WhatsApp agents overview

What you will achieve

A WhatsApp agent answers your customers on WhatsApp for you, around the clock, in the language each customer writes in. It remembers the conversation, can use your knowledge bases and tools, and can collect details with a form. You can pause it and write to a customer yourself at any time. It can read voice notes and answer with a voice note. It can also send a message to a list of people who agreed to hear from you.

It is a different product from a voice agent that answers phone calls. The two share your credit, knowledge bases, tools, webhooks and integrations, but a WhatsApp agent has its own settings, its own conversations and its own limits.

What you need

• A workspace that has bought credit. WhatsApp agents are not part of the Free plan, and there are no free replies.
• A WhatsApp slot for each agent. Its number uses that slot. A slot costs $20, once, from your credit. See What it costs below.
• A phone with WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business, to scan one code. Use a number you can afford to lose access to (see The risk).

How it fits together

Every WhatsApp agent stands on its own: its own number, its own conversations and its own figures, even inside one workspace.

1. Create the agent. In WhatsApp agents press New agent, give it a name and scan one code with your phone. That links the agent's own WhatsApp number. If you have no free slot yet, you are asked to buy one first. See Link a WhatsApp number.
2. Set it up. Write what it does and knows, add knowledge and tools, then Publish it. See Create a WhatsApp agent.
3. Watch the chats. The agent's Conversations tab shows every chat. You can read it, pause the agent or write yourself. See Conversations.
4. Add voice and campaigns. Optionally add voice notes, and send campaigns from the Campaigns page under Customers.
5. Check the figures. The agent's Analytics tab shows what it did and what it cost: Analytics and costs.

Slots

A slot lets one WhatsApp number be linked at a time. You buy slots; you do not pay per number.

• Buy once, keep it. A slot is bought once and stays yours. If you delete an agent, its number is unlinked and the slot is free again for a new agent, with nothing more to pay.
• One slot for each agent. A new agent needs a slot of its own, and the number you link to it uses that same slot. To run two agents you need two slots ($20 each), and so on. When every slot is taken, New agent asks you to buy one first.
• Agents made before slots were sold. An agent that has no slot behind it shows Needs a slot in the list, and a notice offers to buy the missing slots ($20 each, once). Nothing is deleted. Such an agent cannot be switched on until its slot is bought.
• See them at a glance. The WhatsApp agents page shows how many slots you have bought, how many are in use and how many are free, and has the Buy a slot button. Each purchase also appears under WhatsApp slots on the Billing page.
• No slot, no code. The QR code is only shown once you have a free slot. If your credit is below $20 you are asked to add credit first, and nothing is charged.
• A scan can never charge you. Only a slot you confirm buying is charged. If linking fails halfway, nothing is taken and the slot goes back to being free.

What it costs

• A WhatsApp slot: $20, once, taken from your credit when you confirm the purchase. Pressing the button twice, refreshing or retrying never charges it twice.
• Each reply: the cost of the language model (and of hearing a voice note, speaking a voice reply, or searching your knowledge, if used), taken from your credit with the reply. There is no per-minute fee, because there is no call, and no free messages: every reply is charged by usage. See Analytics and costs.
• If your credit runs out, the agent stays quiet and your chats are kept. Your number stays linked and your slot stays yours; the agent answers again as soon as you add credit.

The risk

Phynxa links to WhatsApp the same way WhatsApp Web does. It is not the official WhatsApp Business Platform, and WhatsApp's terms do not allow unofficial clients. WhatsApp can limit or ban a number at any time, including a number that only replies to customers who wrote first. A ban is WhatsApp's decision, and a slot you bought is not refundable because of it.

To keep the risk low:

• Prefer a number you can replace. Do not link the only number your business depends on.
• Send campaigns only to people who agreed to hear from you, and keep them small and slow. See WhatsApp campaigns.
• Do not send the same message to many people in a short time.

Languages

The dashboard is in English. The agents are not limited: an agent can write in any language the model supports, and by default it follows the language the customer uses. Voice notes are available only in languages the voice provider supports.