Draw your WhatsApp chatbot the way your customer will read it.
Menus, questions, saved answers and hand-offs, on a canvas where every box shows the message exactly as it arrives. When the script runs out, the chatbot hands the customer to your team or your AI assistant.
An example chatbot for a gym. It starts when a customer sends “hi”, offers three buttons — Book a free trial, Class times, Something else — asks which day suits them for a trial and saves the answer, then hands the chat to the front desk with that answer in the message. The canvas and the test phone move together.
An example chatbot, running in Test mode. The amber line is the path one customer took; the phone is what they saw.
Built for the customer who types instead of taps.
A demo walks the happy path. Real customers type “how much?” at a menu, go quiet halfway through, or ask for a person. Each of those has a line on the canvas, and a sensible default if you never draw one.
They type instead of tapping.
A menu can ask again in words you write, send them down another path, or pass the message to your AI assistant. Leave the setting alone and it asks once more, then hands over.
They go quiet.
Any step that waits for an answer can stop waiting after a time you set — two hours, a day — and follow its “No reply” line to a reminder or to your team.
They want out.
Three sets of words work on every step of every chatbot: “menu” starts again, “stop” ends it, “agent” hands them to a person. They're on from the start, and you can change the words.
Someone on your team replies.
The chatbot stands back, and so does your assistant. Automated replies stay paused until the chat is closed, someone resumes them, or a day goes by.
A day goes by.
After 24 hours WhatsApp only allows approved templates. A chatbot never tries to send anything else, and a wait that long can't be published unless a template comes next.
Hi Arjun! Welcome to Northside Fitness. What can we help with?
how much is a month?
Tap one of the buttons above — or I'll pass your question on.
just tell me the price
Typed instead of tapping: asked again, in your words
Still off-script: followed “Anything else”
Thirteen kinds of box, in five colours.
Colour tells you what a box does before you read it: green sends, teal asks, violet decides, orange writes to the contact, grey hands over. Every chatbot begins at the dark box — the thing a customer does that sets it off.
Starts when
Message contains
Came from ad
Message is
The whole message is a word you chose — hi, menu.
Message contains
The word turns up anywhere in it — price, booking.
Button tapped
A quick-reply button on a template you broadcast.
Came from ad
They arrived from a click-to-WhatsApp ad.
First message ever
Once per customer, for someone new.
Any message
Everything else — unless an AI assistant is on the number, which answers those instead.
Send
Message
Text, a picture, up to three buttons, or a list of up to ten options.
Template
An approved template — the one thing you can send after 24 hours.
Ask
Question
Ask, check it's an email, phone or number if it must be, and save the answer.
Form
Send one of your WhatsApp Flows and wait for it to come back filled in.
Logic
Condition
Go one way or another on an answer, a contact field, a group, or whether you're open.
Wait
Pause for minutes, hours or days, then carry on.
Contact
Save to contact
Write a value onto the contact — a column or a field of your own.
Contact group
Add them to a group your broadcasts already use, or take them out.
Opt out
Stop marketing messages to this contact.
Assign
Give the chat to someone on your team.
Hand over
Hand to a person
End here. Your team takes over and automated replies pause.
Hand to AI
End here. Your Support assistant answers from your knowledge base.
End
Finish, with a last message or without one.
Script what repeats. Hand over the rest.
A chatbot has no AI in it. It sends what you wrote, word for word, every time — exactly right for opening hours, prices and taking details, and exactly wrong for a question nobody predicted. So it doesn't try.
To your Support assistant
It answers from your own knowledge base, in whatever language the customer wrote in. The chatbot covers what repeats; the assistant takes the question nobody predicted.
To your team
The chat lands in your inbox — assigned to someone if you chose — with every answer the chatbot collected already on the contact.
Or no AI at all
A chatbot runs on a number with no assistant. Send every hand-off to your team and nothing on that number is written by AI.
One charge per run, not per message.
A run is each time the chatbot starts with a customer. It can send one message or twenty; the chatbot is charged once. With no AI inside, our charge for a whole run is less than an AI assistant's for a single reply.
Messages the chatbot sent
4
Chatbot charges for the run
1
The chatbot's messages count toward your number's free service messages for the month, like every reply; past those, each one is charged. The canvas shows what one run costs before you publish. See the rates in your currency.
Try it before a customer does. Then see where they stop.
Test
Support assistant on
Business open
price
Happy to help! May I have your name?
A pretend phone, a pretend contact, a pretend clock
Test mode runs your chatbot beside the canvas and lights up the box it's on. Nothing is sent and nothing is charged. A two-hour wait is one press of Skip ahead, and two switches let you try it with your assistant off or your business closed.
