What fifteen kinds of business actually send on WhatsApp

The fifteen industries, and the message each one starts with

Most businesses switch on one flow first and add the rest later. The table below is the flow that usually goes first, trade by trade.

Two numbers set the economics of every row. Meta charges ₹0.8631 for a marketing message delivered in India and ₹0.115 for a utility message, so marketing costs 7.5 times what utility costs, and most of what a business sends every day is utility. Replies inside the 24-hour customer service window are free until 30 September 2026, and from 1 October 2026 Meta charges for service messages beyond the first 1,000 delivered each month per business phone number. The full card, with GST, is on what WhatsApp messages cost; what automation is and which job to start with is on WhatsApp automation.

Appointments and care: clinics, salons, gyms, pharmacies and labs

Healthcare and clinics. A clinic sends three messages per patient: the slot confirmation, a reminder the evening before, and a recall when the six-month check falls due. Take a Kochi dental clinic at 2,500 utility reminders and 500 marketing offers a month, which is ₹719.05, paid to Meta directly with nothing added by Zappio. Patients reply in the same thread to move the time, so the front desk stops returning calls and the whole team answers from one shared inbox. Ask us for the clinic setup and we will build those three flows with you.

Salons, spas and gyms. The money is in the second visit and the renewal rather than the first booking, so the flow that earns most is the nudge before a package or a membership lapses. In the UAE a salon pays about six fils for a utility reminder and about eighteen fils for a marketing one until 30 September 2026, rising to about twenty-one fils from 1 October 2026, with the dirham pegged at 3.6725 to the dollar. Ask us for the salon setup and we will build the booking and renewal flows with you.

Pharmacies and labs. A repeat prescription has a date on it, and that date is an automation: Zappio messages on the refill day, and again when a report is ready for collection. Keep clinical detail out of the message and use it to bring the person in.

Learning and admissions: coaching centres, schools, study abroad

Education and coaching. Three flows do the work. The enquiry that arrives at 9 p.m. gets answered, the enrolment form is filled inside the chat, and the fee reminder goes out on the due date. A Calicut coaching centre sending 4,000 utility, 2,000 marketing and 1,000 authentication messages a month pays Meta ₹2,301.20 directly, with no markup from Zappio, and its batch updates and holiday notices go out as broadcasts to an opted-in list segmented by batch. Ask us for the coaching-centre setup and we will organise the batches with you.

Study abroad and immigration. These enquiries run for months, so the work is the checklist and the status, not the first reply. A chatbot collects course, country and intake, then asks for documents one at a time; files land against that applicant, and status updates stop the weekly phone call.

Selling, ordering and delivering: shops, restaurants, logistics

Retail and online stores. If you run Shopify, the connector is self-serve on every paid plan and runs inbound: order, fulfilment and cancellation events become messages in the chat, abandoned carts get a recovery nudge, and that customer's recent orders sit beside the conversation. Nothing writes back into the store, so pushing bot-collected data into a catalogue or an ERP is REST API and webhook work. WooCommerce is not self-serve at all: it lives in the Engage module, which Zappio switches on for you, included on Premium and an add-on on Standard. A Bengaluru boutique sending 8,000 marketing and 1,500 utility messages a month pays ₹7,077.30 to Meta. See what connects today.

Restaurants and cafés. Reservations, the menu on request and the Friday offer: the table confirmation is a utility message, the offer to your regulars is a marketing one, and because replies inside the 24-hour window are free until 30 September 2026, and cost the utility rate beyond the first 1,000 service messages a month per business phone number after that, a bot that answers the opening-hours question and the table-for-six question stays cheap to run. Ask us for the restaurant setup and we will build the booking flow and the offer list with you.

Logistics and delivery. Out for delivery, a reschedule option, and the COD amount confirmed before the rider leaves. If your dispatch list lives in a Google Sheet, Zappio writes each delivery update back into it as the conversation happens; the Sheets connector is append-only, so it cannot read your rows and a sheet can never feed a send. To message from that list, the rows reach us through our REST API and webhooks or as a contact import, so tell us what you run and we will wire it.

Property, travel, vehicles and events

Real estate. A lead who arrives from a Click-to-WhatsApp ad opens 72 free hours in which every message costs nothing, marketing included. That is long enough to qualify the buyer, send two listings and book a site visit without paying Meta anything, and after the visit the follow-ups run on a schedule rather than on a sticky note.

Travel and hospitality. The itinerary is a file and the traveller wants it in the thread, not in email. Confirmations, the day-before reminder and the question about where the driver has got to all sit in one conversation, which is why sales and support should work from one shared inbox.

Automotive. Service due, test drive booked, and insurance and pollution certificate renewals 30 days ahead. Every one of those is a utility message on a date you already hold in your own records, which is the cheapest kind of message there is.

Events and ticketing. Registration confirmed, the ticket delivered in the chat, and a reminder on the morning of the event. For printed passes, download the SVG from our free QR code generator and put the code on the pre-printed sheet.

Money, hiring and the professions

Finance and insurance. Renewal dates and missing documents are the whole job: a premium reminder 15 days out, a second three days out, and a bot that collects the photographed document and files it against the contact. This needs no new system, only reminders that leave on time.

HR and recruitment. Candidates answer WhatsApp when they ignore email. A screening chatbot asks five questions, such as notice period, location and earliest start, so only the people who fit reach a human, and CVs arrive as files in the thread.

Local and professional services. Electricians, accountants, tutors, architects. The enquiry lands at 10 p.m., the bot answers it, takes the job details and offers three slots. Quotes go out in the chat.

One platform, one price, whichever industry you are in

All fifteen run on the same two plans. Standard is ₹4,000/month on a yearly term, or ₹5,000/month billed quarterly, plus 18% GST. Premium is ₹8,000/month on a yearly term, or ₹10,000/month billed quarterly, plus 18% GST. Enterprise is quoted for your business. Meta's per-message charges are paid by you to Meta directly, and Zappio adds nothing. Seats, conversation limits and the full plan table live on the pricing page, and the message rate card lives on what WhatsApp messages cost.

Three rules apply in every industry. Contacts must opt in before you broadcast. Any message sent outside the 24-hour customer service window uses a template Meta has approved. Replies inside that window are free until 30 September 2026, and the first 1,000 service messages a month per business phone number stay free after that, so the fastest first reply is still the cheapest.

The overnight enquiries are already answered by the bot when the first receptionist logs in, the two of them split the morning's open threads between themselves in the shared inbox, and the evening-before reminders leave on their own while the clinic is still seeing patients. Nothing in that day needs a different plan, a different price or a different product because of the trade it belongs to.

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