WhatsApp Commerce for Latin America: 470 Paying Merchants, 5,300+ Have Paid, 203K Sign-ups

This platform lets small businesses in Latin America publish a catalog or menu and take orders over WhatsApp, the channel their customers already use. Buyers browse, add to cart and pay with cash, bank transfer, card (Stripe) or PayPal. Every order is saved in the merchant's dashboard before the buyer sends it on WhatsApp, so no sale gets lost in a chat. About 470 merchants pay a monthly or yearly subscription today, billed in 10 currencies, and more than 5,300 merchants in 43 countries have paid for Marea since 2021. 203,000 accounts have been created since 2020, 35,000 of them in the last 12 months, with TikTok (119.6K followers) as the largest source. Merchants receive 10,000 to 12,000 orders a month through the platform. The product already runs on AI: an AI page builder and editor, an AI voice agent that calls new merchants, an official WhatsApp Business API channel with approved templates, a public REST API, signed webhooks and an MCP server listed in the official MCP Registry. Agencies and multi-location businesses run many catalogs from one account, each with its own branding, payment processor and domain. Key Highlights ✅ Profitable: about US$45k operating profit on US$114.9k revenue over the last 12 months ✅ About 470 merchants paying today; more than 5,300 in 43 countries have paid since 2021 ✅ 203,000 registered accounts and 35,000 new signups in the last 12 months ✅ 10,000 to 12,000 orders a month flow through merchants' catalogs ✅ 194,000 social followers, including 119.6K on TikTok and 55.8K on Instagram ✅ AI voice agent, AI page editor and official WhatsApp Business API, all in production ✅ Subscription revenue; cash and transfer orders carry no commission ✅ Run by the founder with one contractor for support