Trial day
Saves as day
Answered
No reply in 2 hours
Maya
10:02
Reached “Welcome”
10:02
Answered “Welcome”: Book a free trial
10:02
Reached “Trial day”
10:03
Answered “Trial day”: saturday morning
10:03
Reached “To the front desk”
Numbers on every box, and every run on file
Once it's live, each box shows how many customers reached it, answered it and stopped there over the last 30 days. Open any run to read the path one customer took. Answers saved to the contact can fill in your broadcasts, filter your lists and go out in your exports.
Start from one that already works.
Five ready-made chatbots, each complete and publishable the moment it opens. Change the words, keep the wiring — or start from a blank canvas.
FAQ menu
A menu of your common questions, each with its answer. Anything else goes to your AI assistant.
Message is
hihellomenuLead capture
Asks a new enquiry for their name, email and timeline, saves them to the contact, and passes them to your team.
Message contains
pricequoteinteresteddetailsAppointment request
Offers to book a visit or connect them with your team; your AI assistant finds the slot.
Message contains
appointmentbookbookingvisitOrder status
Takes the order number and hands the chat to your team with it already asked.
Message contains
ordertrackdeliverystatusFeedback
Asks how it went; happy customers are thanked, unhappy ones go straight to your team.
Message is
feedbackreview
What to know before you build.
The edges, stated up front, so none of them turns up after you've drawn something.
WhatsApp only.
Chatbots run on your WhatsApp numbers. Instagram DMs are answered by your team or your AI assistant, not by a chatbot.
One chatbot answers a number at a time.
A number can hold ten — drafts, spares, the one you run in December. Switching one on switches the live one off, so a customer never meets two.
Fifty steps, at most.
A conversation that needs more branches than that has stopped being a script. That's the point to hand it to an AI assistant.
It can't look things up mid-conversation.
No step calls your own website or database. When a run ends, a webhook sends its answers to your systems.
“Hand to AI” means your Support assistant.
Store, Leads and Appointments assistants run whole transactions of their own, so a chatbot never drops a customer into one.
The short answers
What is a WhatsApp chatbot on Wap2b?
A scripted conversation you draw on a canvas: messages with buttons or lists, questions whose answers are saved to the contact, waits, conditions, and hand-offs to your team or your AI assistant. Each box on the canvas shows the message exactly as the customer will see it. It runs on your own WhatsApp Business number, connected through Meta's WhatsApp Business Cloud API.
How is a chatbot different from an AI assistant?
A chatbot has no AI in it. It sends exactly what you wrote, in the order you drew, every time — right for menus, opening hours, prices and collecting details, and wrong for a question nobody predicted. An AI assistant writes its own replies from your knowledge base. They work together: a chatbot's “Hand to AI” step passes the customer to your Support assistant when the script runs out.
Do I need an AI assistant to use chatbots?
No. A chatbot runs on a number with no assistant, and every hand-off can go to your team instead. If you'd rather nothing on your number were written by AI, that's a chatbot and a person.
What does a chatbot cost?
A chatbot is charged once each time it starts with a customer — a run — however many messages it sends in that run. Our charge for a whole run is less than an AI assistant's for a single reply. The chatbot's messages count toward your number's free service messages for the month, like every reply your business sends; past those, each one is charged. There's no subscription: it comes out of the same prepaid balance as everything else. The canvas shows what one run of your chatbot costs before you publish, and the rates in every currency are on the pricing page.
What happens when a customer types something the chatbot doesn't expect?
Every menu and question has an exception line. You choose whether it asks again in your own words, goes to another step, or passes the message to your AI assistant. If you never choose, it asks once more and then hands over. Customers can also type “menu” to start again, “stop” to end, or “agent” to reach a person, at any step.
Can a chatbot start from an ad or a template button?
Yes. A chatbot can start when a customer arrives from a click-to-WhatsApp ad, taps a quick-reply button on a template you broadcast, sends a keyword, writes to you for the very first time, or sends anything at all.
Can a chatbot message a customer after 24 hours?
Only with an approved template, because that's WhatsApp's rule for every business. A chatbot can wait up to 30 days between steps, and it won't publish a wait longer than a day unless a template step comes next.
Does it work on Instagram?
No. Chatbots run on WhatsApp numbers only. On Instagram, DMs are answered by your team or your AI assistant.
Do I need a developer?
No. You draw it, test it on a pretend phone, and publish it. Developers can optionally receive a webhook with the answers each time a run finishes or hands over.
Start with the question you answered most today.
Pick a ready-made chatbot, change the words, test it on the pretend phone, and publish.