How do you automate WhatsApp
for a small business?

First, the part almost nobody explains: the app will not do

WhatsApp Business, the free phone app, only offers quick replies and away messages written by hand. There is no way for it to check your calendar, read your catalogue, write to your CRM or answer each person differently. For that you need the WhatsApp Business API, which is a different thing: it is paid per conversation to the provider, it requires verifying the company, and it has rules about who may write first and when. When that step is needed and when it is not, with the numbers, is in WhatsApp Business API or regular WhatsApp.

What the assistant does, step by step

• Answers straight away, including at night and at weekends, with the real information of the business and not a brochure.
• Handles the repeated questions: opening hours, published prices, how to get there, availability, the status of an order.
• Collects what is needed to help: what they want, when, their name and how to reach them.
• Closes or proposes: an appointment against the real calendar, a booking, an alert to the engineer.
• Hands over to a person as soon as the conversation goes off script or turns delicate, pinging the team's phone.
• Leaves a trail: every conversation is logged and every enquiry lands in the CRM.

The catalogue entry with its video demo is WhatsApp receptionist with AI. If you also want the website to answer the same way, the sister piece is the website chat, from €490 + €39/month. The full support path is on 24/7 customer service.

One rule we set ourselves, and why

It does not decide the delicate things on its own. A complaint, an emergency, an odd case or anything it is unsure about goes to a person. The danger here is not that it does nothing: it is that it does the wrong thing very well for months without anyone noticing.

Which businesses does this fit?

• It fits where a lot of messages come in and there are few people to answer them: clinics, salons, restaurants and accommodation, workshops and installers, shops, professional firms.
• It fits when business is lost outside opening hours, which is when people write most.
• It fits when customers write in several languages.
• It does not fit if four messages come in a week and they are answered effortlessly, or if every enquiry is different and there is nothing repeated for the system to resolve. We say so before charging anything.

An example anyone can look at

Dartel Solutions answers on WhatsApp and on its website in four languages —English, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian—, every enquiry lands in its CRM, and every order pings the team's phone. The measured figure: 60 conversations in 61 days, measured on 27 August 2026. It is a modest, real number, and it is work that used to be lost outside opening hours. That company shares an operating founder with Zerolagia, which is why we say so here too.

What does it cost in total?

Implementing the WhatsApp assistant is €990 plus €79 a month for maintenance, with no lock-in and excluding VAT. Usage is separate: the WhatsApp API charges per conversation and the AI model charges per use, and both are paid directly to the provider from the business's own account. We do not fold it into the fee because it depends on how much the system is used, and hiding it only makes the first bill a surprise. The full breakdown is in how much it costs to automate a business with AI.

How does it start?

With the ten questions that come up most often in the business's WhatsApp. You collect them, answer them well once, and leave the rest handing over to a person; from there it grows with whatever shows up. Write to us on WhatsApp —which is the best way to see how a business that sells this actually handles it—, ask the assistant on this page, or leave two lines on the contact page.