Create a WhatsApp click-to-chat link
WhatsApp's official "click to chat" feature opens a conversation with a phone number without the user saving it as a contact first. The link format is https://wa.me/<number>, optionally followed by ?text= and a URL-encoded message. This WhatsApp link generator builds the link and an HTML anchor you can paste into your website.
WhatsApp link generator example
https://wa.me/15550100100?text=Hi!%20I%20have%20a%20question%20about%20my%20order%20%231234.
Testing the link before you publish it
- Open it on a phone that has WhatsApp installed. The chat should open with your business name at the top and the message ready in the input box.
- Open it on a computer. Desktop browsers show a page that hands the chat over to WhatsApp Desktop or WhatsApp Web.
- Check special characters. Emoji and line breaks survive only when encoded: 👋 becomes
%F0%9F%91%8Band a new line becomes%0A, which the generator does for you. If you edit the link by hand later, keep that encoding. - Watch for the "invalid number" notice. It almost always means a missing country code or a leftover leading zero.
You may also see older links in the form https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=15550100100&text=…. They lead to the same chat, but the short wa.me form is the one WhatsApp documents today and fits better in bios and QR codes.
Number format
The number must be in full international format without the plus sign, spaces, brackets, dashes or a leading zero. You can type it the way you usually write it — +1 (555) 010-0100 — and the generator strips everything except digits. Remember to include the country code: a UK mobile such as 07700 900123 becomes 447700900123.
Pre-filled messages
A pre-filled message saves customers typing and tells you where the chat came from, for example "Hi, I'm interested in the blue widget (website)". Special characters such as #, & and line breaks are encoded automatically. The user can still edit the message before sending.
Where to use the link
- A floating "Chat with us" button on your website.
- E-mail signatures and order confirmation e-mails.
- Instagram and social media bios.
- Printed flyers and packaging, via a QR code from the QR code generator.
Leave the number empty to create a link that only pre-fills a message and lets users pick a contact themselves. For e-mail contact links, use the mailto link generator.
Adding a chat button to your website
The output includes an anchor tag with target="_blank" and rel="noopener", so the chat opens in a new tab or the WhatsApp app without replacing your page. Style it as a button in your brand colours and place it where visitors have questions — product pages, pricing, checkout help. Tell users what to expect, such as your response hours, next to the button. If you publish your number this way, remember that anyone can see it in the page source, so use a business number rather than a private one.
Tracking
To see which page a chat came from, vary the pre-filled message per page ("…from the pricing page"). The message arrives in your chat, so you can attribute conversations without extra tools.
Privacy
The tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type or paste is sent to our servers.