WhatsApp Business for Airbnb hosts: setup step by step, and when Airbnb lets you use it

For a host with one to five listings, the free WhatsApp Business app is enough: up to 50 quick replies, 20 labels, a greeting and an away message. On Airbnb you may move a guest to WhatsApp only after booking, and only if the guest asks. The paid API matters only when software answers for you.

Below: the app compared with the API, the setup with the exact menu names, quick replies to copy, what Airbnb and Booking.com allow, what API messages cost since July 2025, and how to connect software without giving up your number.

Do you need the WhatsApp Business app or the API?

The app is for a host who answers from one phone. The WhatsApp Business Platform, usually called the Cloud API, is for when software reads and sends messages: a shared inbox, an AI agent, a link to your booking system.

A word on stale information. The FAQ on whatsappbusiness.com still mentions "the first 1,000 conversations per month" being free. Meta's developer documentation says otherwise: service conversations became free on 1 November 2024, and since 1 July 2025 Meta charges per delivered template message rather than per conversation. Trust the developer docs.

How do you set up the WhatsApp Business app?

It takes about half an hour. Menu names below are from WhatsApp's Help Center for Android; iPhone uses the same names in slightly different places.

1. Fill in the business profile: address, business hours, description. The app builds default quick replies from these fields, and the "Outside of business hours" schedule only works once hours are set.
2. Quick replies. From the Tools tab, tap Quick replies, then the plus button. Tap Message and write the text, tap Shortcut and type a word such as "parking", then tap Save. Up to 50, and they can carry photos and videos. In a chat, type "/" to pick one.
3. Greeting message. From the Tools tab, tap Greeting message. Turn on Send greeting message, edit the text, tap OK. Under Recipients choose "Everyone not in address book" so your cleaner does not get welcomed. Tap Save. It goes out on first contact and after 14 days of silence in a chat.
4. Away message. From the Tools tab, tap Away message and turn on Send away message. Under Schedule pick Always send, Custom schedule or Outside of business hours; the last one suits a rental. Tap Save.
5. Labels. Tap Chats, then the three-dot menu, then Label chat. Enter a name and tap Save. Up to 20. To label a chat, tap and hold it, then tap the label icon. WhatsApp is gradually replacing labels with lists, so your app may already call them that.
6. Catalog. From the Tools tab, tap Catalog, then Add new item. Add up to 10 photos or videos (videos up to 50 MB), a name, Country of origin, a price and a description. One listing per item: "Garden cottage, sleeps 4, from £120 a night". WhatsApp reviews each item before guests can see it.

Two traps few guides mention. Greeting and away messages only go out while your phone has an internet connection, so a phone switched off overnight sends nothing. And the greeting message switches itself off when you connect Meta Business Agent, Meta's own AI assistant.

Labels that work for a rental: "Inquiry", "Confirmed", "Arriving this week", "Checked out", "Returning guest".

Quick replies to copy

/directions
We are at [address], 10 minutes by car from the centre. Map pin: [link]. The gate opens with a code I will send the day before you arrive.

/parking
Parking is free on the property, one space per unit. A second car fits by the gate.

/checkin
Check-in from 3 pm, check-out by 11 am. I can confirm an early arrival the day before, depending on cleaning.

/wifi
Wi-Fi network [name], password [password]. The router is in the cupboard by the door if it needs a restart.

/price
Thanks for asking. Send me your dates and the number of guests and I will reply with the price and availability.

What do Airbnb and Booking.com allow?

Both want the conversation on their platform. WhatsApp is fine with a guest who booked with you directly, or with a platform guest who asks for it after booking where the rules allow.

Airbnb also tells guests that paying outside the platform forfeits AirCover and invites them to report hosts who ask. Booking.com's phone-number change is covered in a separate piece. A workable rule: WhatsApp for direct and returning guests and for anyone who reached you from your own website or Instagram; for platform guests, only once they have booked and asked.

What does the WhatsApp API cost since per-message pricing?

A reply within 24 hours of the guest's last message costs nothing; you pay only for template messages delivered outside that window.

The customer service window opens when a guest messages or calls your number and resets each time they write again. Inside it you send anything. After it closes, only a template approved by Meta can go out. Meta has three template categories: marketing, utility and authentication. A utility template must be non-promotional and tied to the customer's own transaction; Meta's examples include order confirmations and account alerts, and a booking confirmation or arrival instructions fit that description. Since 9 April 2025 a utility template that meets marketing criteria is approved as marketing. Review takes up to 24 hours.

This matters more for hosts than for shops. Guests book weeks ahead, so the door code you send the day before arrival usually falls outside the window and has to be a template.

Rates depend on the guest's country code and the template category. Meta's rate cards are published per currency; we could not open the rate card file itself, so the figures below come from Woztell, a Meta partner, for rates effective 1 July 2026:

A worked example with the Polish utility rate: 40 bookings a month, each getting one arrival-instructions template outside the window, costs 40 × $0.0146 = $0.58. Messages are also free for 72 hours after a guest taps an ad that opens WhatsApp.

How do you connect software without giving up your number?

Meta lets you connect your WhatsApp Business app number to the Cloud API and keep using the app; it calls this Coexistence.

1. Update the WhatsApp Business app to version 2.24.17 or later.
2. In the inbox or AI tool you are connecting, start Embedded Signup. You log in with Facebook or Meta, pick or create a business portfolio and a WhatsApp Business account, enter your app number and the verification code, and set a display name. The account and number stay yours.
3. The provider has 24 hours to sync up to 180 days of chat history (media from the last 14 days) and your WhatsApp contacts.
4. From then on messages are mirrored: a reply from the app shows up in the software and the other way round.

What stops working: disappearing messages, view-once and live location in one-to-one chats, creating new broadcast lists (old ones become read-only) and group sync. Voice calls stay in the app but the API does not handle them. A Coexistence number has a fixed throughput of 20 messages a second, irrelevant at five listings.

Business verification is optional at the start. A new business portfolio can message 250 different people a day outside the window; verification lifts that to 2,000. In Meta Business Suite go to Security Center, click Start verification, enter the legal business name, address, phone number and an https website, then confirm by e-mail, phone, text, WhatsApp or domain. A decision takes up to 14 business days. It does not give you the Meta Verified badge.

Where Supalobby fits

Supalobby is an AI agent for short-term rentals, connected to WhatsApp through the Meta Cloud API. Guest messages and replies sit in one inbox, in the same thread as that guest's Booking.com, Instagram or e-mail conversation, and the agent answers in the guest's language. On Airbnb it is different: the agent reads the thread and drafts a reply, and you send it in Airbnb with one click. In Copilot mode it drafts everything; in Autopilot, switched on per channel, it replies on its own and hands the thread to you when unsure. Meta's 24-hour rule applies here too. Autopilot costs 49 zł (about €11) per listing a month, with no booking commission.