WhatsApp Business: the fastest channel, and the only one with a per-message cost
On WhatsApp the expectation differs from email: people send a message the way they message an acquaintance and assume a quick reply. Nova takes that over — reservations, status questions, appointments — including evenings and weekends. The difference with email is cost: WhatsApp charges per message, and that changes how you set it up.
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What characterises WhatsApp Business as a channel
| Aspect | How it works |
|---|---|
| Cost per message | Yes — Meta charges per delivered message, not per sent message |
| What the price depends on | Who receives the message and which category it falls into |
| Expected response time | Minutes, not hours — that is what makes the channel worth it |
| AI disclosure | In the first reply of every conversation |
| Biggest risk | Costs rising on outbound volume nobody asked for |
Where it goes wrong in practice
The pitfall is that WhatsApp feels free, because privately it is. Commercially it is not: Meta states that businesses are charged on a per-message basis for each message delivered, and that charging happens on delivery rather than on sending. What a message costs depends on who receives it and which category it falls into. In practice: answering inbound conversations is predictable, unsolicited outbound volume is not. So we set the channel up reactively.
When this is not the right channel
If you mainly want to approach customers rather than respond to them, WhatsApp becomes expensive and is also the wrong channel: people experience unsolicited business messages there as more intrusive than in the inbox. Reactively it works excellently, proactively it rarely does.
What we need from you
This genuinely differs per channel, so it sits here rather than in a generic checklist:
- A WhatsApp Business account on a phone number that is not also in personal use — the latter causes problems during setup.
- Clarity on who answers WhatsApp today and when, so Nova does not end up working across them.
- A decision on outbound traffic: reply only, or also send messages yourself. The latter determines your cost.
How this channel goes live
The sequence is the same for every channel: intake call, analysis of your existing communication from the past 90 days, and a shadow week in which Nova prepares answers but sends nothing. That week is not a formality — it is the moment where it becomes visible which work it genuinely handles on this channel.
What applies legally once an AI communicates on your behalf — the transparency obligation and the article 22 GDPR boundary — is set out in the AI Act for SMEs and AI and the GDPR for SMEs.