"I already have WhatsApp Business — can I automate replies?" It is the first question we get, and the short answer is no. There are three versions of WhatsApp, they do different things, and only one of them lets an assistant answer for you.
The three versions, plainly
WhatsApp (the regular app)
The personal one. One number, one phone, no business tooling. Fine for talking to your family, not for handling customers: no business profile, no statistics, and above all no way to connect it to any system.
WhatsApp Business (the free app)
The app aimed at small businesses. It adds a business profile, a catalogue, labels, a greeting message and quick replies. It is free and a perfectly good starting point, but it has two limits that become decisive as volume grows:
- It lives on a phone. The conversations are there. If the phone is in one person's hand, nobody else sees anything; if that person is on holiday, requests sit unread.
- The automation is not real. The "greeting message" is fixed text, not a conversation. It captures no data, it does not understand what the customer is asking, and it delivers nothing to any system.
WhatsApp Business Platform (the API)
This is programmatic access to the number: what lets software read and send messages. It is the only route to an assistant that genuinely replies, captures structured information and hands the conversation to a person when needed. It is also the only one that supports several operators on the same number.
One important note: the API has no interface. It is a connection. You always need software on top — your own system, a customer care platform, or an assistant like Chattoo.
What it actually costs
This is where nearly all the confusion sits. There are two separate components.
1. What you pay Meta. The pricing model has changed several times in recent years: from counting conversation windows to counting the messages a business sends, with different categories (marketing, utility, authentication) and prices that vary by country. The stable part is this: messages the customer starts cost less — or nothing — compared with the promotional ones you start. Always check Meta's current price list for your country before doing the maths, because it is the number that changes most often.
2. What you pay the software. The subscription for the platform that uses the API. Price depends on what it does: a shared inbox is cheap; an assistant that structures the data and delivers it into your system costs more and is worth more.
The practical consequence: if your use case is replying to people who message you — bookings, appointments, orders — you sit at the cheap end of Meta's price list. Outbound campaigns are a different exercise and should be costed separately.
What it takes to get set up
- A verified Meta Business account. Business verification requires documents proving legal existence and address. Budget for it: this is the step that stretches the timeline.
- A dedicated phone number. It must be able to receive a verification code and must not already be active on the WhatsApp Business app. If you want to use your existing number it has to be migrated first — and doing so loses the chat history held on the app.
- A compliant display name. It has to match the real business. Generic names like "Bookings" get rejected.
- A provider or an integration. You can go through a Business Solution Provider or connect directly to the Cloud API. In practice, for a non-technical business, a provider saves weeks.
Realistic timing: a few days to two weeks, almost all of it spent on business verification. The technical parts are the fastest.
Rules worth knowing up front
- The 24-hour window. After a customer messages you, you can reply freely for 24 hours. Past that, reopening the conversation requires a pre-approved template. This is the constraint that most surprises people coming from email.
- Templates need approval. Every message you initiate goes through review. Text that is too promotional or too vague gets rejected.
- Opt-in is mandatory. You must be able to show the customer agreed to be contacted on WhatsApp. Consent collected properly now prevents your number being suspended later.
- Number quality is monitored. Too many blocks or reports lower your rating and reduce how many messages you may send. Only writing to people who opted in is not just correct — it is what keeps the channel alive.
Do you actually need the API?
A simple test. There are still good reasons to stay on the free app if you get a handful of messages a day, one person handles them, and hand-written replies are enough.
Moving to the API makes sense when at least two of these are true:
- several people need to see and handle the same conversations;
- the same questions come back dozens of times a day;
- data captured in chat gets retyped by hand somewhere else;
- messages arrive while you are closed and sit unanswered until the next day.
If that sounds familiar, the next step is organisational rather than technical: deciding what the assistant should be able to do. We have written two guides that start from concrete cases — restaurants and clinics and medical practices — and the features page shows what can be automated once the number is connected.