Connect WhatsApp

Overview

WhatsApp on ChatGenius works the same as Instagram and Facebook: incoming messages land in your Team Inbox, your AI responds based on your AI configuration and knowledge base, and the conversation can hand off to a teammate any time. Two things are unique to WhatsApp:

• The 24‑hour service window. Meta only lets businesses message a WhatsApp customer for 24 hours after the customer’s last message. Past that, you have to use an approved template. ChatGenius handles the window automatically.
• Pass‑through pricing. WhatsApp itself charges Meta a small per‑conversation fee for marketing and utility messages. ChatGenius does not mark this up; you pay Meta directly and the cost appears on your WhatsApp Manager bill. Customer‑initiated service conversations within the 24‑hour window are free.

Connecting takes about five minutes if you already have a WhatsApp Business number, longer if you’re registering a new one with Meta.

What You Need Before You Start

• A Professional or Business plan. WhatsApp is not available on Free or Creator. See Plans & Limits.
• Owner access to the ChatGenius account. Only the account owner can connect or disconnect WhatsApp. Team members (managers and agents) can use the channel once it’s connected but cannot initiate the connection.
• A phone number not currently on the regular WhatsApp app or WhatsApp Business app. Meta requires the number to be either brand new or fully migrated off the consumer app. If you’re using a number in WhatsApp Business right now, you’ll need to delete that account first or pick a different number.
• A Meta Business account. If you already manage a Facebook Page or run Meta ads, you have one. If not, Meta creates one for you mid‑flow.
• A payment method on file in WhatsApp Manager (added either during signup or right after). Customer‑initiated service messages are free, but templates and broadcasts require a payment method to be set, and you will not be able to use those features until it is.

How Connection Works

ChatGenius uses Meta’s embedded signup flow, which is Meta’s own popup‑based onboarding for WhatsApp Business. The flow is hosted entirely by Meta inside a window that pops up from your portal; once you finish, the popup returns control to ChatGenius and your account is wired up automatically.

What happens behind the scenes when you click Connect:

1. The Facebook JavaScript SDK launches Meta’s embedded signup in a popup.
2. You sign into Facebook (or use your existing session).
3. You select or create the Meta Business that should own this WhatsApp Business Account (WABA).
4. You select an existing WABA or create a new one.
5. You add and verify the phone number (by SMS or voice call).
6. You authorize ChatGenius to send and receive messages on that number.
7. The popup closes and ChatGenius records your Phone Number ID and WABA ID. You’re connected.

Step by Step

1. Open the portal’s Settings page and click the WhatsApp tab. If you don’t see the WhatsApp tab, your plan does not include it; upgrade from Plans & Limits first.
2. Click Connect WhatsApp. A Meta popup opens. (If a popup blocker swallows it, allow popups for sumgenius.ai and try again.)
3. Continue with your Facebook account. If you’re not logged in, sign in. Meta will not see your ChatGenius credentials and ChatGenius does not see your Facebook password; everything happens through Meta’s OAuth.
4. Select or create the Meta Business. Pick the business this WhatsApp number belongs to. If you don’t have one, Meta will create it for you in this step.
5. Pick or create the WhatsApp Business Account (WABA). The WABA is the wrapper Meta uses to manage your WhatsApp presence: one WABA per business, many phone numbers per WABA.
6. Add the phone number. Type in the number you want to use for business messaging. Meta sends a verification code by SMS or voice call. Enter the code.
7. Confirm permissions and finish. The popup asks you to allow ChatGenius to manage messages on this number. Approve, finish the flow, and the popup closes.
8. Back on the WhatsApp tab, you’ll now see the Connected pill, your Phone Number ID, and your WABA ID. Connection done.

The Payment Method Step

After connecting, the WhatsApp panel shows a yellow banner: Payment method required. This is for Meta, not ChatGenius. WhatsApp will not let you send template messages or run broadcasts until a payment method is on file in WhatsApp Manager. Regular customer‑initiated conversations work without one.

1. Click Open WhatsApp Manager on the banner (or go straight to business.facebook.com/latest/whatsapp_manager).
2. In WhatsApp Manager, add a credit card or bank account as the billing method on this WABA.
3. Come back to ChatGenius and click I’ve added my payment method.

ChatGenius cannot read the payment status directly from Meta, which is why this is a manual confirmation. Once you click the button, the banner clears and template creation and broadcasts unlock in the ChatGenius UI.

