Respond.io gathers a long list of channels onto one screen. WaliChat spends the same effort on a single one.
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Respond.io reaches across many messaging networks at once, so WhatsApp shares a queue with Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, webchat and email, and its published plans count the people who log in. WaliChat reaches across one and bills against it: a shared inbox on the number your customers already write to, with AI agents, broadcasts, contact records and the whole API, quoted per WhatsApp number. Let the place your messages actually arrive decide it, because the two feature lists overlap far more than the two shapes do.
Stated plainly: WaliChat publishes this page. The Respond.io side of it is drawn from what that platform documents in public, both products ship changes weekly, and anything that decides your purchase deserves a look at the source before you sign with either of us.
Both products are good at what they were built for, and they were not built for the same thing. No feature table changes that, so it is worth settling first.
A long list of messaging networks arrives in one queue, so WhatsApp lands beside Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, webchat and email, and the workflows and the reporting stretch across the lot. So do the engineering, the roadmap and the price.
Strongest when several of those channels are genuinely staffed.
WhatsApp and nothing else. One channel's rules, quirks and pricing shaped the inbox, the AI agents, the campaigns, the contact records and the API, right down to the parts of WhatsApp a general-purpose product has no reason to reach.
Strongest when WhatsApp is where the work actually happens.
Can you resend the invoice for 4471? And does the pallet rate still hold if we order in December?
Invoice is on its way now. Ana looks after your account, so I have put this in front of her for first thing, and the rate holds to the 20th.
AI agent · answered at 21:58, tagged "pricing", handed to Sales
Contact record · account number, agreed rate and the last two invoices, filled as the thread went
An illustration of the interface, not a real conversation. The night reply, the hand-off, the call landing in the inbox and the record writing itself all belong to one channel's machinery, and machinery like that gets built only when there is a single channel to build for.
If five networks genuinely have people behind them, a one-channel product is the wrong purchase, and we would rather say that at the start than at the renewal. Most teams we meet answer on one of them and pay for four.
Most of this table is a draw, which is the honest result: two mature platforms cover the same ground on a shared inbox. The rows that decide anything are the first and the last groups.
| Feature | WaliChat | Respond.io |
|---|---|---|
| Scope and connection | ||
| Channels in the product | WhatsApp only | WhatsApp and many others |
| Official WhatsApp Business API | Included | Included |
| Connect a number you already use | Included | Included |
| QR-code connection instead of the API | Included | Not included |
| Free trial | A week, card-free | Included |
| The shared inbox | ||
| Multi-agent inbox on one number | Included | Included |
| Departments and chat routing | Included | Included |
| Team-only notes, colour tags and saved replies | Included | Included |
| Contact record on every chat | Included | Included |
| iOS and Android apps | Included | Included |
| Automation and outreach | ||
| No-code flow builder | Included | Included |
| AI agent trained on your own content | Included | Included |
| Bulk campaigns and broadcasts | Included | Included |
| Automatic chat assignment | Included | Included |
| Building on it | ||
| REST API and webhooks | Included | Included |
| n8n, Make and Zapier connectors | Included | Included |
| Ready-made code examples | Every major language, live API tester | Documented API |
| What you pay | ||
| Subscription shape | A plan per WhatsApp number | A plan, plus users |
| Adding a teammate | Included up to the plan's limit | Charged per user |
| Meta conversation fees | Billed by Meta, on top | Billed by Meta, on top |
How the table was built. Each Respond.io entry reflects something that platform states about itself in public, and anything we could not trace to a source was left out rather than guessed, which leaves their column with no price, no limit and no timing in it at all. Ours are on the record, immediately below.
Both platforms sit on top of Meta's message pricing, so half the bill is identical wherever you buy. The half that differs is the software, and what matters about it is what makes it go up. Priced per user, growth means headcount. Priced per number, growth means WhatsApp numbers. Ours are printed below; hold us to them.
Two invoices, and you always know which one moved: the software from us, the conversations from Meta.
Subscription only, before Meta's conversation fees, in the currency this page is showing you. The same figures drive the plan table on the pricing page.
Specialising only counts for something if it reaches the product. The inbox, the broadcasts and the API are table stakes and appear in the comparison above. These six are the ones that follow from picking a single network and staying there.
A customer taps call inside the thread and it rings in the inbox. Whoever answers has the exchange on screen before they say hello, and the call files itself against that contact afterwards.
How calling worksA stranger's first message opens a record, and it keeps filling: fields you define, colour tags, notes only your side can read, the documents exchanged. Thursday's agent opens Monday's context without asking anybody.
Inside the contact recordThe reseller programme puts an agency's own brand and domain on the product its clients log into, and leaves the billing relationship with the agency.
