The ReploChat chatbot builder lets you build a WhatsApp chatbot without coding. You draw the conversation on a canvas: a welcome with buttons, a menu list, a question that saves the answer, a branch, a form, a label and a handoff to your team. The bot starts when a customer sends a trigger word such as menu, or when a new customer writes in for the first time. This guide covers every step type, the limits, how the bot decides what to do, and how it works alongside WhatsApp Flows and the AI assistant.
The chatbot builder is part of the Growth and Enterprise plans, and the number of bots you can have switched on depends on your plan. See pricing.
When to use a chatbot (and when not to)
| Use… | When you want… |
|---|---|
| Chatbot | A fixed, guided conversation with buttons and menus: "Prices / Track order / Talk to a person". It's predictable, so every customer gets the same path. |
| WhatsApp Flows | A form that opens inside WhatsApp and collects several answers at once: name, date, city, budget. |
| AI assistant | Free-text questions answered from your business profile: "Do you deliver to Multan?", "Are you open on Sunday?" |
Most businesses combine them. A chatbot greets people and routes them, a Flow collects details, and the AI answers anything the bot doesn't cover.
Create your first WhatsApp chatbot
- Open Automation in the sidebar, then the Chatbots tab.
- Under New chatbot, type a name (for example "Main menu"). If you have more than one WhatsApp number, pick the Number the bot runs on. Each bot belongs to one number.
- Click Create & open builder. The bot starts with a ready-made example: a Start step, a Buttons step ("Hi {first_name}! What can we help you with?" with Prices and Talk to a person), a Message and a Hand to team step. Change it or build your own.
- In the top bar, choose how the bot starts (see triggers below) and type its trigger words.
- Add steps from the Add a step palette on the left. Drag a step by its title to move it. Drag from a step's dot onto another step to connect them, and click a line to remove it.
- Click a step to edit it in the right-hand panel. Delete (or the Delete/Backspace key) removes the selected step.
- Click Save to keep a draft, or Save & turn on to make it live. The badge changes to ● Live.
Step types
| Step | What it does | Leads to |
|---|---|---|
| Start | Where the bot begins. Every bot has exactly one. | Next |
| Message | Sends a text message, then carries on. | Next |
| Buttons | Text with up to 3 reply buttons (20 characters each). Waits for a tap. | One line per button |
| Menu list | Text with a menu button and up to 10 options (titles up to 24 characters, optional descriptions up to 72). Waits for a choice. | One line per option |
| Question | Asks something and saves whatever the customer types under a name you choose (e.g. city). The answer is also stored on the contact as a field. | Next |
| Condition | Checks a saved answer against rules: contains, is exactly, is not empty, number >, number <. The first rule that matches wins. Up to 10 rules. | One line per rule, plus Otherwise |
| Send form | Sends one of your published WhatsApp Flows on the same number. | Next |
| Add label | Puts a label on the chat. A label can also start a follow-up sequence. | Next |
| Hand to team | Sends optional text, stops the bot and switches the chat to your team in the inbox. | Ends |
| End | Stops the bot. The AI assistant answers anything after, if it's on. | Ends |
In any text you can use {name}, {first_name}, {phone} or an answer you saved, such as {city}. An unknown name leaves no gap, so "Hi {first_name}!" becomes "Hi!".
Triggers: keyword vs new chat
- When the customer sends a trigger word: type words separated by commas, e.g.
menu, start, hi. The whole message must be the word, so "menu" starts the bot but "show me the menu" doesn't. Two live bots on the same number can't share a trigger word. If they do, the bot saves but stays off with a message naming the other bot. - When a new customer writes in: the bot starts on the first message of a brand-new chat, whatever it says.
Limits and validation before going live
A bot can have up to 100 steps. When you turn it on, ReploChat runs three checks: there is exactly one Start step, Start is connected to a step, and no step is empty (every message has text, every Buttons or Menu list step has options, every Condition has rules, and every Send form or Add label step has a form or label chosen). Problems are listed under To turn the bot on:. The messages you may see:
- "The bot needs exactly one Start step." / "Connect Start to the first step."
- "A Message step has no text." or "A Question step has no text."
- "A Buttons step has no buttons." / "A List step has no options."
- "A Condition step has no rules."
- "A Form step has no form chosen." / "A Label step has no label chosen."
If anything is listed, Save & turn on saves your work but leaves the bot off, and says why. The check doesn't look for dead ends. A button, option or step with no line out simply ends the bot at that point, so check that every branch you care about is connected before going live.
How the bot runs a conversation
- Steps run one after another until one needs the customer: Buttons, Menu list or Question. The chat then waits there.
- Customers can tap a button or type its label. If they type something else, the bot asks once: "Please choose one of the options below 👇". If they still don't pick an option, the bot steps aside and your team or the AI answers.
- A chat that doesn't answer within 24 hours leaves the bot.
- As a safety net against loops drawn by mistake, at most 30 steps run in one go.
- When a person replies from the inbox, any bot running on that chat stops.
Who answers first: reply priority
For each incoming message ReploChat decides in this order:
- A human agent. If someone on your team has taken over the chat, automation stays quiet. The chat goes back to automation after 30 minutes without an agent reply.
- The chatbot. A bot already waiting on this chat, or one this message starts.
- A WhatsApp Flow keyword. A message that exactly matches a form's trigger word gets that form, or a new chat gets the form set to greet new chats.
- The AI assistant, if AI auto reply is on for the number's business profile. Otherwise the message waits for a person.
Your welcome and away messages are separate. They go out before any bot or AI answer.
Example: a menu bot for an online store
- Start → Buttons: "Hi {first_name}! How can we help?" with buttons Prices, Order status, Talk to us.
- Prices → Menu list: "Pick a category" with options Lawn suits, Kurtas, Kids, each leading to a Message with prices.
- Order status → Question: "Please send your order number" saved as
order_no→ Add label "Order query" → Hand to team: "Thanks! Our team will check order {order_no} and reply here." - Talk to us → Hand to team: "Sure — a member of our team will reply shortly."
Manage your bots
The Chatbots list shows each bot's trigger, number, steps and how many times it has run. Use the switch to turn a bot on or off (turning off ends any chats waiting in it), Duplicate to copy it as a starting point (the copy starts switched off), or Delete to remove it.