Do I need my own WhatsApp Business Account?

Yes. Otobiz connects the account and number you own against your own Meta business. Nothing is rented to you, and disconnecting leaves the account, number, templates, and opt-ins with you.

What is the 24 hour customer service window?

It is Meta's rule that a business may send free-form messages only within 24 hours of the customer's last message. After that, only an approved message template can be sent until the customer writes again.

What happens if we try to send after the window closes?

Otobiz blocks the send before it leaves and records why, so nothing fails silently. You can send an approved template instead, which is the only path Meta allows.

How long does template approval take?

Meta decides that, and it varies by category and content. Otobiz submits the template, tracks its status, and shows the rejection reason if there is one. We cannot make the review faster.

Can we import a contact list and broadcast to it?

You can import contacts, but a contact with no opt-in record is excluded from a marketing audience. Transactional messages to people who wrote to you first are a different case and are allowed.

Who pays Meta for the messages?

You do, against your own WhatsApp Business Account. Meta prices each delivered template message by category and destination country. Otobiz shows an estimate before the send and the reported actual after it.

Can we use a number that is already on the WhatsApp Business app?

Migrating a number to the API normally means moving it off the consumer app. Meta also offers a mode where both run on one number, which Otobiz supports separately.

How do customers unsubscribe?

Replying stop, unsubscribe, cancel, end, or quit suppresses marketing for that contact and sends a confirmation. Meta's own opt-out signals on failed sends also suppress the contact automatically.

Can we send to WhatsApp groups?

Otobiz reads messages from a group that writes to your number and can reply into it. Meta restricts the group API to accounts with Official Business Account status, and group management is not part of Otobiz.

Do you support click-to-WhatsApp ads?

Yes. The ad that produced the click is captured on the first message, stored on the contact and conversation, available as a segment condition, and usable to report leads and purchases back to Meta.

What happens to our data if we disconnect?

The connection is marked disconnected, the stored login is deleted, and Otobiz stops receiving messages on it. Your conversation history stays in your workspace until you delete it or delete the workspace.

WhatsApp, properly connected.

Your account, your number, your templates. The answering is what Otobiz takes over.

WhatsApp for business runs on the WhatsApp Business Platform, Meta's official API for companies that message customers at scale. Otobiz connects the WhatsApp Business Account you own, lands every incoming message in a shared inbox, drafts replies from your own business information, and sends approved message templates when the 24 hour customer service window has closed.

What it does on WhatsApp.

Every one of these runs on your own account, with your own information behind the answers.

One inbox for every WhatsApp thread

Incoming messages land in a shared inbox as they arrive, one thread per customer, with the contact record and past conversations beside the message. Your team assigns, snoozes, and leaves internal notes without anyone replying twice.

One thread per customer, kept across channels
Assignment, statuses, and private notes for the team
Text, images, video, audio, documents, and location cards
Sent, delivered, read, and failed status on every outbound message

Replies drafted from your own information

The AI writes the reply from what you have connected: your knowledge base, your uploaded documents, your crawled website, and the customer's order and conversation history. Each draft names the sources it used, so a reviewer can see why it said what it said.

Grounded in your knowledge base, website, and Q&A pairs
The customer's own order history used when they ask about an order
Every draft shows its sources, and shows when it has none
Replies come back in the language the customer wrote in

A person on every send that matters

Campaigns, scheduled sends, reminders, and anything that changes another system wait for your approval. You approve the exact message that goes out, including the images, the links, and the product it points at. Change a word afterwards and it comes back to you.

Approve, edit, or reject before anything leaves
The message you approved is the message that sends
A double click or a retry never sends twice
Every send logged with who approved it

Message templates, submitted and tracked here

Draft a template, submit it to Meta for review, and watch its status without leaving Otobiz. Marketing, utility, and authentication categories are all supported, along with media headers, footers, buttons, carousels, and limited-time offers.

Submit, edit, and refresh a template's status from Meta
Text, image, video, and document headers with example values
Quick reply, URL, phone, copy code, catalog, and one-time-password buttons
Rejection reasons and quality ratings pulled back onto the template

Broadcasts that check consent first

A broadcast resolves an audience from your segments, screens every recipient for consent and suppression, paces the send, and reports per recipient. Contacts who never opted in are excluded with a reason you can read, not silently dropped.

Segments built from orders, behaviour, tags, and conversation history
Consent and suppression checked per recipient, per purpose
Quiet hours, batch size, send interval, and per-contact frequency caps
Stop, unsubscribe, cancel, end, and quit handled as opt-outs automatically

Rich messages, not just text

WhatsApp supports more than a paragraph, and Otobiz sends the formats that actually convert: reply buttons, single-select lists, call-to-action links, product and catalog messages, and WhatsApp Flows you published in Meta's Flow Builder.

