WhatsApp catalog, carousel or flow: which should you use?
Use a carousel for two to ten comparable items, a catalogue when customers need to browse a real range, and a flow when the right answer depends on questions you need to ask first. Most Indian businesses need a flow and one of the other two.
- Carousel: 2 to 10 items, swipeable, good for a curated shortlist.
- Catalogue: a full product range customers browse and add to a cart.
- Flow: ask questions first, then show only what fits.
- The number of products you sell decides more than anything else.
The question that decides it
Before comparing features, answer one thing: how many products would a customer reasonably want to see?
Under ten and genuinely comparable, a carousel is right. Dozens or hundreds, and you need a catalogue, because no amount of swiping gets somebody through a range. And if the right subset depends on something you do not know yet, such as a size, a budget or a city, you need to ask before you show anything.
Most businesses that struggle with this are trying to make one mechanism do all three jobs. A jewellery brand with four hundred pieces cannot carousel them, and a coaching institute with three courses does not need a catalogue.
There is a second question worth asking alongside it: where is the customer in their decision? Somebody who asked a specific question is ready for a shortlist. Somebody who replied to a broadcast out of mild curiosity is not, and showing them a cart at that moment mostly produces silence.
Carousel
Two to ten cards in a single message, each with an image, up to 160 characters and its own buttons. The customer swipes sideways.
It is a template, so it needs Meta approval and it can be sent outside the twenty-four hour window as marketing. That makes it the only one of the three you can use to start a conversation.
Strengths: visual, self-contained, and it works in a broadcast. Weaknesses: the ten-card ceiling, the short body text, and the rule that every card must share an identical structure. Building one is covered in building a carousel without code.
One limitation catches people out. A carousel cannot be assembled dynamically at send time from live stock, because the template is fixed at approval. Products that go in and out of stock frequently are better served by a flow that checks availability before replying.
Catalogue
A product catalogue attached to your WhatsApp Business Account, which customers browse inside WhatsApp and add items from to a cart.
It suits a genuine range, and it is the only option that supports a cart at all. Products sync from a feed, so it stays current without anybody editing messages.
The costs are real though. It needs Meta commerce approval, product data has to be maintained, and certain categories are restricted. It also assumes the customer is willing to browse, which in practice many are not; they would rather ask a question and be shown three options.
Category restrictions are worth checking before you invest. Meta does not permit commerce for several categories, and some that are permitted require extra review. Finding this out after building a product feed is an expensive way to learn it.
Flow
A conversation that asks questions and branches: what size, which city, what budget, and then shows what fits.
This is the one most Indian businesses underuse, and it is often the highest-converting of the three because it mirrors what a good salesperson does. Nobody walks into a shop and asks to see everything.
A flow can end in anything: a carousel of the three items that matched, a catalogue link, a payment link, or a human. In Convo360 flows are built by dragging blocks rather than writing code, and the same flow runs on WhatsApp, Instagram, the website widget and Telegram.
Flows also capture what the customer told you, which neither of the others does. Size, city and budget become contact fields you can use in a campaign two months later, so a flow is building an asset while it sells rather than just handling one conversation.
Side by side
| Carousel | Catalogue | Flow | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Items | 2 to 10 | Unlimited | As many as the questions narrow to |
| Can start a conversation | Yes, as a template | No | No |
| Needs Meta approval | Template review | Commerce approval | None |
| Cart and checkout | No | Yes | Via payment link |
| Setup effort | Low | High | Medium |
| Best at | A curated shortlist | Browsing a range | Narrowing to the right item |
The pattern most brands end up with is a flow that qualifies, ending in a carousel of the two or three things that matched.
What to build first
Build the flow. It needs no approval, it works on every channel, and it produces the information that makes everything else useful.
Add a carousel second, for your best sellers or a new collection, because it is cheap to build and it is the only one of the three that can be broadcast.
Consider a catalogue last, and only if customers genuinely ask to browse. It is the largest investment of the three and the easiest to regret, because product data maintenance never stops.
Above all, do not build all three at once. Each takes real effort to keep current, and a stale catalogue is worse for a customer than no catalogue at all.
Whichever you build, keep one person responsible for whether it is still accurate. Out-of-date prices in an approved carousel and discontinued products in a catalogue both damage trust quickly, and neither will announce itself. A monthly ten-minute check is enough.
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Frequently asked questions
Can a flow show a carousel?
Yes, and this is the combination most brands settle on. The flow asks two questions, then presents a carousel of only the items that match, which converts far better than showing everything.
Do I need commerce approval for a carousel?
No. A carousel is an ordinary message template and needs template review only. Commerce approval applies to the catalogue, which is a heavier process with category restrictions.
Which one works for services rather than products?
A flow, almost always. Services rarely have a browsable range, and the useful conversation is about requirement and timeline, which is exactly what a flow is for.
Can I use a catalogue and a carousel together?
Yes. A common pattern is a carousel for a seasonal shortlist that links into the catalogue for anyone who wants to see more, which gives you both reach and depth.
What about Instagram and the website widget?
Flows run on all of them, which is a strong argument for building the flow first. Carousels and catalogues are WhatsApp features and do not carry across to other channels.
Related reading
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