simply exchanging text messages.
A retailer, for example, could eventually use messaging to communicate with a customer and connect that interaction with an ordering or tracking workflow.
Actual functionality will still depend on what each business develops and integrates.
Arattai Business vs WhatsApp Business: What Is Different?
The timing makes comparison with WhatsApp unavoidable, but Arattai should not yet be described as having replaced or overtaken WhatsApp.
The two platforms differ substantially in scale and maturity.
| Area | Arattai Business | WhatsApp Business |
|---|---|---|
| Business chat | Yes | Yes |
| Business API/platform | Yes | Yes |
| Automated replies | Yes | Yes |
| Transactional messaging | Yes | Yes |
| Authentication/OTP messaging | Yes | Yes |
| Promotional messaging | Yes | Yes |
| Government/public-service offer | Platform announced as free | Different pricing structure |
| Healthcare/education offer | 1M messages/month free allowance | Standard applicable platform rules |
| Overall pricing | Full commercial pricing not yet publicly detailed | Published category/country pricing |
| Market maturity | Newer business platform | Established global platform |
Arattai’s official documentation confirms its business app and API capabilities, while today’s launch reports confirm the special healthcare, education and public-service provisions.
The comparison therefore should not be reduced to “Arattai is free and WhatsApp is paid.” That would be misleading.
Why the Timing Matters After WhatsApp’s Pricing Change
The launch arrives just one day after WhatsApp Business pricing changes took effect on October 1.
Under the revised WhatsApp Business Platform structure, some service and utility messaging that businesses previously handled differently now carries applicable charges, while a limited service-message allowance remains available.
That timing gives Arattai an opportunity to attract attention from Indian businesses evaluating their customer-communication costs.
But businesses should compare much more than message prices.
They also need to consider customer reach, API reliability, integrations, automation capabilities, support, security, developer tools and whether their customers actually use the platform.
A cheap messaging platform provides little value if a company’s customers are not reachable through it.
Is Arattai Business Completely Free?
No such broad claim has been confirmed.
The Business App itself is described by Arattai as a free, no-code application for small and medium businesses.
The Business Platform is different.
Its official FAQ says its four messaging categories have their own pricing and template requirements, while today’s announcement provides special free arrangements for public services and the 1-million-message allowance for healthcare and education.
Arattai has not yet publicly detailed a complete general-business pricing structure in the launch information reviewed by Trendora Feed.
Therefore, headlines suggesting that businesses can send unlimited free Arattai API messages would go beyond the confirmed information.
Is Arattai an Indian App?
Arattai describes its business product as being built in India and designed for Indian businesses. India Today also reports that positioning as part of today’s launch.
The word “Arattai” means informal conversation or chit-chat in Tamil.
The consumer messaging app gained significant attention in India before the business-focused product arrived, and today’s expansion gives the platform a new route into customer communication.
What About Privacy and Security?
Arattai says its platform uses a privacy-first model and that user data is stored on Indian servers.
Its official Business FAQ describes security technologies including TLS 1.2/1.3, AES encryption, SHA-2 message authentication and Perfect Forward Secrecy, while stating that the company does not sell user data to third parties.
The consumer platform’s official FAQ also says personal messages, calls and files are end-to-end encrypted and that Arattai does not show ads or sell user data.
There is an important nuance for businesses, though: Arattai’s documentation says automated greeting and away messages are sent from its servers and are not end-to-end encrypted.
So businesses should evaluate security based on the exact feature being used rather than assuming every type of automated or API message has identical encryption characteristics.
Who Could Use Arattai Business?
The Business App could be particularly relevant to Indian SMEs that primarily need a simple way to manage customer conversations.
Examples include local shops, restaurants, home kitchens, clinics, salons, coaching institutes and home-service providers—the same types of businesses Arattai itself identifies in its documentation.
Larger companies have a different use case.
They can use the Business Platform APIs to connect customer communication with existing software and automate high-volume transactional, authentication, promotional and conversational messaging.
Can Businesses Switch From WhatsApp to Arattai Today?
Technically, businesses can begin setting up Arattai Business, but replacing an existing WhatsApp operation is a much bigger decision.
A messaging network becomes useful partly because customers are already present on it.
WhatsApp has an established user base and mature business ecosystem, while Arattai is still expanding its business offering.
For many companies, therefore, the immediate question may not be “WhatsApp or Arattai?”
A more practical question is whether Arattai can become an additional customer-communication channel alongside existing WhatsApp, SMS, email and app notifications.
Businesses can then measure adoption and customer response before making larger changes.
What Has Not Been Announced Yet?
Several details remain important to watch.
Arattai has not provided complete public commercial pricing for every ordinary business use case in today’s launch information.
The company has also not announced when every proposed government or public-service integration will become operational.
And although the platform provides APIs for promotional, transactional, authentication and conversational messages, the existence of those tools does not guarantee immediate adoption by major Indian enterprises.
Those questions will become clearer as more businesses begin using the service.
Why This Launch Could Become Important
India’s business-messaging market is valuable because messaging increasingly sits at the centre of online commerce.
Customers receive order confirmations, OTPs, delivery alerts, appointment reminders, support responses and promotional messages through chat platforms every day.
Arattai is now attempting to compete for part of that infrastructure rather than remaining only a consumer messaging application.
The combination of a simple SME app, a developer API platform, free public-service access and a large healthcare-and-education allowance gives it a distinct entry strategy.
The timing—immediately after changes to WhatsApp Business pricing—also gives Indian businesses another reason to examine the platform.
Whether that attention turns into sustained adoption will depend on customer reach, reliability, pricing, integrations and real-world business usage over the coming months.
For now, what is confirmed is that Arattai for Business is live, its Business Platform APIs are available, government and public-service use is being offered free, and healthcare and education organisations are being offered up to 1 million free messages per month.