Up to three reply buttons, or a list of up to ten options
Call-to-action buttons that open a link you control
Single product and full catalog messages from a linked catalog
Location requests, message reactions, and quoted replies

Ad clicks that arrive as conversations

When a click-to-WhatsApp ad starts a chat, Otobiz captures the ad that produced the click and attaches it to the contact and the conversation. You can segment on it later, and report a lead or a purchase back to Meta so the campaign learns.

The ad, its headline, and where it ran captured on the first message
An acquired-via-ad condition available in the segment builder
Leads and purchases reported back to Meta, counted once on each side

Voice calls on your WhatsApp number^soon

WhatsApp Business Calling lets a customer call the same number they message, and lets your team call back inside the same thread. The call sits next to the conversation that produced it, so whoever picks up has the history.

Calls tied to the contact record and the conversation
Call availability controlled per number
Requires Business Calling access on your WhatsApp account

Limits

What it will not do.

Most of these are the platform's rules, not ours. They decide what you can send, and when.

The 24 hour customer service window

Meta only allows free-form messages for 24 hours after the customer's last message. Outside the window a free-form send is blocked before it leaves, with the reason recorded so you can see it. An approved template is the only way through.

Templates need Meta's approval

Anything sent outside the window is a template Meta reviewed first. Review takes as long as it takes, templates can be rejected, and an approved template can be paused later if recipients report it. Otobiz shows the status and the rejection reason, and cannot shorten the review.

Marketing needs a real opt-in

Otobiz will not send a marketing template to a contact with no consent record. An uploaded list with no opt-in basis is excluded from the audience, with the reason shown next to it.

Meta sets the message rate, not Otobiz

Meta charges per delivered template message, priced by category and destination country, against the WhatsApp account you own. Otobiz estimates the cost before you send and records the actual price Meta reports afterwards. There is no Otobiz margin on top of it.

One number per workspace

A workspace connects one WhatsApp number. If you run several numbers, run several workspaces and switch between them with one login. Reconnecting the same number to the same workspace is fine.

Meta's messaging limit tiers still apply

Meta caps how many unique customers a number can start conversations with per day, and raises the cap as quality holds. Otobiz shows the current cap Meta reports. It does not stop you at the cap: Meta does, and you see the reason on the send.

What it takes to connect

Connecting runs through Meta's own connect flow inside Otobiz. You sign in to your own Meta account, pick or create the business, and pick or verify the number. The WhatsApp Business Account and the number stay yours, and disconnecting leaves them with you.

What you bring

A Meta Business account, or an owner willing to create one during signup
A phone number that can receive a verification code and is not currently active on the consumer WhatsApp Business app
Someone with admin rights on that Meta Business to complete the popup
Business verification with Meta, if you want higher messaging limits
At least one approved message template, for anything sent outside the 24 hour window
A written opt-in for marketing messages, captured before you send them

Common questions

Do I need my own WhatsApp Business Account?: Yes. Otobiz connects the account and number you own against your own Meta business. Nothing is rented to you, and disconnecting leaves the account, number, templates, and opt-ins with you.
What is the 24 hour customer service window?: It is Meta's rule that a business may send free-form messages only within 24 hours of the customer's last message. After that, only an approved message template can be sent until the customer writes again.
What happens if we try to send after the window closes?: Otobiz blocks the send before it leaves and records why, so nothing fails silently. You can send an approved template instead, which is the only path Meta allows.
How long does template approval take?: Meta decides that, and it varies by category and content. Otobiz submits the template, tracks its status, and shows the rejection reason if there is one. We cannot make the review faster.
Can we import a contact list and broadcast to it?: You can import contacts, but a contact with no opt-in record is excluded from a marketing audience. Transactional messages to people who wrote to you first are a different case and are allowed.
Who pays Meta for the messages?: You do, against your own WhatsApp Business Account. Meta prices each delivered template message by category and destination country. Otobiz shows an estimate before the send and the reported actual after it.
Can we use a number that is already on the WhatsApp Business app?: Migrating a number to the API normally means moving it off the consumer app. Meta also offers a mode where both run on one number, which Otobiz supports separately.
Does the AI ever send without a person seeing it?: Only for routine replies, and only if you switch that on. Campaigns, scheduled sends, reminders, and anything that writes to another system always queue for a human decision.
How do customers unsubscribe?: Replying stop, unsubscribe, cancel, end, or quit suppresses marketing for that contact and sends a confirmation. Meta's own opt-out signals on failed sends also suppress the contact automatically.
Can we send to WhatsApp groups?: Otobiz reads messages from a group that writes to your number and can reply into it. Meta restricts the group API to accounts with Official Business Account status, and group management is not part of Otobiz.
Do you support click-to-WhatsApp ads?: Yes. The ad that produced the click is captured on the first message, stored on the contact and conversation, available as a segment condition, and usable to report leads and purchases back to Meta.
What happens to our data if we disconnect?: The connection is marked disconnected, the stored login is deleted, and Otobiz stops receiving messages on it. Your conversation history stays in your workspace until you delete it or delete the workspace.