BSP Transfer / Number Porting

Move your existing WhatsApp Business Account from Infobip, Twilio, Vonage, MessageBird, or any other BSP to Orbit without losing your number, templates, or quality rating.

BSP Transfer / Number Porting

Moving a WABA between Business Solution Providers (BSPs) is a managed Meta process. You keep:

• Your phone number
• Your display name (as-approved)
• Your approved templates
• Your quality rating (in most cases)
• Your messaging-limit tier

You don’t keep:

• Historical message data — WhatsApp stores messages on Meta’s side only for 30 days, and the conversation metadata is BSP-scoped. See What happens to message history below.
• Historical webhook delivery logs from your old BSP (those stay on their system).
• Saved templates that never got approved on the old BSP (those don’t exist at Meta).

Plan 1–3 business days for the full migration. Outbound sending is paused for a window that’s typically < 15 minutes but can reach a few hours depending on the releasing BSP.

Pre-migration checklist

Work through this before you initiate the transfer. Missing items cause the longest delays.

• Admin access on the source BSP’s WhatsApp management console (Infobip, Twilio, etc.)
• Admin access on your Meta Business Manager
• A Facebook account with admin on the Business Manager that currently owns the WABA
• The WABA’s 15-digit ID from Meta Business Manager → WhatsApp Accounts
• A record of approved templates (export from source BSP — you won’t need to re-approve, but you will need to sync template names into Orbit)
• An outage window — 15 min typical, 4 h worst case
• Downstream consumers paused (campaigns, drip sequences) during the window
• A live webhook endpoint you want to point Orbit at (or use Orbit’s inbox)

Stage 1 — Release the WABA from the source BSP

Each BSP exposes this differently. Common recipes:

From Twilio

1. Console → Messaging → Try It Out → WhatsApp → Senders
2. Open the sender, click Migrate / Release
3. Choose Release to another BSP. Twilio asks for a reason; “Switching to new BSP” is accepted.
4. Twilio sends a confirmation email to the Meta admin; approve it within 24 h.
5. Within Meta Business Manager, the WABA now shows Solution Partner: Meta (unassigned).

From Infobip

1. Channels → WhatsApp → Senders → open the sender
2. Actions → Release from BSP
3. Infobip emails their compliance team; they release typically within 1 business day.

From Vonage

1. Your Applications → WhatsApp → Settings → Release BSP ownership
2. Confirm in Meta Business Manager email.

From MessageBird / Bird

1. Channels → WhatsApp → Settings → Change Provider → Release.
2. Support ticket may be needed; Bird is slower than Twilio/Infobip for release.

From 360dialog

1. Contact their support. 360dialog routes all releases through account managers — expect 1–2 business days.

From Meta Cloud API (direct, no BSP)

Easiest. You’re already on Meta’s direct infrastructure and just need to assign Orbit as the new partner. Skip to Stage 2.

Stage 2 — Assign Orbit as the new BSP

From Meta Business Manager:

1. Settings → Business Assets → WhatsApp Accounts → pick your WABA
2. Partners tab → Add Partner
3. Enter Devotel’s Business Manager ID: 2047834185345896
4. Role: Manage WhatsApp Accounts
5. Apply

You’ll see Orbit listed as a Partner. The WABA is not yet routed to Orbit’s sending infrastructure — Stage 3 does that.

Stage 3 — Connect through Orbit’s embedded sign-up

This is the same flow as a new WABA, but with two differences:

1. In the embedded popup, when asked Create new or select existing, pick Select existing.
2. Choose the WABA you just migrated.

Orbit claims the number and starts routing. You’ll see status Connected in Settings → Channels → WhatsApp.

Stage 4 — Sync templates

Meta keeps the approved templates but they need to be visible on Orbit’s side for our template picker to show them.

curl -X POST https://orbit-api.devotel.io/api/v1/whatsapp/templates/sync \
  -H "X-API-Key: dv_live_sk_..."

Or, from the dashboard: Channels → WhatsApp → Templates → Sync from Meta.

This pulls every approved, pending, and rejected template on the WABA and stores it in your Orbit account. Run-time takes < 10 seconds per 100 templates.

