Public sector teams have wanted to reach residents, patients, students and applicants on WhatsApp for years. The blocker was rarely appetite. It was procurement: finding a compliant, pre-vetted supplier, agreeing terms, and getting a cloud service through governance without a six-month tender. That blocker has now gone for WhatsApp Flows.
Flowella is listed on G-Cloud 15, the UK government's relaunched cloud framework, under Lot 2b (Software as a Service). Councils, NHS bodies, colleges, universities, housing associations and central government departments can now buy Flowella directly through the Digital Marketplace, with no separate tender. As at the time of writing, Flowella is also the only service on G-Cloud 15 that mentions WhatsApp Flows at all.
This post covers what the listing means for buyers, how Flowella compares to the other WhatsApp services on the framework, what the platform now does beyond its HubSpot roots, and the practical steps to procure it.
Why G-Cloud 15 is a bigger deal than previous versions
G-Cloud has been the public sector's route to cloud software since 2012, but the fifteenth iteration is a substantial reset rather than an annual refresh. It is the first G-Cloud to run under the Procurement Act 2023, the first to operate as an open framework, and the first to be run by the new Government Commercial Agency (GCA), which replaced the Crown Commercial Service in April 2026[1].
The numbers behind it are large. The government describes G-Cloud 15 as "£14 billion of opportunity for British business, with approximately 90% of suppliers being small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs)"[1]. Three previous frameworks (G-Cloud 14, its Lot 4, and Cloud Compute 2) have been consolidated into one agreement[2].
For buyers, the most useful change is contract length. Call-off contracts can now run for up to 60 months, compared with shorter terms under earlier frameworks[1]. That matters for a messaging channel, because the value of WhatsApp compounds over time as your opted-in contact base grows. Signing for a year and re-procuring every twelve months made that hard to justify. A five-year call-off does not.
"G-Cloud 15 is a genuine step forward for small and medium-sized businesses wanting to work with the government."
Philip Orumwense, Commercial Director, Government Commercial Agency. Source: GOV.UK
The only WhatsApp Flows service on G-Cloud 15
Before writing this post, we searched the Digital Marketplace properly rather than assuming. A search for "WhatsApp" across G-Cloud 15 returns 141 services[3]. A search for "WhatsApp Flows" returns one: Flowella[4]. A search for "WhatsApp forms" returns nothing.
That gap is worth explaining, because 141 sounds like a crowded market. When you read the listings, the other services fall into three groups, none of which does what Flowella does.
- Multi-channel messaging platforms (CPaaS) such as Esendex, AWS End User Messaging and similar bulk-messaging tools. These send SMS, RCS and WhatsApp messages at scale. They are built for one-way notifications and alerts, not for collecting structured answers back from the recipient.
- AI assistants and coaching bots for public health, adult social care, SEND support and "front door" enquiries. These hold free-text conversations on WhatsApp. They are useful for guidance, but free-text chat is a poor way to capture a completed application, booking or consent record. We covered why in The Real Problem with WhatsApp Chatbots.
- Contact centre and Teams add-ons that pull WhatsApp into an agent desktop alongside voice and email. These help agents reply, but they do not turn a form into a guided in-chat experience.
Flowella sits in a fourth category that currently has one entry on the framework. It converts the forms you already run into native WhatsApp Flows: multi-step, validated, guided screens inside WhatsApp with buttons, dropdowns, date pickers and file uploads. The completed answers land in your CRM or form tool as clean, structured data, as if the person had completed the form on your website.
So if your requirement is "let people complete an application, booking, survey or consent form inside WhatsApp and have the answers arrive in our systems", the Digital Marketplace search will bring you to one listing. We would rather be transparent about that than overstate it: other suppliers may join the framework at its 18-month reopening window, and we will update this post if the picture changes.
What public sector teams can do with WhatsApp Flows
WhatsApp reached more than 3 billion monthly users in 2025[5], and for many UK households it is the default way to message family, school groups and local services. Meeting people there removes a great deal of friction from public services that still rely on email links and PDF forms.
The use cases that public sector teams raise with us most often include:
- Further and higher education - applicant follow-up, clearing enquiries, enrolment checks and course interest forms. The pattern behind our lead acquisition guide applies directly to student recruitment.
- Local authorities - service requests, resident surveys, event registration and consent capture, with opt-in and opt-out preferences tracked automatically.
- Health and care - appointment confirmations that ask a structured question back (attending, rescheduling, accessibility needs) rather than hoping for a free-text reply.
- Housing associations - repair reporting with photo upload, tenant feedback and scheduled reminders.