AI & Automation Toggles

Two toggles control how ChatGenius handles incoming WhatsApp messages. Both default to on after connection.

• AI Auto‑Responses: lets the AI reply to inbound WhatsApp messages using the same identity, tone, knowledge base, and guardrails configured in AI Configuration. Turn off if you want this channel handled exclusively by your team.
• Automation: enables quick reply triggers and flow automations on WhatsApp. Turn off to suppress all automated keyword and flow logic on this channel while leaving the AI itself running.

The toggles are per‑channel, so you can have the AI fully autonomous on Instagram and Facebook while keeping WhatsApp human‑handled, or vice versa.

The 24‑Hour Service Window

WhatsApp is stricter than Instagram or Facebook about when businesses can message customers. Meta’s rule:

• If the customer messaged you in the last 24 hours, you can send anything: plain text, media, buttons, the works. Free.
• If the customer’s last message was more than 24 hours ago, you can only send an approved template message (see below). Per‑message Meta fees apply.

ChatGenius enforces this automatically: if you (or the AI) try to send a free‑form message to someone outside the window, the inbox surfaces “Outside 24‑hour window, send a template instead.” The same logic runs on the AI side; it will not silently fail.

Important: the window resets every time the customer messages back. A long‑running back‑and‑forth conversation never hits the wall as long as the customer is replying within a day.

Templates: Messaging Outside the Window

Templates are pre‑written, Meta‑approved message structures (with optional variables) that you’re allowed to send to customers outside the 24‑hour window: appointment reminders, order updates, marketing offers, etc.

Templates live in the portal under WhatsApp Templates (in your nav once WhatsApp is connected). From there you can:

• Create a new template, name it, pick a category (marketing, utility, authentication), add a header / body / footer, and submit it to Meta for approval.
• Watch the status: Pending (Meta is reviewing), Approved (you can use it), Rejected (Meta declined; reason shows in‑line), or Disabled.
• Sync with Meta to pull in any templates you created outside ChatGenius.

Approval is typically minutes for utility/authentication and up to 24 hours for marketing. A payment method must be on file before you can create one.

Once you have approved templates, broadcasts let you send one to many recipients at once, and your AI can also use them automatically for things like follow‑ups and reminders.

Click‑to‑WhatsApp Ads (CTWA)

If you run Meta ads that send people into WhatsApp instead of a landing page (the “Send message” / WhatsApp objective in Ads Manager), those conversations land on your inbox alongside organic ones. ChatGenius automatically tags each CTWA conversation so you can tell at a glance which messages came from a paid ad and which are organic.

By default, CTWA conversations get tagged with a system tag called CTWA Ad. On Professional and Business plans you can swap that for any custom tag from your conversation tags list, so each ad source can route into your own labeling scheme.

This matters because tracking the ad source on WhatsApp is genuinely hard; Meta does not pass click data to the platform receiving the message. ChatGenius handles it by reading the click‑to‑chat referral payload Meta does include and converting it into a tag.

QR Codes & Click‑to‑Chat Links

From the WhatsApp tab in Settings, you can generate scannable QR codes and short click‑to‑chat links that open WhatsApp with a pre‑filled message. When someone scans the QR or taps the link, WhatsApp opens, the message text is already typed, and the customer just hits send.

Each QR has a label (internal, not shown to customers) and a pre‑fill text (visible). ChatGenius watches inbound messages for that exact pre‑fill text and tags the resulting conversation with the QR’s source label, so you can attribute conversations to specific QR placements: bio link, in‑store counter, email signature, business card, restaurant table tent, etc.

Two practical notes:

• Pre‑fill text has to be unique across QRs. If two QRs share the same pre‑fill, the tagging would collide and ChatGenius wouldn’t know which source to credit.
• Pre‑fills are capped at 140 characters, which is plenty for a clear sentence.

Disconnecting and Reconnecting

The account owner can disconnect WhatsApp any time from the WhatsApp tab in Settings: click the three‑dot menu next to the Connected pill and choose Disconnect WhatsApp. Disconnecting:

• Removes the link between ChatGenius and your WABA, so we stop sending and receiving messages on that number.
• Leaves your conversation history, leads, and templates intact. They’re archived in your portal; new traffic on the number just stops landing in ChatGenius.
• Does not delete the WABA from Meta. Your WhatsApp Business Account stays with you on Meta’s side and can be reconnected later or used in WhatsApp Manager directly.

