A custom WhatsApp chatbot for business runs on the WhatsApp Business Platform through Meta’s Cloud API, which lets it answer questions from your own information, take bookings, check orders, capture leads and hand customers to a person. When a customer messages you, a 24-hour customer service window opens in which normal replies are free. Outside it you can only send pre-approved template messages, which Meta charges per message delivered.
Business app or Business Platform: which one does a chatbot need?
WhatsApp offers businesses two products. The WhatsApp Business app is the app you install on a phone; Meta describes it as built with the small business owner in mind. It has tools such as greeting and away messages, and Meta lists its own AI agent, Meta Business Agent, among the app’s features. The WhatsApp Business Platform is a set of APIs, including the Cloud API, that your software uses to send and receive messages and connect them to systems such as your CRM.
| WhatsApp Business app | WhatsApp Business Platform (Cloud API) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who replies | You and your team, plus the app’s automatic messages | Your software, such as a chatbot, with people stepping in |
| Automation | Greeting and away messages; Meta’s own AI agent | Your own chatbot, automated flows and approved templates |
| Connects to your systems | Limited to what the app offers | CRM, booking, helpdesk and order systems, through the API |
| Setup | Install the app on a phone | Your developers, or a partner if you don’t want to manage the API yourself |
If the app’s built-in tools cover your questions, start there. If you want answers from your own knowledge base, bookings in your own calendar and leads in your own CRM, you need the Platform.
What can a WhatsApp AI chatbot answer and do?
A custom chatbot answers from your own content and is connected to the tools your team uses, which is how we approach AI chatbot development for websites, WhatsApp and Messenger. On WhatsApp, the jobs it usually takes on are:
- Answer common questions from your knowledge base: opening hours, services, policies, delivery areas and the prices you are happy to share.
- Take bookings against live availability and confirm them in the chat.
- Check order status by looking up the order in your store or order system.
- Capture and qualify leads with the questions your sales team would ask, then pass them to your CRM.
- Hand over to a person, with the conversation attached, when it can’t help or the customer asks.
For Fox Pass Cabins, which rents themed cabins in Hot Springs, Arkansas, we built a website with an AI assistant that answers guest questions about availability, cabin themes, cancellations and local tips, and sends anything it can’t answer to the team with the guest’s details attached. On an enrollment agent for an online K-12 charter school, the agent handles over 75% of parent inquiries. The same pattern carries over to WhatsApp: checked knowledge, clear rules and a hand-off.
Start with the questions you get most, check every answer for accuracy, and add actions such as bookings once the integrations are in place.
The 24-hour window, template messages and what Meta charges
WhatsApp limits when a business can message freely. When a customer messages or calls you, a 24-hour customer service window opens, and every new message from them resets it. While it is open, your chatbot can send any normal reply. When it closes, you can only send pre-approved template messages (Meta: service messages).
Templates are messages you set up in advance and Meta approves, such as a booking reminder or an order update. Each one has a category: marketing, utility or authentication.
How Meta charges for messages
Meta replaced conversation-based pricing with per-message pricing on July 1, 2025. As Meta’s pricing page described it in October 2026:
| Message | When you can send it | Meta’s charge |
|---|---|---|
| Normal reply: text, image and so on | Inside the 24-hour window | Free |
| Utility template, such as an order update | Any time | Free inside an open window; charged outside it |
| Marketing template | Any time, to people who opted in | Charged when delivered, except in the free window below |
| Any message, after a customer reaches you from a Click to WhatsApp ad or Facebook Page button | Reply within 24 hours and a 72-hour free window opens | Free for those 72 hours, templates included |
Rates depend on the template category, your monthly volume tier and the country code of the customer’s number. Meta updates its rate cards, so check the current pricing page before you plan, and remember that your chatbot software or partner may charge separately.
For a chatbot, the upshot is simple: answering customers who message you first doesn’t add Meta fees, while reminders and follow-ups sent after the window closes are templates and usually are charged.
What happens when a customer needs a person?
The WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy lets you use automation when replying within the 24-hour window, but you must also have prompt, clear and direct escalation paths, such as a transfer to a human agent in the chat, a phone number, email, a support form or your website. Decide the hand-off rules before launch:
- The customer asks for a person.
