WhatsApp for Shopify and WooCommerce stores in India

Meta’s template guidelines put order and delivery updates in utility, and cart reminders in marketing, even though the customer started the cart. These are Meta’s rates for Indian numbers, before GST.

• Keep offers out of order updates. A confirmation that adds “use code SAVE10 on your next order” is a marketing message at ₹0.8631, and Meta can move the whole template to marketing. How template categories work.

Several messages a store sends are free under Meta’s pricing.

• Replies to a customer who wrote to you in the last 24 hours, such as “where is my order?”.
• Utility templates sent while that 24-hour window is open. A shipping update sent the day a customer asked about their order is free.
• Everything for 72 hours after a customer messages you from a click-to-WhatsApp ad, if you reply within 24 hours. How the free window works.
• Messages Meta could not deliver.

Pulse does not have a Shopify app or a WooCommerce plugin, and it does not read orders from either store by itself. There is no one-click connection.

What Pulse has is an API. One request to Pulse sends an approved template to a customer, filled in with their name, order number or tracking link, and a second request checks whether it was delivered.

Both stores can tell another system the moment an order is created or updated. Shopify does this with webhooks, under Settings and then Notifications. WooCommerce does it under WooCommerce, Settings, Advanced, Webhooks.

A developer joins the two with a small piece of code: it receives the store’s order notice, picks the right template and calls Pulse’s API. It sends the order number as a unique key with each request, so a retried request never sends the customer the same message twice.

Abandoned-cart reminders need the store to know which checkouts were left unfinished, and the customer’s phone number from checkout. Shopify lists them under Orders, Abandoned checkouts. On WooCommerce they usually come from an extension such as AutomateWoo. Either way the reminder is a marketing template, so send it only to customers who agreed to receive offers.

• Without any code, Pulse’s website button adds a WhatsApp chat button to your store. You paste it once into the theme, and it works on Shopify, WooCommerce or any other site.
• Customers exported from your store as a CSV file can be imported into Pulse for campaigns to those who opted in.
• Every “where is my order?” and “do you have this in size M?” chat lands in Pulse’s shared inbox, where the whole team can answer.

Take a store with 1,000 orders a month that sends three utility updates per order, plus 400 abandoned-cart reminders. The 400 is only an assumption for this example; use your own numbers. These are Meta’s charges for Indian numbers before GST, rounded to the rupee.

• That is about ₹0.69 per order. On Pulse the year adds ₹9,999 including GST, and Meta bills these messages to the store’s own card with nothing added per message.
• The real bill is often lower. A shipping update sent within 24 hours of the customer messaging you is free, and Meta lowers utility rates for businesses that send large volumes in a month.

• Ask for WhatsApp consent at checkout, and ask separately for offers, so order updates and promotions each go to people who expect them. Meta requires the opt-in to name your business.
• Keep order updates short and factual, with the order number and a tracking button.
• Send a cart reminder once, not three times. Every marketing message counts towards WhatsApp’s per-person limit, and ignored messages lower your read rate.
• Write in your customers’ language. Pulse’s ready-made shop pack comes in English, Kannada and Hindi, and Meta approves each language version separately.