Keep your WhatsApp number

Your number stays your number.

Keep the number your customers already message — and keep using the WhatsApp Business app on the phone. Meta’s coexistence lets one number live in the app and in TripOps at the same time. Starting fresh or moving from another provider works too.

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Your options

Three ways to bring your number

Your existing WhatsApp Business app number

Connected through coexistence. Your team keeps replying from the app on the phone, and every message in either direction is recorded in TripOps.

A new number

Connect a fresh number — for example one just for your ads — and your whole team answers on it from day one.

A number with another provider

Already on WhatsApp through another tool? We move it to TripOps with you; the requirements below include the one extra step it needs.

The problem

The problem every agency has, and nobody names

Your best salesperson is a phone. It is also your entire customer database, and it belongs to whoever is holding it.

Enquiries arrive on WhatsApp at eleven at night. They are answered by whichever consultant is awake, from a handset. The thread — what the traveller wanted, what was quoted, what was promised — lives on that handset. When the consultant is on leave, the enquiry is invisible. When the consultant leaves, so does the relationship.

The usual fix is to move the agency onto a brand new number attached to a platform, and hope customers, ads and Google listings all follow. They do not, so the old number stays live on the phone and now the agency runs on two. That is not a fix.

Coexistence removes the choice. The number you already have is connected to TripOps while it keeps working on the phone exactly as it does today — and every message, in either direction, is recorded against the traveller.

In practice

What that looks like in practice

On the phone

The phone, unchanged

A consultant types a reply in the WhatsApp Business app. Free-form, any customer, any time of day, at no charge from Meta.

Your number

Every message,
both directions

In the browser

TripOps, in the browser

That same reply appears on the traveller’s record. The assistant sees it, the pipeline updates, the next follow-up gets a date.

Nothing has to be forwarded, copied or re-entered. The phone becomes one more keyboard into the system rather than a place where information goes to disappear.

Why this matters commercially, stated plainly. Meta’s own documentation is explicit that messages sent from the WhatsApp Business app are not subject to the customer service window and do not create, extend or affect paid conversation windows or pricing. So your consultants’ one-to-one follow-ups stay free-form and free, and they still land in the platform. Automated replies, campaigns and anything sent outside WhatsApp’s 24-hour window are Meta’s paid messaging, billed by Meta to you.

The honest half

What you keep, and what you give up

Connecting a live business number has real consequences. This is the complete list we know of, not the flattering half.

✓ Stays exactly as it is

Your number. The one on your business cards, your ads and your Google listing. No porting, no "please save our new number" message to every past traveller.
The WhatsApp Business app on the phone. Your consultants keep replying from it exactly as they do today. Nothing is taken away from them on day one.
One-to-one chats, your saved contacts, voice and video calls. All unchanged.
Free messaging from the phone. A message your consultant types in the app is free-form, can go to any customer at any time, and is not charged by Meta — it does not even open a paid conversation window as a side effect.
Both directions, one thread. A reply typed on the phone appears in TripOps against that traveller’s record. A reply sent from TripOps lands in the same WhatsApp conversation on the phone. There is no second inbox to keep in step.
Ownership and the exit. The WhatsApp Business Account stays yours. You can disconnect it yourself on the phone — WhatsApp Business app, then Settings, Account, Business Platform, Disconnect — or revoke our access in your own Meta Business Settings, without asking us first.

− Changes, and you should know first

Broadcast lists become read-only. The lists you already have are kept, but no new ones can be created on that number. Reaching a group of past travellers moves to campaigns, which use Meta’s paid template messages. If broadcast lists are how you sell today, budget for this.
Disappearing messages, view-once media and live location are switched off for that number.
Group chats do not sync. Groups keep working on the phone and never appear in TripOps. Supplier groups stay exactly where they are.
Sending is capped at 20 messages per second. Invisible in conversation. It is a real ceiling on very large campaign sends.
WhatsApp companion devices for Windows and Wear OS are unlinked when the number is connected.
Your WhatsApp Business Account needs a payment method. Meta bills your agency directly for paid conversations. We do not resell WhatsApp messaging, so the card has to be yours.
Old chats stay on the phone. Your contact list comes across when we connect, and TripOps records every conversation from the moment it is connected. It is not an archive of the last five years of threads.