The reseller programmeA built-in checker puts the registration question to WhatsApp itself, for one number or for a whole import, so a campaign never spends your number's reputation on people who were never reachable.
Try the number checkerPrices, policies, the ten questions somebody retypes every week: a no-code agent works from your own answers, replies through the night, and hands the thread to the right department the moment it stops being a question it can settle.
Watch one run overnightWaliChat publishes a hosted MCP server, so the AI client you already work in can read a thread, look up a contact and draft the reply through the same API your integrations use.
See the MCP serverThere is a version of this business we are a bad purchase for, and pretending otherwise only costs you a month. Here is the split, at equal length.
Run WhatsApp on a WaliChat trial for a week alongside whatever you use now, and count what share of your inbound volume it covered. That number settles the argument better than either of our marketing pages, and it costs you nothing but the week.
Moving a WhatsApp number between platforms is routine. What catches people out is which parts of the setup travel with it, and which get rebuilt on the far side.
Open a WaliChat trial while your current platform keeps running. Nothing is cut over, no card is entered, and you are comparing two live inboxes rather than two feature lists.
Either the official API or a QR code from the WhatsApp Business app will connect the WhatsApp number. Your customers keep writing to the number they already have.
Flows, auto-replies, labels, departments and saved replies are configuration and do not travel between platforms. Recreate the handful the team touches daily, not the ninety somebody wrote in year one.
Keep the old webhook endpoint subscribed until you can see messages landing in WaliChat, and only then switch it. An overlap costs you a few duplicate payloads; a gap costs you the messages that arrive during it, and nothing anywhere will complain about that.
Message templates belong to a WhatsApp Business Account, so a platform move usually means submitting them for review again. Copy the approved wording across exactly and they generally come back the way they went in.
Past conversations rarely travel between platforms. Pull whatever your records need before the switch, because leaving it until afterwards is a hope rather than a plan.
Nothing, until you pass the headcount printed on the plan. A subscription is quoted against a WhatsApp number rather than against the people using it, and it starts at $39.90 a month. Each tier names what it covers: 3, 6, 9 members respectively. Invite a colleague inside that number and the invoice is unchanged. Once the top tier's 9 are full, every further person costs $14 a month. Meta's conversation fees are separate and reach you through any provider.
If WhatsApp is where the business happens, then yes. The whole product sits on Meta's official WhatsApp Business API and gives you a shared inbox with departments and routing, no-code agents and Flows, broadcasts, contact records, a REST API with webhooks, and apps for iOS and Android. WaliChat is an official WhatsApp Business API provider with 5,000+ teams on it, and the trial lasts a week with no card. Staff Instagram, Messenger and webchat as well, and the wider product is the better buy. Better to hear that now than to leave us in month two.
Reach, and what the invoice counts. Respond.io spans many messaging networks in a single queue and publishes plans priced by the person who logs in. WaliChat covers WhatsApp alone, and the plan is attached to a WhatsApp number with its headcount stated. On inbox features the two land in much the same place, so what you are really choosing between is breadth and depth, and last month's inbound volume on your own numbers settles that faster than either marketing page will.
Yes. Scan a QR code from the WhatsApp Business app, or register the number on Meta's official WhatsApp Business API, and the number you use today is attached to WaliChat with customers still writing to it. Configuration is what does not travel: flows, labels, departments and saved replies get rebuilt on this side, which is usually an hour of somebody's afternoon rather than a project.
Neither, and that is a decision rather than a gap. WaliChat is built for WhatsApp. If a real share of your conversations arrives elsewhere and you need it all in one queue, a multi-network product is the right purchase and this page is not trying to argue you out of it.
Yes. WaliChat is an official WhatsApp Business API provider, so a number registered through it is registered with Meta, on the API Meta publishes for businesses. Nothing here runs on an unofficial workaround. A number can also be attached by scanning a QR code from the WhatsApp Business app, which is the route teams take when they want to be answering before the day is out.
Yes, for numbers on the WhatsApp Business API. Meta charges conversation fees at its own published rates, and those apply whichever platform you route through. WaliChat bills the subscription; Meta bills the conversations. Anyone quoting one all-in per-message price is combining the two.
Roughly the length of a coffee: connect the number, invite the team, watch the first shared reply go out. Measuring that on your own account instead of taking our word for it is exactly what the trial is for. Business verification, display-name review and template approval are Meta's steps on Meta's clock, and no platform shortens them.
Six questions to put to every platform on your shortlist, this one included.
PlansTeam members, messages, campaigns and history, per number.
ProductAssignment, notes, labels, departments, AI agents and campaigns.
DevelopersREST endpoints, webhooks and a live tester before you write anything.
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