Stage 5 — Point webhooks + start sending

If you had webhooks wired to your old BSP, update their URLs. Orbit’s callback URL is:

https://yourdomain.com/whatsapp/webhook

Configure in Orbit: Settings → Webhooks → New Endpoint, subscribe to message.received, message.status_changed, template.status_changed. Signature verification uses the endpoint secret Orbit generates — details.

Send a test message. If it delivers with a normal sent → delivered → read progression, migration is complete.

Migration checklist — copy-paste for your ops team

MIGRATION PLAN — WhatsApp BSP Transfer

Target window: ___________
Acceptable outage: 30 min (typical), 4 h (worst case)

T-24h  ☐ Notify downstream teams (marketing, CRM)
T-24h  ☐ Export approved template list from source BSP
T-1h   ☐ Pause drip campaigns + scheduled blasts
T-1h   ☐ Alert on-call for the window

T-0    ☐ Stage 1: Source BSP — initiate release
T-0    ☐ Stage 2: Meta BM — add Orbit as partner
T-0    ☐ Stage 3: Orbit embedded flow — select existing WABA
T-0    ☐ Stage 4: Sync templates (API or dashboard)
T-0    ☐ Stage 5: Update webhook endpoints

T+15m  ☐ Send test template to internal number
T+15m  ☐ Verify delivery receipt fires
T+30m  ☐ Resume drip campaigns
T+30m  ☐ Monitor quality rating for 24 h

What happens to message history

In-flight messages at the moment of migration: in-flight means Meta has the payload but hasn’t delivered yet. Meta completes delivery on the new BSP; delivery receipts route to Orbit’s webhook.

Past conversations stay in the user’s WhatsApp app. If they reply to a pre-migration message after you’ve migrated, Orbit receives the inbound message normally.

Historical DLR logs — source BSP’s internal logs stay on their system. Export them before the migration window if you need them for reporting. Orbit only sees events from the migration moment onward.

Templates — approved templates carry over. Template analytics (sent / delivered / read counts) reset because they’re BSP-scoped.

24h session windows — any open sessions (user messaged you in the last 24 h) stay open on Meta’s side and you can reply freeform from Orbit the moment the connection is complete.

Quality rating — what to watch

Your quality score is WABA-scoped, not BSP-scoped, so it carries across. But Meta re-evaluates based on aggregate sending in a rolling window. The first 24–72 h on Orbit:

• Don’t spike volume — send at a pace comparable to pre-migration
• Avoid sending templates that had high block-rate on the old BSP; those metrics still count against you
• Make sure opt-out handling is wired — unsubscribes (STOP / BLOCK) must be respected

Quality can downgrade from Green → Medium if the first blast on Orbit triggers user blocks. Audit your template body for trust signals (sender name, clear purpose) before the first post-migration send.

Rollback

Until Stage 3 completes, you can roll back simply by re-assigning the source BSP as the active partner in Meta Business Manager. After Stage 3 you’d need to re-initiate a release from Orbit to the old BSP — the old BSP may charge a re-onboarding fee.

If the migration goes sideways, email [e-mail] with your WABA ID — we have a direct escalation path to Meta’s BSP operations team.

Troubleshooting

Source BSP refuses to release

They’re probably in a contract dispute or an unpaid invoice. Resolve the finance issue first — Meta won’t force a release. If the BSP is unresponsive for >14 days you can file a BSP Transfer Request directly with Meta.

Meta shows WABA 'unassigned' but Orbit doesn't see it

Re-run the embedded sign-up and pick “Select existing”. If the WABA still doesn’t appear in the list, your Facebook account needs admin role on the Business Manager that owns the WABA — not just on Orbit’s Partner access.

Templates didn't sync

Meta’s GraphQL template endpoint rate-limits at 1 req/second. A very large template catalog (1,000+) takes several minutes. If still empty after 10 min, trigger the sync again; it’s idempotent.

Messaging limit tier dropped after migration

The tier itself doesn’t drop, but the trailing-7-day volume counter might register a gap. Keep sending at a healthy pace with green quality and the tier promotes automatically within 3–5 days.