WhatsApp AI Agent India: ₹2/Chat, Zero Markup

The right one for a small Indian business does four things: publishes its price without a demo call, connects through the official WhatsApp Business Platform, lets you keep replying from your own phone, and adds no markup to Meta's message charges. Score any shortlist on those four and most of the decision makes itself. On published prices checked 21 Jul 2026: Trikon's WhatsApp Starter is ₹1,500/month, a limited-time price against a ₹2,500 list, ConnectAI's Dhanwantri WhatsApp AI is ₹1,999/month with a minimum 3 months billed upfront at ₹5,997, MyOperator's AI chat agent is ₹10,000/month including 2,000 chats and billed annually, with a separate ₹20,000 one-time Dedicated Onboarding fee, and Botsense's WhatsApp Starter is ₹24,999/year plus a required ₹15,000 setup. Dvaarik is not a plan at all — ₹2 per conversation from prepaid credits, plus the Care Plan at the ₹5,000/month founding rate for the first 3 months. If your volume is low or uneven, a per-conversation price usually treats you better than an annual plan; if you send a steady high volume, run both sums before deciding.

Yes, when it runs on the official WhatsApp Business Platform and messages people who have opted in — though this is general guidance, not legal advice, so read the source documents before you launch. Two published rule sets bind you. The first is Meta's: its WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy and Business Terms require a verified business, approved message templates for anything sent outside the 24-hour customer service window, and no unsolicited marketing. The second is India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, which governs consent and the handling of personal data, alongside the ordinary obligation to identify your business honestly in the conversation. Meta's own policy also prohibits unofficial automation that logs into the consumer WhatsApp app on your behalf — accounts using it risk being banned, and the number is yours, not the vendor's. We do the official connection as part of the build — business verification, number registration, display name and template submission.

No. Meta bills WhatsApp conversation charges directly to your own WhatsApp Business account, and we add nothing on top — we do not resell messages, do not bundle them into a per-message fee of our own, and take no cut. What you pay us is separate and visible: ₹2 per conversation from your credit balance. That is not how every platform is arranged. Checked 21 Jul 2026, Trikon publishes its own India message rate card at ₹0.86 marketing and ₹0.145 utility with service conversations free, MyOperator publishes ₹0.95 marketing and ₹0.13 utility while also stating that Meta charges are additional, and Botsense states that its plan prices exclude Meta WhatsApp conversation charges, which are paid directly to Meta. Read each rate card and ask who issues the invoice.

For a WhatsApp-only build, budget roughly ₹5,000/month for the Care Plan plus ₹2 per conversation on our side, and Meta's own message charges billed separately to you. The Care Plan lists at ₹12,000/month; ₹5,000/month is the founding rate, locked for 6 months, required for the first 3 months and optional from month 4. Setup is ₹40,000 one-time and is currently free for our 10 founding clients, in return for the Care Plan for the first 3 months at the founding rate and an honest testimonial plus a short case study after go-live. The minimum first credit load is ₹10,000: if you do not need a phone number from us, month one debits ₹5,000 for the Care Plan and leaves about ₹5,000 of credit, which is roughly 2,500 AI-handled conversations at ₹2 each. Full breakdown on the pricing page.

Meta bills WhatsApp conversation charges directly to your own WhatsApp Business account, and Dvaarik adds zero markup on them. We never sit between you and Meta on message pricing, never resell messages at a marked-up rate, and never bundle them into a per-message fee of our own. What you pay us is separate and visible: ₹2 per AI-handled conversation from your credit balance. That means two bills with two clear purposes — Meta for delivery, Dvaarik for the AI doing the work. See what Meta actually charges.

Yes — the number stays yours and you keep using the WhatsApp Business app on your phone. The AI runs alongside it through the official Meta connection, so when you open a chat and type a reply yourself, the agent stands down for that customer and stops sending automated messages. When you stop, it picks the follow-up back up. It is a fair thing to worry about, which is why we agree the takeover rules with you before go-live rather than after.

Yes — any real WhatsApp AI chatbot in India needs the official WhatsApp Business Platform (API) connection, because the free WhatsApp Business app has no sanctioned way for software to read and reply to messages. Unofficial automation tools that log into the consumer app risk your number being banned by Meta. We do the Meta connection for you as part of the build: business verification, number registration, display name, and template submission. Details on the WhatsApp agent page.

If you get a handful of WhatsApp enquiries a day and you already reply to all of them within minutes, automation will not pay for itself. At ₹5,000/month for the Care Plan on the founding rate — it lists at ₹12,000/month — the maths only works when messages are being missed, answered hours late, or arriving outside your working hours. It is also a poor fit if your answers change constantly and nothing can be written down as a rule, or if every enquiry needs a quote only you can judge. We would rather tell you that on the first call than build something you switch off in month two.

The agent only says what you approved — prices, timings, services, policies — and for anything outside that it captures the question, tells the customer a person will confirm, and alerts you. Negotiation is deliberately not automated: discount requests, custom quotes, and complaints are handed to you with the full chat context so you are not reading from scratch. You can also mark topics as always-escalate during setup, for example bulk orders or refund requests. Tuning these boundaries as real conversations come in is part of the Care Plan.

It handles the 22 scheduled Indian languages plus English, along with code-mixed typing like Hinglish, Tenglish and Tanglish, and most world languages for overseas enquiries. This matters more on WhatsApp than on calls because customers type in Roman-script Hindi or Telugu constantly — "price kya hai", "appointment unda" — and a rigid keyword bot misses both. The agent replies in whatever language the customer used, and switches mid-conversation if they do. See multilingual support.

Days, not months — the part outside our control is Meta's business verification, not the build. To start we need your business details for verification, the number you want to use, your price list or service menu, timings and location, your booking rules, and the three or four questions customers ask you most. Rohith builds the agent personally, we test it together on your real questions, then go live and tune it with actual conversations. The same agent brain can also cover Instagram DMs and phone calls later — apply for a founding slot to see what we would build first.