Official WhatsApp or the app on the front-desk phone?

Many hotels run WhatsApp from a handset at reception. It works. It works right up until the morning in high season when the number is restricted, and the channel through which half your arrivals talk to you goes quiet.

That is the real argument. Not features. Fragility.

Two ways to connect

The WhatsApp Business app on a phone. Familiar, free, and you keep the groups and chats you already have. Automation is limited to quick replies and away messages, one person holds the handset, and usage that looks like mass messaging can get the number restricted.

The official WhatsApp Business Platform (Cloud API). Built for businesses: automation, a shared inbox, several staff working at once, approved templates, proper logs. Meta supports this use, and a number used as intended is much harder to lose.

Meta also documents a coexistence path, and some providers offer it: the phone app and the platform on the same number. It is genuinely convenient. But read the limits before you assume it is the best of both.

What coexistence actually gives you, and what it does not

Meta's onboarding documentation for Business app users is specific (Meta, *Onboarding Business app users*, read 28 September 2026):

• Chat history synchronises only if the business explicitly consents, and only the past 180 days.
• Group chats are not synchronised. Your staff group does not come across.
• Contacts with a WhatsApp number can be synchronised.
• Throughput is fixed at 20 messages per second on a coexistence number, to stay compatible with the app.
• Messages sent from the Business app stay free; messages sent via Cloud API are charged at Cloud API rates.
• Broadcast lists are disabled, as are disappearing messages, view-once and live location in one-to-one chats.

None of that is a reason to avoid coexistence. It is a reason to stop thinking of it as "the app, plus automation". You are giving things up either way. You should know which.

What changes on the official platform

Groups work differently, and the difference matters. The platform does support groups, but only small ones the business creates itself. Meta's Groups API (read 28 September 2026) requires an Official Business Account, caps a group at 8 participants, allows one Cloud API business per group, and is not available for WhatsApp Business app phone numbers or for numbers onboarded to Multi-solution Conversations. Communities are not supported.

Put that next to the way hotels actually use groups. A housekeeping group with 30 people in it does not fit in 8, a coexistence number cannot use the feature at all, and coexistence will not bring your existing group chats across.

So the conclusion stands, for a better reason: if you run internal staff groups, keep them on a second number. Not because the platform has no groups, but because the ones it offers are a different, tightly bounded thing from the 30-person chat your team lives in. What small business-created groups are genuinely good for, mostly a family or a small travelling party, is covered in WhatsApp group chats for hotel guests. If housekeeping is the reason you are reading this, the better answer is to stop running housekeeping from a WhatsApp group altogether.

Chat history on the old handset does not move by itself. Outside coexistence there is no sync at all. Export it before you switch, while you still have the phone.

Business-initiated messages outside the 24-hour customer service window must use approved templates, and Meta charges per template message on delivery (read 1 October 2026). Budget for it as a running cost, not a one-off.

The date that has now passed. Since 1 October 2026 Meta charges per message for service messages, the free-form replies sent inside the 24-hour window, which had been free since November 2024. Every business phone number gets 1,000 delivered service messages free per month, resetting with no roll-over, and charging starts after that. Without a payment method on file, Meta delivers inside the free tier and then stops (Meta, pricing, read 1 October 2026). If your replies go quiet partway through a month, that is the first thing to check. The numbers for a hotel are worked through separately, and the pricing calculator applies the free tier by guest country.

If someone built you a business case on "replies are free", it needs revisiting either way.

Checklist before switching

1. A dedicated number. An old unused line is ideal. Once it is on the platform you will not be using it in the ordinary app, so do not migrate the number the owner's mobile is registered to.
2. Admin access to your Meta Business account, and billing set up. Template messages are charged per delivered message, so the account needs working billing before your first real send, not on the morning of go-live.
3. A separate number for staff groups, for the reasons above.
4. Your key templates approved in advance: booking confirmation, pre-arrival, missed call, and a general "update from the team". A review decision can take up to 24 hours (read 28 September 2026), and first submissions are often rejected over formatting or wording, so allow more than a day.
5. A cutover plan for the handset. Decide the hour, put an away message on the old number, and tell the team which device is now authoritative. The worst version of this switch is two live numbers and nobody sure which one guests are using.
6. Who owns the inbox. A shared inbox with no named owner per shift turns into a group chat with extra steps.

While you are in WhatsApp Manager, the blue badge is worth doing in the same sitting. It gates more than trust.

Takeaway

If WhatsApp is how guests reach you, treat it like infrastructure, not like a phone on the desk. Infrastructure gets a dedicated number, billing, an owner and a cutover plan. A handset behind reception gets none of those, which is exactly why it fails in the week you can least afford it.

Once the number is settled, the next question is where guests meet it: webchat on the site, a WhatsApp button, or both.