- Complaints, refunds, payment problems and anything sensitive.
- Questions the chatbot can’t answer from its knowledge.
- Leads your sales team wants to call themselves.
When it hands over, the person who takes the chat should see the whole conversation and a short summary, so the customer never repeats themselves. Outside working hours, the chatbot should say when someone will reply and collect what your team needs to follow up.
How do you connect it to your CRM and booking tools?
The useful part is what happens after the chat: the booking lands in your calendar, the lead in your CRM and the ticket in your helpdesk. We connect chatbots through each tool’s API or through n8n, Make and Zapier, the same way we build workflow automation. Typical connections:
- New lead: create or update the contact in your CRM with the conversation and its source, and alert the right person.
- Booking: check live availability, book the slot and confirm it in the chat.
- Order question: look up the order by number or phone and reply with its status.
- Hand-off: open a ticket or a conversation in your team’s inbox, with the summary attached.
- Reminder: send an approved utility template before the appointment.
What a WhatsApp chatbot shouldn’t do
- Message people who haven’t opted in. The policy says you may only contact people who have given you their number and opted in to receive messages from you. You choose the opt-in method, and you are responsible for meeting the laws that apply to your messages.
- Ignore opt-outs. You must respect every request, made on or off WhatsApp, to block, stop or opt out.
- Spam or surprise people. The policy bans messages that confuse, deceive, mislead, spam or surprise people, so send templates only when the customer expects them.
- Make up answers. Keep it to your checked knowledge, and have it hand over when it isn’t sure.
- Pretend to be a person. We recommend that it introduces itself as an AI assistant.
- Act as a general-purpose AI assistant. Meta’s terms for the WhatsApp Business Platform bar AI providers when AI is the primary, rather than incidental or ancillary, functionality on offer, as Meta decides. Keep the chatbot focused on your own customers and services, and read the current terms.
- Give medical, legal or financial advice. Send those questions to a qualified person.
Privacy and marketing laws differ by country, so confirm your opt-in wording and data handling with a lawyer or compliance adviser. This guide is not legal advice.
Before you launch: a checklist
- Choose the number: a new one, or your existing Business app number connected through a partner (see the first FAQ below).
- Collect the questions customers ask most, from your chats, emails and calls.
- Write and check the answers it must always get right.
- Agree the hand-off rules, and who answers the chats it hands over.
- Submit the templates you need, such as booking confirmations and reminders, for approval.
- Connect your CRM, calendar and order system, and test with real records.
- Run real test conversations, including someone asking for a person and someone opting out.
- Review the questions it couldn’t answer every month and add them to its knowledge.
Already getting customer questions on WhatsApp? See how we build chatbots for websites, WhatsApp and Messenger on our AI chatbot development page, or contact us to talk through yours.
Frequently asked questions
Can a chatbot reply on my existing WhatsApp number?
Yes, and there are two routes for a WhatsApp Business app number. You can delete the app account and register the number on the Cloud API, but your chat history is lost. Or you can onboard through a partner that supports Business app numbers, keep your history and use the app and the partner’s tools side by side. A number on regular WhatsApp must be deleted from it first.
Does it cost money to message customers on WhatsApp?
Some messages do. On the Business Platform, Meta charges per delivered template message, at rates set by the template category, your volume tier and the customer’s country. Normal replies inside the 24-hour customer service window are free, and so are utility templates sent inside it. Your chatbot software or partner may charge separately. Prices change, so check Meta’s pricing page.
Can a WhatsApp chatbot take bookings?
Yes, if it is connected to your booking system or calendar. It asks what the customer needs, checks live availability, books the slot and confirms it in the chat. Reminders sent after the 24-hour window has closed must be approved template messages, which Meta charges for. Requests it can’t handle, such as group or special bookings, go to your team.
Sources
- WhatsApp Business: the WhatsApp Business app
- WhatsApp Business: the WhatsApp Business Platform
- Meta for Developers: service messages and the customer service window
- Meta for Developers: pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform
- Meta for Developers: migrate an existing WhatsApp number to a business account
- WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy
- Meta Terms for WhatsApp Business Platform (AI Providers)