WhatsApp Business API integration

WhatsApp Business app or WhatsApp Business API?

The free WhatsApp Business app works on a phone and is meant for chatting by hand. The WhatsApp Business API is for integrations: messages go through your own systems, several people can work at the same time and you can send and process messages automatically. If you want to use WhatsApp from your CRM, portal or application, you need the API.

What you can do with it

• A shared inbox in your own system: all WhatsApp conversations in one place, visible to the right staff.
• Linking conversations to customers: a phone number is recognised and linked to the right customer or file.
• From chat to action: a message becomes a ticket, request or note in your CRM or application.
• Automatic notifications: appointment reminders, order status, a payment request or a notice that a document is ready.
• Files: receive and send photos and documents, and keep them with the right file.

Connected to AI

The integration can be extended with an AI chatbot that answers from your own knowledge. It answers frequently asked questions straight away, also outside office hours, summarises long conversations or suggests a reply that a member of staff sends with one click. If a question is too complicated or the customer wants to talk to a person, a member of staff takes over. Sensitive data does not simply go to an AI model: per use we choose what is processed and where.

The rules of WhatsApp

• 24-hour window: when a customer sends you a message, you can reply freely within 24 hours.
• Templates: starting a conversation yourself, or replying after those 24 hours, is only possible with a template approved in advance by Meta.
• Consent: you only send messages to people who have agreed to receive them.
• Costs: messages from customers are free, and so are the first 1,000 replies per month within the 24-hour window. Above that, and for template messages you send yourself, Meta charges per message, with rates that differ per country and type of message and that change regularly. If you let customers start the conversation, costs stay low or zero. We work out roughly what it costs for your situation.

We build the integration so these rules are part of the system, and staff do not have to think about what is and is not allowed.

Directly through Meta

We usually connect directly to the Cloud API of Meta, the company behind WhatsApp. You then do not need an extra platform with its own subscription. If you already use a WhatsApp provider, we can connect to that too.

Set up securely

Messages from customers often contain personal data. We check that every incoming message really comes from WhatsApp, store conversations within the EU, decide who may see which conversations and agree retention periods. Read more at IT security.

From practice

We use the WhatsApp Business API ourselves in our own service portal: messages arrive in a shared inbox, are linked to the right customer and can be turned into a ticket. We build the same approach into your application, CRM or portal. Read more about connecting systems at connecting systems.