Connecting your WhatsApp business number lets you handle conversations from WhatsApp directly in your Intercom inbox. Meaning your customers can contact you in the most convenient way for them, while you take advantage of powerful Intercom automations.
You can also send outbound WhatsApp messages to multiple users, or offer WhatsApp as a follow up channel in the Messenger so customers can take the conversation with them for maximum convenience.
WhatsApp is a paid channel available on the Essential, Advanced, and Expert plan.
What you’ll need
A verified Meta Business Account. You can connect a WhatsApp business profile without this, but you won’t be able use its phone number. See instructions.
A WhatsApp business profile to manage your WhatsApp messaging.
A valid phone number to receive SMS or calls for verification. It should not be linked to any existing WhatsApp profile.
Your business details. Have your legal business name, address, and a display name ready. Display name should match your business name.
Disabled two-factor authentication (2FA). This must be disabled if you are migrating an existing profile.
WhatsApp Business Platform (API): Note that the integration is only compatible with the WhatsApp Business Platform (API) and not the mobile app versions used for WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business.
Important: When connecting your WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) to Intercom, please be aware of the currency settings. According to Meta's own guidelines, it is no longer possible to change the currency for a WABA once it has been set during creation. Meta also generally requires your WABA's currency to match your business’s region (for example, businesses in Italy uses Euro).
For compatibility with Intercom's integration, we currently require all connected WhatsApp Business Accounts to be set to USD. Therefore, if you are setting up a new WABA specifically for use with Intercom, you will need to ensure its currency is set to USD during the creation process to match our integration's requirements. If your existing WABA is not in USD and you wish to connect it to Intercom, you will need to create a new WABA with USD as its currency and migrate your phone number(s) to it.
This limitation regarding the inability to change currency after creation is enforced by Meta and is outside of Intercom's control.
If you encounter setup issues, double-check your phone number's eligibility and ensure that your Meta Business Account permissions are correctly configured.
Before you get started
If you are already using the WhatsApp mobile app or WhatsApp Business mobile app with the phone number you want to use in Intercom, you'll need to delete your account in the app first before you can use that phone number with Intercom. It's not possible to use the WhatsApp mobile app or the WhatsApp Business mobile app with the same phone number that you use with the WhatsApp Intercom integration.
This also means that all chat history and account data associated with the deleted WhatsApp account will be permanently lost.
To delete your account:
Open the WhatsApp app or WhatsApp Business app.
Navigate to Settings > Account.
Select Delete my account. It will take a few minutes for the disconnected phone number to become available.
Set up WhatsApp as a channel
Go to Settings > Channels > WhatsApp and click Connect WhatsApp business number to start the integration with Intercom.
This will open a window where you can follow the required steps with Meta:
Select or create a relevant Meta Business Account.
Create a WhatsApp Business Account.
Create a WhatsApp Business Profile, with a description, industry, and phone number.
Verify your Meta Business Profile
Once you’ve connected your WhatsApp business number, you'll need to request verification from the Meta Business Manager. This process can take upwards of 48 hours.
While you wait for your business verification, you can try out WhatsApp with a limited set of features:
You can start up to 250 business-initiated conversations in a rolling 24-hour period.
You can connect up to 2 phone numbers.
Check that business information submitted for verification matches your records exactly. Once your application is approved by Meta, these limits are lifted.
We recommend creating message templates in your WhatsApp Manager during this time so you’ll be able to respond to conversations after WhatsApp’s 24 hour customer care window.
Set your business profile
Finish setting up your WhatsApp business profile by going to Settings > Channels > WhatsApp and opening the Set your business profile section.
This allows you to add the details your customers will see on your WhatsApp business profile, including your profile picture, status, email, business address, and website.
Click Save to update these details on your business profile.
Test WhatsApp as a channel
You’re ready to start testing WhatsApp as a channel and see how it works in the inbox. Go to Settings > Channels > WhatsApp and click Get a link or QR code.
Then select your phone number and navigate to the Message links tab where you can add new message link and copy to clipboard to share with a teammate, or download it as a QR code and scan it with your mobile phone to send a message.
When you send a WhatsApp message to the number you connected, it will appear as a conversation in the inbox.
All leads or users who write in from WhatsApp will now have a new attribute for WhatsApp number.
You can determine how you would like existing Intercom users to be identified when they've contacted you via WhatsApp by going to Settings > Channels > WhatsApp and updating the settings under Identify existing users.
If you change the email address of a WhatsApp lead to the same email address of an existing user, that lead will be merged into the user record. The change may not appear right away.
What's next?
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