Updated 2026-09-03 · 5 min read
Before you compare assistants it helps to understand something almost no provider explains on their website: there are two different ways to connect a program to a business's WhatsApp, and they are not the same for you or for your clients. One is the official WhatsApp Business API, from Meta. The other is the salon's own WhatsApp session, linked the way you open WhatsApp Web on a screen. Almost everything that later seems odd about an assistant — that it can't message a client who hasn't replied in a month, that you're asked for a new number, that reminders go out looking like forms — comes down to which of the two your provider chose.
What you already have: WhatsApp Business, the app
Most salons use WhatsApp Business, Meta's free app for businesses. It's the usual WhatsApp with a business profile, a catalogue, quick replies and away messages. It runs on your phone and on WhatsApp Web, and the number is yours.
That app has no intelligence: it sends the same automatic message to everybody and has no idea which slots you have free. For somebody — or something — to actually reply on your behalf, you need to connect a program. And that's where the two routes appear.
Route 1: the official WhatsApp Business API (Meta)
This is the channel Meta offers to companies and platforms. The WhatsApp number becomes managed by an authorised provider, and messages go in and out through their platform, not through the app on the phone. It's the route big brands use, and so do many assistants sold to salons.
What it brings with it:
- The 24-hour window. You can only message a person freely during the 24 hours after their last message. Outside that, only templates approved by Meta, with fixed wording and variables. A reminder for an appointment a week away, to somebody who booked ten days ago, is no longer a conversation: it's a template.
- A cost per conversation. Meta charges for every conversation opened, at rates that vary with who starts it and in which country. The provider usually passes it on as conversation bundles, which is what later turns a good month into an expensive one.
- The number. Some providers ask for a new number, or for you to close the WhatsApp Business account already on that number, because a number can't be on the app and on the API at the same time. Your clients have the old one saved.
- It depends on Meta. An API outage or a policy change hits you directly.
In exchange, it's a channel with official verification, scalable to enormous volumes and with a verified brand. For a chain with a hundred locations it makes sense. For a salon with a number its clientele has kept for years, the sums look different.
Route 2: the WhatsApp's own session
The other way is to link the salon's WhatsApp to a program the same way you link WhatsApp Web: you scan a QR code and, from then on, the program reads and writes on that same account. The number stays yours, the app stays on your phone, and the assistant works from the same session.
What changes:
- No 24-hour window. The assistant can message whoever it needs to, whenever it needs to: next week's reminder, the «it's been a while» to somebody who hasn't been in for three months, the heads-up that a slot has opened. It's a normal conversation, not a template.
- No new numbers. Your clients keep writing to the one they've always used. You keep seeing the chats on your phone.
- You can step in whenever you like. As soon as you reply in a chat, a well-made assistant steps back in that conversation and doesn't write again until you reactivate it. The two voices never trip over each other.
- It doesn't depend on Meta's API or on its policy changes.
It's the normal route in ClaudIA, and it's a product decision, not a coincidence: half of what an assistant does in a salon — reminding, confirming, winning people back, flagging a free slot — happens outside any 24-hour window.
What to ask before you sign
Whichever provider it is, these four questions separate what they tell you from what you'll actually live with:
- Which route does it use to connect to WhatsApp? If the answer is «the official API», ask about the 24-hour window and the templates. If it's «the number's own session», ask what happens when you reply from your phone.
- Do I have to change my number? A new number means years of clients who have the old one saved.
- What does a month with lots of conversations cost? If there are bundles, ask for the price of your busiest month last year.
- What happens to reminders for somebody who hasn't written in weeks? That's the question that exposes the 24-hour window.
What this doesn't mean
It doesn't mean the official API is bad: it's the right route for enormous volumes and for brands that need Meta's verification. It means that, for a salon, the route you choose decides whether the assistant can do half of its job or only the other half. And that decision deserves a question before you sign, not a surprise afterwards.