In each case the aim is the same: replace a link to a web form that people abandon on a small screen with a guided flow they finish in the app they already have open. Because the answers come back structured, existing workflows, reporting and case management keep working without manual re-keying.
More than a HubSpot integration
Flowella started life as a HubSpot app, and HubSpot remains the deepest integration: forms convert to Flows, submissions write back as native HubSpot form submissions, and HubSpot workflows can send WhatsApp messages as an action. If you run HubSpot, this walkthrough of automated WhatsApp form confirmations shows how quickly it goes live, and it works on every HubSpot tier, including Free and Starter.
The platform has grown well beyond that, which is why the G-Cloud listing describes it as a WhatsApp for Business platform rather than a HubSpot add-on. Public sector buyers do not need HubSpot to get value from it.
Standalone features inside Flowella
- Template management and bulk sends - create Meta-approved message templates, test them, and send them in bulk from a CSV import or a manually built recipient list, with scheduling, throttling and delivery reporting built in[6].
- Shared inbox - a team inbox for every inbound WhatsApp conversation, with opt-out keywords and consent preferences respected automatically.
- Entry points - tracked links, QR codes and click-to-WhatsApp ad sources, so you can see which poster, letter or campaign started each conversation.
- Analytics - real-time dashboards for conversation volumes, delivery and read rates, flow completion rates and template approval status, all exportable.
- Consent tracking - GDPR-aligned opt-in and opt-out records held per contact and per channel.
Connect Flowella to the systems you already run
For organisations that use a different CRM, case management system or data platform, Flowella provides a documented REST API and outbound webhooks[7]. In plain terms, your developers or integration partner can send WhatsApp messages, manage contacts and consent, trigger template campaigns and pull analytics from your own systems, and Flowella can notify those systems the moment a message is delivered, a template is approved or a flow is completed. A sandbox environment is provided for testing before anything touches live data.
Direct connectors for Google Forms, Typeform and SurveyMonkey are in development, alongside Customer.io and n8n, so teams that do not run a CRM at all will be able to convert the forms they already have. Whatever the source system, the principle holds: your forms, your data, delivered through WhatsApp with the answers flowing back where they belong.
How to buy Flowella through G-Cloud 15
The framework is designed to be quick to use. Buyers search the Digital Marketplace, shortlist against their requirements, and award a call-off without running a separate competition. The table below summarises the key facts from the listing[8].
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Framework and lot | G-Cloud 15, Lot 2b: Software as a Service |
| Service ID | 987503193563745 |
| Supplier | Discover Digital |
| Free trial | 14 days, full feature access |
| Education pricing | Available |
| Volume discounts | 2% to 12% depending on annual contract value |
| Meta conversation fees | Passed through at cost, charged separately |
| Data location | Stored and processed in the European Economic Area |
| Security | Cyber Essentials certified; AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit, penetration tested at least annually |
| Support | Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm UK; urgent incidents acknowledged within 4 business hours; named account manager for onboarding |
| Maximum call-off | Up to 60 months under G-Cloud 15 terms |
A practical tip: start the 14-day trial while your procurement team reviews the service definition. You will need a Meta Business account and a phone number for WhatsApp Business registration, and both take a few days to verify. Our guide to getting a verified WhatsApp Business account explains what to prepare, and the Getting Started section of the knowledge base walks through the first flow.
When you have finished trialling, your account manager will help you map the call-off to the right plan, and implementation support (custom flows, integration work and training) can be scoped separately if you need it.
References
- GOV.UK: G-Cloud relaunches with biggest upgrade in its history (10 August 2026)
- Open Access Government: UK Government launches G-Cloud 15 framework
- Digital Marketplace: G-Cloud 15 search results for "WhatsApp" (accessed 16 September 2026)
- Digital Marketplace: G-Cloud 15 search results for "WhatsApp Flows" (accessed 16 September 2026)
- TechCrunch: WhatsApp now has more than 3 billion users a month
- Flowella Knowledge Base: Create, test and bulk send WhatsApp templates
- Flowella Knowledge Base: REST API introduction and webhooks
- Digital Marketplace: Flowella, WhatsApp for Business Platform Integration and Automation (G-Cloud 15 listing)
Ready to bring WhatsApp Flows into your organisation?
G-Cloud 15 removes the procurement barrier, Flowella removes the technical one. Public sector teams can now buy the only WhatsApp Flows service on the framework, run it standalone or alongside HubSpot, and connect it to the systems they already own through the API and webhooks.
View the Flowella listing on the Digital Marketplace, start a free 14-day trial, or book a demo and we will walk your team through a public sector use case end to end.
