How to Connect WhatsApp to Gorgias

What the WhatsApp channel actually does

Once connected, WhatsApp becomes a native channel inside your Gorgias helpdesk. When a shopper messages your WhatsApp Business number — "where's my order?", "can I swap this for a size up?" — that thread lands as a Gorgias ticket in the same unified inbox as every other channel. Agents read and reply from the ticket view they already use, with macros, tags, rules, and assignment all working the way they do on email.

The context is the useful part. Per Gorgias' WhatsApp documentation, the incoming phone number is matched against your Shopify customer profiles, so a matched shopper arrives with their order history, subscription status, and data from your other integrations already loaded in the sidebar. That's the difference between an agent answering a WISMO ("where is my order") question by asking for an order number and one who can see the order sitting right there. If you're running on Shopify, that sidebar is the same one we cover in Gorgias for Shopify.

WhatsApp supports rich content, within limits: text, audio, images, video, and PDFs all come through. Location messages, contact cards, and message reactions do not, and GIFs aren't supported. It's a customer-support channel first, not a full social feature parity clone — which is fine for the returns, exchanges, and order questions that make up most of an ecommerce queue.

Step 1: Open the WhatsApp channel in the App Store

Everything starts in one place.

1. Go to Settings → App Store → All apps → WhatsApp.
2. Click Connect WhatsApp Business.
3. Sign in with the Facebook account tied to your Meta Business Account (or create a Meta Business Account if you don't have one — WhatsApp Business runs on Meta's infrastructure, so this step is unavoidable).

The screen above is the connect page you land on — the starting point, before any conversation exists. What you see after connecting is an ordinary Gorgias ticket with a WhatsApp thread inside it, which only appears once a customer messages you or you send an approved template.

Step 2: Create or select your WhatsApp Business Account

WhatsApp requires a dedicated business identity, called a WhatsApp Business Account (WABA). During the connect flow you'll either create a new one or select an existing WABA, and you'll be asked to submit three things:

1. Display Name — the business name customers will see (subject to Meta's display-name policy).
2. Category — the business category.
3. Business Description — a short line about what you do.

This is the identity Meta reviews, so use your real, recognizable store name rather than a placeholder.

Step 3: Verify a phone number

The number is where most first-time setups stall, so it's worth getting the requirements right up front. Per the WhatsApp 101 setup guide, the number you connect must:

1. Be owned by you, with a country and area code.
2. Be able to receive a call or SMS (you'll enter a verification code).
3. Not be a short code.
4. Not already be linked to another WABA.

Two important catches. First, a number can't live on the native WhatsApp app (or another tool) and in Gorgias at the same time — you have to remove it from the other platform first, and freeing up a number from the WhatsApp app can take a few minutes. Second, if the number is already running on a different WhatsApp platform, Gorgias offers a migration wizard that preserves your display name, quality rating, and approved templates — but be warned, it does not carry over your past message history or chat records. For a brand switching a live WhatsApp number into Gorgias, that history loss is the thing to plan around.

Note the geographic fine print too: WhatsApp is blocked in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and parts of Ukraine, and recipients in Turkey can't receive messages — so a global brand should confirm coverage for its actual customer base.

Step 4: Understand the 24-hour window before you send anything

This is the rule that governs everything about outbound WhatsApp, and it's WhatsApp's rule, not Gorgias'. Per Gorgias' WhatsApp FAQs, whenever a customer messages you, a 24-hour customer service window opens. While it's open, you can send unlimited free-form replies — normal back-and-forth support. Every new inbound message from the customer refreshes the window for another 24 hours.

Outside that window, you cannot send a free-form message. The only way to (re)open a conversation is with a pre-approved Message Template. So the practical shape is:

• Customer messages first → window opens → answer freely for 24 hours.
• Customer goes quiet, window closes → you must use an approved template to reach them again.
• You want to reach out first (e.g. a proactive shipping-delay notice) → template only.

Miss this and you'll write a perfectly good reply that WhatsApp simply refuses to deliver.

Step 5: Create and use approved template messages

Templates are pre-written, Meta-approved messages you're allowed to send anytime — the mechanism for order confirmations, shipping updates, back-in-stock nudges, and re-engaging a shopper who never replied.

1. Create the template in Facebook Business Manager, under its WhatsApp section, and submit it for approval.
2. Once approved, it appears automatically in Gorgias under Settings → App Store → My apps → WhatsApp.
3. To start a WhatsApp conversation from a ticket, change the channel from Email to WhatsApp in the ticket's channel dropdown, then pick an approved template.