To reconnect, run through the same Connect WhatsApp flow again. If you’re reconnecting the same WABA you had before, it will appear as an existing option in the popup rather than asking you to create a new one.

Troubleshooting

The Connect WhatsApp popup never appears

Browser popup blocker. Allow popups for sumgenius.ai (in the address bar most browsers show a popup‑blocked icon you can click) and try again.

The popup opens but I can’t find my Meta Business

That Facebook account isn’t an admin on the Meta Business that owns the WABA. Either log in with an account that is, or have the actual admin connect (it has to be done by the account owner of the ChatGenius account, but they can be added as a Meta Business admin first).

Meta says my phone number is already in use

The number is still registered on the WhatsApp consumer app or in another WABA. Open WhatsApp on the phone, delete the account from the app’s settings (this loses chat history), and try again. If the number is in another WABA, Meta’s phone‑number migration is the right path; it’s documented in Meta’s help center.

I’m connected but my templates won’t create

Two possibilities, and they’re opposites:

• Payment method is set in WhatsApp Manager but you haven’t confirmed it in ChatGenius. Click I’ve added my payment method on the WhatsApp tab so the UI unlocks template creation.
• You confirmed it in ChatGenius but didn’t actually add it in WhatsApp Manager. Our portal trusted your click and unlocked the UI, but Meta rejects the template at submission because there’s no real payment method on the WABA. Go to WhatsApp Manager, add the card or bank account, then try again.

I confirmed payment but my broadcast won’t send

Same root cause as above: if the payment method exists in our portal’s confirmation flag but not in WhatsApp Manager, broadcasts also fail at send time. Add a real payment method on the WABA and the next send will go through.

The AI isn’t responding to WhatsApp messages

Check the AI Auto‑Responses toggle on the WhatsApp tab. If it’s on and you’re still not getting replies, check that the conversation isn’t claimed by a team member (the AI pauses on claimed conversations) and that you have conversations remaining in your billing period.

Inbound messages aren’t arriving at all

Meta’s webhook for the number isn’t pointing at us, usually because the WABA is shared with another platform that overwrote the webhook. In WhatsApp Manager, confirm the webhook is set to ChatGenius’s endpoint, or reconnect through the embedded signup flow to refresh it. If you’re still stuck, email info@sumgenius.ai with your WABA ID and we’ll dig in.

FAQ

Can I use my current personal WhatsApp number?

Only if you’re willing to delete it from the consumer app first, which loses your chat history on that number. Most businesses pick a new number for this reason.

How much does WhatsApp cost?

ChatGenius doesn’t mark up WhatsApp. Customer‑initiated service conversations within the 24‑hour window are free from Meta. Marketing and utility template messages have a per‑conversation Meta fee that varies by country; you pay Meta directly via the payment method on your WABA. Rates are published by Meta and we don’t add to them.

Can I have multiple phone numbers on one ChatGenius account?

One WhatsApp number per ChatGenius account on the standard flow. If you need multiple numbers (multi‑location, multi‑brand), that’s an Enterprise conversation; email info@sumgenius.ai.

Why is WhatsApp Pro+ and not on the lower plans?

Because WhatsApp’s business APIs come with infrastructure overhead (template management, payment‑method handling, broadcast queuing, regional compliance) that doesn’t make sense to amortize on the smaller plans. Free and Creator focus on Instagram and Facebook, which work fully on those tiers.

Does the AI follow the same rules on WhatsApp as on Instagram?

Yes. Same AI configuration, same knowledge base, same custom instructions, same escalation behavior. The only extra rule the AI knows about on WhatsApp is the 24‑hour window: outside it, it uses templates instead of free‑form replies.

What about Meta’s new restrictions on AI bots on WhatsApp?

In early 2026 Meta restricted general‑purpose AI assistants on WhatsApp Business but explicitly carved out AI used for customer service, which is exactly what ChatGenius does. Your account is in the allowed category by design.

Next Steps

• AI Configuration to make sure your assistant is dialed in before customers start messaging.
• Knowledge Base to give the AI the answers it’ll need on WhatsApp.
• Team Inbox for the workspace your team will use for live WhatsApp conversations.
• Broadcasts for using your approved templates to message many people at once.