Pre-flight

What you need before we start

✓ The pre-flight list

The number is on the WhatsApp Business app today — not already registered on the WhatsApp Cloud API through some other tool.
The WhatsApp Business app is on version 2.24.17 or newer.
A Meta business portfolio. Any agency that has run Facebook or Instagram ads already has one. Meta business verification is not required to start: unverified, you begin at 250 new contacts a day, and verification raises that ceiling later.
A payment method on the WhatsApp Business Account, because Meta invoices you, not us.
A backup of the phone’s chats before we begin. We ask for this every time, on principle.
If the number was previously connected to another WhatsApp provider, one extra step on the phone — disconnect, then reconnect in the WhatsApp Business app — releases it. We walk you through it; it takes a minute and we have done it before.

One number we will not connect: a number that is already registered on the WhatsApp Cloud API somewhere else is not a coexistence case, and a number that has been fully migrated off the WhatsApp Business app cannot be put back. If that is your situation, tell us on the first call and we will say so plainly instead of selling you a plan that cannot work.

Connecting

How the connection is made

Five steps, once, with us on the call. Nothing here happens silently in the background.

We check how your number is used todayus

Is it on the WhatsApp Business app? Is your Meta business portfolio verified? Was it ever connected to another provider? Three questions, read off screens, before anything is touched.
You back up the phone’s chatsyou

A normal WhatsApp backup. It is not strictly required by the flow, and we still insist on it.
You approve the connection on the phoneyou, minutes

One screen in TripOps launches Meta’s own onboarding for WhatsApp Business app numbers. You confirm it in the app and enter the code Meta sends you. The app keeps working from that moment on — there is no downtime and no deletion step.
Your contacts come acrossautomatic

Your saved contact list is synced so the platform recognises the people you already know, instead of showing a screen full of bare phone numbers.
Your team signs intogether

Consultants get their own logins to the shared inbox, and we tune the assistant to the way your agency actually answers an enquiry before it speaks to anyone.

Switching from another WhatsApp tool? Meta keeps one partner slot per WhatsApp Business Account, and a previous provider can still be holding it even when Meta’s own screens show none. The documented fix is a disconnect and reconnect in the WhatsApp Business app, which releases it. We have hit this and cleared it — it is a minute on the phone, not a support ticket, but it is why we ask about your previous tool on the first call.

Is this official?

A fair question, because unofficial WhatsApp automation is everywhere and it gets numbers banned.

	Unofficial bridges and "WhatsApp bots"	Coexistence, the way TripOps does it
What it is	A phone or emulator somewhere running scripted taps against WhatsApp.	A documented Meta product for one number on the app and the Cloud API at once.
Who permits it	Nobody. It breaches WhatsApp’s terms.	Meta, through a verified Tech Provider. We passed that review.
Risk to your number	Suspension or a permanent ban, with no appeal and no warning.	None from the integration itself. Your usual messaging rules still apply.
Who owns the account	Usually the vendor, and you cannot see or leave it.	You. It is your WhatsApp Business Account and you revoke our access yourself.
Getting out	Ask the vendor and hope.	Disconnect on the phone, or remove our permission in Meta Business Settings.

The technical description of the integration — which APIs are called, with whose credentials, and how agencies are kept apart — is public on the how it works page.

Built as a multi-tenant platform, not a single agency’s tool

Each agency on TripOps is a separate tenant with its own data, its own users and its own WhatsApp Business Account. TripOps acts on client-owned accounts under the permission each client grants, and processes their travellers’ messages on their instructions. Agencies remain the owners of their customer data throughout, and it is never pooled, shared or used to serve another agency. How it connects to WhatsApp.

Connect the number you already have

Create an account and we will get on a call, run the three pre-flight checks with you, and connect it in the same sitting if everything is clear.

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