A few hard limits from Gorgias' template documentation worth knowing before you design one:

If you've designed WhatsApp templates elsewhere with buttons and images, temper expectations: Gorgias handles the text-based ones, which is enough for most WISMO, returns, and order-status use cases but not for a rich marketing blast.

What it costs, and how it's billed

Two things to keep straight. Adding the WhatsApp channel to Gorgias is free — per the FAQs, all Gorgias customers can add it at no extra channel cost, and Meta's per-conversation costs are (at time of writing) covered by Gorgias, though they reserve the right to pass those on with advance notice. Separately, WhatsApp tickets count as billable helpdesk tickets toward your Gorgias usage, the same as any other channel.

One more cap to know if you haven't completed Meta Business Verification: you're limited to two phone numbers and 250 business-initiated conversations every 24 hours. That ceiling applies only to template-initiated (outbound) conversations — customer-initiated conversations are unlimited. Verifying your business with Meta lifts it. For a store that leans on proactive WhatsApp outreach, that 250/day cap is the number to watch until verification clears.

The honest limits — and where an AI layer picks up

The native WhatsApp channel is genuinely well built: it unifies WhatsApp into the same inbox as your other channels, matches customers to Shopify profiles, and handles the Meta plumbing for you. But notice what it does not do. It routes and displays WhatsApp messages — it does not answer them. Every WISMO question, every "can I exchange this?", every subscription pause still lands on a human who has to read the thread, look up the order, and type the reply.

The 24-hour window makes speed matter more than on any other channel. A ticket that sits overnight isn't just slow — if the window closes, your agent is now forced into a paid, pre-approved template just to say something a free reply could have said an hour earlier. Response latency has a direct cost here.

This is the seam where an AI agent layer fits, and it's worth understanding the broader category of AI agents for customer service before reaching for one. Macha is one such layer: it runs on top of the Gorgias you already use as a native connector — it does not replace your helpdesk, your WhatsApp channel, or your Meta setup. Macha reads and writes the same Gorgias tickets your WhatsApp threads become: drafting or sending grounded replies the moment a message arrives (keeping the conversation inside the free 24-hour window instead of forcing a template later), answering WISMO by looking up live order status through a custom tool that turns your OMS or Shopify API into something the agent can call, and handling routine returns and subscription questions before a human ever opens the ticket. Credits are consumed per AI action, not per resolution — the pricing page has the breakdown.

The clean division of labour: keep Gorgias as the system of record for what came in on WhatsApp and who's assigned to it, and layer an agent on top for the part the channel can't do — actually answering fast enough that the window never closes. New to the platform underneath all this? Start with what Gorgias is, and if you're weighing WhatsApp against your other conversational channels, Gorgias Chat explained and connecting Instagram and Facebook to Gorgias cover the neighbours.

FAQ

Where do I connect WhatsApp in Gorgias? Go to Settings → App Store → All apps → WhatsApp and click Connect WhatsApp Business. You'll sign in with the Facebook account tied to your Meta Business Account, create or select a WhatsApp Business Account (WABA), and verify a phone number.

Is the WhatsApp channel free in Gorgias? Adding WhatsApp as a channel is free for all Gorgias customers, and Meta's per-conversation costs are currently covered by Gorgias (they reserve the right to pass them on with notice). WhatsApp tickets do count as billable helpdesk tickets toward your usage, the same as any other channel. Confirm current terms against your own plan.

What is the 24-hour window? When a customer messages you, a 24-hour customer service window opens during which you can send unlimited free-form replies; each new inbound message refreshes it. Outside that window you can only start a conversation using a pre-approved Message Template.

Can I send any message I want as a template? No. Gorgias supports text-based templates (including Quick Replies) but not video, photo, or location headers, or call-to-action buttons. Templates must be created and approved through Facebook Business Manager first, then they appear under Settings → App Store → My apps → WhatsApp.

Can I add AI to WhatsApp without replacing Gorgias? Yes. An AI agent layer like Macha connects to Gorgias as a native connector and runs on top of your existing helpdesk and WhatsApp channel — it doesn't replace them. It helps by drafting or sending grounded replies fast enough to stay inside the free 24-hour window and by looking up order status, while Gorgias stays the system of record.

Ready to answer WhatsApp tickets before the window closes? Start a free trial of Macha and connect it to your Gorgias in minutes.