WhatsApp Business app or an automated WhatsApp assistant?

What the free app does well

The WhatsApp Business app is free to download and works on your phone. It gives you:

• A business profile with your hours, address, website and description.
• A catalogue of products or services.
• Quick replies for answers you type often.
• Greeting and away messages.
• Labels to sort chats, such as "new", "booked" and "paid".
• Use on a few linked devices, so more than one person can reply.

Where the free app runs out

• It can't actually answer questions. An away message says "we'll get back to you", and the customer may book elsewhere.
• It doesn't know your calendar. Someone has to check times and type the booking in.
• It can't send a quote from your price list, or a payment link tied to a booking.
• Reminders are typed by hand, one customer at a time.
• With many chats a day, messages get missed and nobody can see who replied to whom.
• There's no record that links each chat to a customer, a booking and an invoice.

What changes with an automated number

An automated WhatsApp assistant runs on WhatsApp's business platform instead of the app. It can answer from your prices and rules, check your calendar, book, remind and send payment links, and hand the chat to a person when needed.

The platform charges by message, not a flat fee. Meta's model, in broad terms:

• When a customer messages you, replies within the customer service window are free.
• Messages you start, such as reminders, confirmations and promotions, use approved templates and are charged per message.
• Rates differ by country and by message type: marketing costs more than a booking reminder.
• Meta publishes the current rates per country on its WhatsApp Business pricing page. Check them there, because they change.

Costs to plan for

For many businesses, most chats are started by the customer, so most replies fall in the free window. Reminders and promotions are where the fees add up.

• Per-message fees from Meta for messages you start.
• The assistant itself: building it, and running it each month.
• A phone number for the business account. A number already in use on the app may need to move to the platform.
• Payment fees, if the assistant sends payment links.

Opt-in and POPIA

WhatsApp's own rules say a business may only message people who have agreed to receive its messages, and must let them stop. POPIA adds rules for direct marketing by electronic messages, which in general needs consent unless the person is an existing customer and other conditions are met.

In practice: let customers start the chat or opt in clearly, explain what you'll send, honour "stop" straight away, and keep only the data you need. This is a plain summary, not legal advice. Check your own obligations.

What a good assistant handles

• Answers from your own prices, services, areas and policies, and nothing else.
• Checks your calendar before it offers a time.
• Books, reschedules and cancels inside your rules.
• Sends reminders and payment links at the right moment.
• Hands the chat to a person, with the details so far, when it isn't sure.
• Keeps a record of each chat linked to the customer and the booking.

Signs you're ready to automate

• You lose bookings to slow replies, especially after hours.
• Most chats ask the same five or ten questions.
• Someone spends hours a day answering WhatsApp.
• Bookings are copied by hand from chats into a calendar.
• Customers forget appointments, and reminders would help.
• You want deposits paid before you confirm.

How Peak Software helps

We set up WhatsApp assistants that answer from your prices and rules, quote, book into your calendar and hand over to a person when needed, on your business number and under your name. A short call, then a written plan and one fixed price before work starts. We work remotely with businesses across South Africa.

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