Channels
Five ways in. One inbox.
Customers reach out wherever suits them. All five channels land in the same queue, against the same contact record, with the same assistant — the differences below are about transport, not about what the product does with the message.
| Channel | How it sends | Reply window | Templates | Can message first | Matches existing contacts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WhatsAppThe only channel with a template escape once the window closes. | Meta WhatsApp Cloud API | 24 hours | Yes | No | Yes |
| Facebook MessengerButtons and lists arrive as quick replies; media captions are dropped. | Meta Graph Send API (Page) | 24 hours | No | No | No |
| Instagram DMSame behaviour as Messenger, on your Instagram professional account. | Meta Graph Send API (professional account) | 24 hours | No | No | No |
| Website chatNo policy window at all — reply whenever you get to it. | Our own API, embedded on your site | None | No | No | No |
| Personal WhatsAppUnofficialUnofficial. No Meta approval needed — and the only channel that can message someone first. | A live socket to your own number | None | No | Yes | Yes |
What the table means
The three things worth understanding
The 24-hour window, and the one way out
Meta lets you reply freely for 24 hours after a customer messages you. After that, the window closes. WhatsApp is the only channel with an escape: an approved message template, which is also what makes broadcasts possible there and nowhere else. On Messenger and Instagram, a closed window means waiting for them to write again — RaabtaHQ tells you which state a conversation is in rather than letting you find out when a send fails.
The one channel that can go first
Every official channel is reply-only: you cannot open a conversation with someone who has never messaged you. Personal WhatsApp can, because it is your own number on the unofficial protocol rather than a Meta app — which is precisely why it also carries risk the others don't. It is there for when the rules genuinely block work you need to do, not as the default.
What down-mapping means
WhatsApp supports interactive buttons and list pickers. Messenger and Instagram do not, so when a message carrying them goes to those channels it arrives as quick replies instead, and media captions are dropped. You write the message once; the send layer works out what each channel can actually carry.
One customer, one record
Where the same person becomes one contact — and where they can't
This is the question every multichannel tool gets asked and most answer vaguely. Here is the honest version, because you will notice the difference in week one either way.
Anywhere there is a phone number
WhatsApp, your own linked number, a CSV import, the public booking page, a contact you add by hand, one the AI creates mid-conversation — all of them resolve to the same record when the number matches. Numbers are normalised to digits first, so formatting differences and trunk prefixes do not fragment one customer into three.
And it is the database that guarantees it, not code that remembers to check: a unique index on the normalised number rejects a duplicate even when two messages arrive at the same instant.
Not between Messenger, Instagram and the rest
Meta identifies a Messenger or Instagram sender by an opaque page-scoped id and gives you no phone number and no email. There is simply no shared key to match on, so someone who has been on your WhatsApp for a year and then DMs your Instagram arrives as a second contact — and website chat behaves the same way.
Anyone claiming otherwise is either asking the customer for their number or guessing from a display name. We would rather tell you than have you find out from a duplicate.
Nothing in the product picks a transport
A single send layer resolves the credentials and the recipient from the account, the conversation and the contact, then branches by channel. The AI assistant, the industry modules and every lifecycle message go through it — none of them import a channel or decide how a message travels. That is why adding a channel does not mean editing the rest of the product.
Failures are reported, not swallowed
Outside the window, template unsupported, not connected, no identity on this channel, provider error — each is a named outcome rather than a generic failure. In the inbox, “outside the window” becomes a banner in the composer explaining what you can do about it instead of a message that silently never arrived.
Go deeper
Channel guides
Omnichannel messaging
Five channels, one conversation history
Connect WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, a website chat widget and your own personal number, and reply to all five from a single channel-aware inbox.
Learn morePersonal WhatsApp
Your own number. Message customers first.
Link your own WhatsApp number by QR or pairing code — no Meta approval, no templates, and the only channel that can message a contact first.
Learn moreWebsite chat widget
One line of script. Same inbox.
Embed a chat widget with one script tag, style every part of it, and answer visitors from the same inbox — with the same AI — as everyone else.
Learn moreShared team inbox
Realtime, collaborative, presence-aware
A collaborative inbox with live updates, teammate presence, per-conversation assignment and unread tracking — no message slips through.
Learn moreReady to answer every customer in one place?
Bring WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram together with AI that actually helps. Talk to us and we'll get you set up.
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