Two routes onto WhatsApp — an unofficial linked-device session on your own number, or the official WhatsApp Business API. The tradeoffs are real.
WhatsApp has two connection routes, and they are genuinely different products with different risks. Pick deliberately.
| WhatsApp Web (linked device) | WhatsApp Business API | |
|---|---|---|
| Official? | No | Yes |
| Setup | Scan a QR code | Meta business verification, or a managed number |
| Time to live | Minutes | Days to weeks |
| Ban risk | Real — lands on your number | None from using it correctly |
| Uses your existing number | Yes | The number moves to the Business API and leaves the WhatsApp app |
| Free-form replies | Inside the 24h window | Inside the 24h window |
| Outside the window | Nothing sanctioned | Approved templates only |
| Per-message cost | None | Meta charges per template message |
Route 1 — WhatsApp Web (linked device)
This connects your real WhatsApp number the same way WhatsApp on your laptop does: as a linked device. You scan a QR code (or enter a phone code), and CoPhrase holds that session open.
It's the easiest connection in the product. It's also the riskiest.
This is not an official WhatsApp API. Your number can be banned.
WhatsApp does not sanction automating a linked-device session. Numbers that send too much, too fast, to too many new contacts, or from the wrong kind of network get restricted or permanently banned — and the ban lands on your WhatsApp number, not on CoPhrase. A permanently banned number is gone: you lose the number's WhatsApp history for every use, including personal.
CoPhrase runs warm-up ramps, dedicated per-account networking, and a send governor specifically to keep this from happening. That materially reduces the risk. It does not eliminate it, and nobody can promise it does. If the official Business API is viable for you, use it instead.
Before you connect
Never connect a brand-new number
A WhatsApp number that has never received a message and immediately starts sending gets banned almost instantly, and permanently. Do not buy a fresh SIM, install WhatsApp, and connect it to CoPhrase the same day.
Connect a number with real history — one that has been in normal use, has received messages, and looks like what it is.
What "warm-up" actually means
A newly connected number does not get to send at full volume. CoPhrase ramps it:
- A daily send cap that starts low and climbs over roughly two months toward its ceiling.
- A separate, much tighter cap on how many brand-new contacts it may message per day.
- A day only advances the ramp if the number actually used most of its cap that day. Idle days don't count — you can't wait out the warm-up.
Crucially, these caps govern business-initiated and new-contact sends. Replying inside a conversation a customer started — which is what an inbound-first agent does almost all the time — draws on a separate, much higher allowance and answers at normal conversation speed. Warm-up is not a limit on answering your customers; it's a limit on reaching out to strangers.
Fresh connections start with outbound automation off. That's the default, and it's deliberate.
Setup
Read the risk disclosure
Connecting WhatsApp Web puts the consent decision in front of you explicitly. It's not fine print, and it's not skippable.
Link the device
Scan the QR code with the WhatsApp app on the phone that owns the number, or use a phone code. This is the standard WhatsApp linked-device flow — the same screen you'd use to link WhatsApp Web in a browser.
Let it warm up
The number connects with automation limited and ramps from there. The connection's warm-up progress is visible in CoPhrase.
Keep the phone alive
A linked device depends on the account staying healthy. Don't unlink the device from your phone, don't let the number go dormant, and don't run other automation tools on the same number at the same time.
Connection health
A WhatsApp Web connection is not simply "connected" or "not". CoPhrase surfaces the difference, because it matters:
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Active | Sending and receiving normally |
| Restricted | The "yellow card". Existing conversations still work; new outreach silently fails. WhatsApp doesn't tell you it's happening — a restricted number looks fine and quietly delivers nothing to new contacts |
| Disconnected | The session dropped. Re-link the device |
| Banned | Terminal for that number |
Silent send failures are never counted as delivered. If a message didn't land, the thread says so.
Cost
A WhatsApp Web connection carries an ongoing monthly infrastructure charge — it needs a dedicated network identity and an always-on session held open on your behalf. That's per connected number, and it's separate from the AI usage the agent generates. See Billing.
Route 2 — WhatsApp Business API
The official route. Meta sanctions it, there's no ban risk from using it as intended, and it's the only WhatsApp route that survives contact with scale.
Two ways in:
- A managed number from CoPhrase — we provision the number and handle registration. Fastest path to a compliant, official WhatsApp presence.
- Your own number via Meta's signup flow — you connect an existing Business API number through Meta's embedded signup.
Moving a number to the Business API is one-way-ish
A number registered on the WhatsApp Business API stops working in the regular WhatsApp app. If the number is one your team also uses by hand from a phone, that has to change first. Migrating a number away later is possible but slow — treat it as a decision, not an experiment.
Templates and the 24-hour window
The window is the rule that catches everyone:
- The window opens only when the customer messages you — never from anything you send.
- Inside the window: free-form replies, no template needed, no per-message template charge.
- Outside the window: only pre-approved templates may be sent. Meta approves templates individually, per language, and rejects them for reasons that are not always obvious.
- A template send does not re-open the window. Until the customer replies, you're still in templates-only mode. This is the trap: sending a template does not buy you a free-form conversation.
CoPhrase tracks the window per conversation and routes sends accordingly — free-form inside it, template picker outside it.
Meta bills per template message. Those charges pass through at cost.
Sending limits are account-wide
WhatsApp caps how many business-initiated conversations you can start per day, and that cap is set at your Meta business portfolio level — not per number. Every number under the same portfolio shares one tier, a new number inherits it immediately, and one number with bad quality ratings drags the whole portfolio down. Keep your message quality high; it's a shared resource.
Which route should you pick?
- You want the agent live today, on the number your customers already message, and you accept the risk → WhatsApp Web.
- WhatsApp is a core channel for your business and losing the number would be a catastrophe → Business API.
- You're an agency running WhatsApp for clients → Business API, seriously. Your client's number is not yours to gamble.