# Concepts

> Core building blocks of the Caramel API: businesses, contacts, forms, campaigns, and templates.

These pages explain the core objects in Caramel and how they relate to each other. Read them before diving into the API reference — the reference assumes you know these shapes.

- [Businesses](businesses) — The top-level container. Every contact, form, campaign, and template belongs to one business. Multi-business access, roles, and tier gating are explained here.
- [Campaigns and journeys](campaigns-and-journeys) — The state machine that takes a campaign from AI draft to live deployment. Covers journey vs. broadcast, the review cycle, pause/resume, and per-tier limits.
- [Forms and audience](forms-and-audience) — How form submissions create and update contacts, apply marketing consent, and trigger segment enrollment.
- [Templates](templates) — The curated template library and how deploying a library entry atomically provisions its segments, templates, and journey in one call.

## How the pieces fit together

```
Business
   │
   ├── Forms ──► Contacts ──► Segments
   │                               │
   └── Templates ─────► Journeys ──┘
                            │
                            ▼
                         Messages
                (Email · SMS · WhatsApp · Push · Telegram)
```

A **Business** owns everything. **Forms** are the intake path: a submission upserts a **Contact** and triggers **Segment** evaluation. **Journeys** watch segments and send **Templates** to matched contacts. A **Template** is the message content; a journey decides when and to whom to send it.