WhatsApp automation: auto-replies, bookings and follow-ups on one number

What WhatsApp automation actually is

WhatsApp automation is a set of rules and bots that handle the routine half of your messages. In practice it is five jobs running on one number.

• Auto-replies that answer within seconds, day or night.
• Chatbots that ask a few questions, show a menu and route the person to the right team.
• Bookings and forms, so an appointment or an enrolment finishes inside the chat.
• Scheduled follow-ups such as reminders, renewal notices and order updates.
• Broadcasts to a list that opted in, which has its own page on sending to many.

All five run on Meta's official WhatsApp Business API, not the free WhatsApp Business app, and you keep the number you already use. What the free app cannot do once more than one person answers is on the shared inbox page.

Live in three steps

• Step 1, connect. You send us the number you want to run on. We create the workspace, run Meta's verification with you and send your login on WhatsApp, usually within 24 hours.
• Step 2, load your information. You add your products, services, prices, opening hours and FAQs once, and your auto-replies and chatbots answer from them.
• Step 3, go live. The number answers at 2 a.m., takes the booking, and hands anything it cannot settle to a person with the conversation attached.

There is no setup fee and no migration fee. There is also no self-serve signup: you tell us your number on the get started form and we provision it with you, because Meta's verification goes wrong in ways a form cannot fix.

Running a business in the UAE? Read WhatsApp Business app vs the API for a UAE business before you move your number, and how to get the green tick on WhatsApp in the UAE once it is live.

Auto-replies and the 24-hour window, the cheapest thing you can run

When a customer messages you, Meta opens a 24-hour customer service window, and it resets every time they write again. Until 30 September 2026 everything you send inside it is free: typed replies, chatbot answers and utility templates alike. From 1 October 2026 Meta charges for utility templates sent inside the window, and for service messages (your own non-template replies) after the first 1,000 delivered per business phone number each month. Incoming messages are always free.

Outside the window you need an approved template, and Meta charges per delivered message. In India that is ₹0.8631 for marketing and ₹0.115 for utility or authentication, before 18% GST. Marketing costs 7.5 times what utility costs, the biggest single lever on your monthly bill. You pay Meta's charges to Meta directly, and Zappio adds nothing. The full rate card and a calculator are on our WhatsApp API pricing page.

So an instant auto-reply is the cheapest automation there is. Answer while the window is open and it costs nothing until 30 September 2026; from 1 October 2026 the first 1,000 service messages a month on that number are still free, and the utility rate applies after them. Answer next morning and you pay for a template. A Click-to-WhatsApp ad opens 72 free hours, and a code on the counter lets a customer open the window themselves: our QR code generator makes one.

Chatbots, bookings and the AI assistant

A chatbot is a conversation you draw once and reuse for a year: a question, a menu, a condition, a form, joined with arrows. No code, and every flow can exit to a person, who then sees what the bot already asked. How to build one, the kinds of bot, the handover rules and why Meta reviews every template are on the WhatsApp chatbot page.

Answering is half the value. Finishing the enquiry is the other half, so appointment slots and lead forms run inside the conversation. The bot offers two afternoon slots as buttons, takes the booking, and sends a reminder the evening before as a utility template. Each enquiry lands with a name, a number and a tag in the shared inbox, from where Zappio can append it to a Google Sheet or push it to your own software through the REST API.

A chatbot follows the path you drew. Zappio AI answers questions you did not anticipate, in the customer's own words, from the information you loaded. It is included with Premium, at ₹8,000/month on a yearly term, or ₹10,000/month billed quarterly, plus 18% GST. On Standard it is an add-on, so ask us for the price against your plan.

What to automate first

Start with the message you answer most often. Almost always it is one of three.

• The price or availability question. It arrives at every hour, has the same answer every time, and walks away fastest.
• The confirmation or reminder. It goes out whether or not anyone remembers, and at ₹0.115 a utility template is the cheapest way to stop a no-show.
• The routing question. Four buttons that get a person to the right team save more staff time than any other flow, because they run on every conversation.

What that first message says depends on your trade. Fifteen kinds of business, and the message that earns its keep in each, are on the industries page.

What it costs, and which plan you need

Two bills, never one. Zappio charges for the platform by plan, and Meta charges per message: templates outside the 24-hour window, and from 1 October 2026 utility templates and service messages inside it too.

Standard is ₹4,000/month on a yearly term, or ₹5,000/month billed quarterly, plus 18% GST. It gives you 1 number, 6 seats, 10,000 conversations a month, 10 chatbots and broadcasts to 5,000 contacts per campaign. Premium gives you 2 numbers, 20 seats, 100,000 conversations and unlimited chatbots, and adds the CRM and Zappio AI. Nothing is charged per user inside those seat counts, and Enterprise is quoted for your business. The full comparison is on the pricing page.

Then the messages. A Calicut coaching centre sending 4,000 utility reminders, 2,000 marketing messages and 1,000 authentication codes a month pays Meta ₹2,301.20, so a little over ₹6,300 all in on Standard yearly, before 18% GST. A Kochi dental clinic sending 2,500 utility reminders and 500 marketing messages pays Meta ₹719.05.

What it connects to, and what needs nothing connected

Three things you can switch on yourself on any paid plan: Shopify, Google Sheets, and our REST API with webhooks.

• Shopify runs inbound. New orders, fulfilments, cancellations and abandoned checkouts arrive in the chat, with that customer's recent orders beside the conversation. Nothing writes bot-collected data back into the store.
• Google Sheets is append-only. Zappio writes each enquiry into your sheet as a new row. It cannot read your sheet, so a sheet can never feed a broadcast list.
• WooCommerce is not self-serve. It lives in our Engage module, included on Premium and an add-on on Standard, and we switch it on for you.

Salesforce, HubSpot, Zapier and the rest connect through the REST API and webhooks: tell us what you run and we will wire it. The full list is on the integrations page.

Zappio is made by TABSYST, with offices in India and Dubai (UAE); more about us.

Questions people ask