Connect your WhatsApp number
WhatsApp Shop uses the WhatsApp connection of WhatsApp Notifications. You connect your number once, in Settings → Messaging, and both modules share it: your order updates go out over it and your customers' chats come in over it.
What you need from Meta
A Meta Business account with a WhatsApp Business number on the WhatsApp Cloud API, and the Meta app it belongs to. From them you copy:
| Field in Settings → Messaging | Where to find it |
|---|---|
| Access token | A permanent system-user token with the whatsapp_business_messaging permission. |
| Phone number ID | WhatsApp Manager → API setup → Phone number ID (an ID, not the phone number itself). |
| App secret | Your Meta app → App settings → Basic. It proves that incoming messages really come from Meta; without it they are all rejected. |
| Webhook verify token | Any word you make up. You type the same word in your Meta app when you add the webhook. |
| Graph API version | Leave the default. Meta retires each version about two years after its release. |
1. Connect WhatsApp in Messaging
- Switch on WhatsApp Notifications in Settings → Modules if it is not on yet.
- Open Settings → Messaging and click Set up (or Manage) on the WhatsApp card.
- Choose WhatsApp Cloud API (Meta) as the Provider and fill in the fields above. Secret values are stored encrypted and never shown again; leave one blank to keep it.
- Switch on Send WhatsApp messages and click Save changes.
2. Add the webhook in your Meta app
The webhook is how Meta delivers your customers' messages, and the delivery reports of everything you send, to your store.
- On the WhatsApp channel page in Settings → Messaging, click Copy webhook URL under Delivery status webhook. Each store has its own URL.
- In your Meta app, open WhatsApp → Configuration. Under Webhook, paste the URL as the Callback URL, enter your Webhook verify token and click Verify and save.
- Under Webhook fields, subscribe to messages. This one field carries both your customers' messages and the delivery reports.
Meta checks the URL once by calling it with your verify token. The check only passes while the channel is saved with Send WhatsApp messages on and the provider set to WhatsApp Cloud API (Meta), and when the token matches exactly.
3. Switch WhatsApp Shop on
- Open Settings → Modules and find WhatsApp Shop.
- If it is on the Installed tab, click Enable; if not, open the Browse tab and click Install.
- The WhatsApp Shop group appears in the menu under Customers.
While WhatsApp Shop is off, incoming chats are not answered or kept, and WhatsApp Notifications keeps sending your order updates as before. Switching it off later stops the bot and the inbox but keeps your conversations, so switching it back on picks up where you left off.
4. Check the connection card
Open Customers → WhatsApp Shop → WhatsApp Shop settings. The WhatsApp connection card at the top reads your Messaging setup and shows Ready or Needs attention, with one line per check:
| Check | What it should say |
|---|---|
| WhatsApp channel | On |
| Provider | WhatsApp Cloud API (Meta) |
| Phone number ID, Access token, App secret, Webhook verify token | Set for each. The values themselves are never shown. |
| Your WhatsApp number | Your number, once Meta has sent the first webhook for it. Until then: Not known yet. |
| Last message from Meta | When the last webhook arrived, or None yet. |
Open Messaging settings takes you back to fix anything marked Missing.
5. Send a test message
WhatsApp only delivers a message like this to a number that has written to your WhatsApp number in the last 24 hours, so first send hi to your store's number from your own phone.
- Under Send a test message, enter your phone number with + and the country code, for example
+15550100123. - Click Send test message.
Sent. Check WhatsApp on that phone. means it went out. Queued means it goes out as soon as the channel's send rate allows. Not sent shows Meta's reason. If it says WhatsApp is switched off, turn Send WhatsApp messages on in Settings → Messaging.
The hi you sent also reached the bot: open the Inbox to see your own conversation, with the bot's welcome message.
6. Optional: native WhatsApp forms
WhatsApp can show a form inside the chat (Meta calls these Flows). With forms on, the in-chat checkout asks for the delivery address and the contact details with one form each instead of one question at a time. Forms are off until you set them up, and everything else works without them.
Forms need two more things from your WhatsApp setup:
- WhatsApp Business Account ID in Settings → Messaging on the WhatsApp channel. Find it in WhatsApp Manager under Account tools; it is the account the forms are created in.
- The App secret you entered above. WhatsApp signs every form request with it, and requests without a valid signature are refused.
Then switch on Use native WhatsApp forms in WhatsApp Shop settings, save, and click Set up forms. See Native forms and flows for what each form asks and how to try one on your phone.