Connect your app to WhatsApp Business
Connect your Meta WhatsApp Business account to your Lovable workspace to receive messages, send replies, and deliver approved templates. Lovable automatically routes incoming messages and delivery updates to your published app.
Anyone who wants their app to manage customer support chats, send order alerts, or trigger WhatsApp reminders from an official business number.
Do this, in order
- 1
Go to Connectors in your Lovable dashboard, select WhatsApp Business, and click Connect.
This starts the connection setup inside your Lovable workspace.
- 2
Name the connection and choose whether to keep it private or share it with workspace members.
Giving access determines who else can link this WhatsApp phone number to their projects.
- 3
Click Connect at the bottom of the form and complete Meta's Embedded Signup popup.
This links your WhatsApp Business account and phone number directly without needing manual API keys.
- 4
In your project chat, ask Lovable to link your WhatsApp Business connection and build an inbox with message tracking.
Lovable automatically sets this linked project as the destination for incoming texts and delivery receipts.
- 5
Publish your Lovable app.
Incoming customer messages and delivery updates cannot reach your app until it is published.
- 6
Send a test WhatsApp message from a separate phone to your business number, then reply from your app.
This confirms bidirectional messaging and webhook delivery are operating correctly.
Paste this into your project
Connect this project to our WhatsApp Business connector. Build a customer support inbox that stores incoming WhatsApp messages, displays delivery status updates (sent, delivered, read, failed), and allows our team to type and send replies directly to customers from our business number.
Words decoded
- Customer-service window
- A 24-hour timer that opens when a customer messages you. During this time, you can send normal custom replies for free; once it closes, you can only send pre-approved template messages.
- Message template
- A standardized message format (like an appointment reminder) that Meta must review and approve before you can send it to customers.
- App + chat connector
- A single shared integration in Lovable that works both when you prompt in the development chat and inside your live, published app.
Where people get stuck
- Your app must be published to receive incoming WhatsApp messages; unpublished apps will not receive them.
- Only one project can receive incoming messages and delivery updates per phone number at any given time.
- Free-form replies are blocked once 24 hours pass after the customer's last message; you must use an approved Meta template instead.
- Phone numbers must be formatted with digits only, including the country code, without a leading '+' sign.
- Older React + Vite Lovable projects cannot receive incoming WhatsApp messages unless upgraded to the newer project format (TanStack Start).
- If phone number setup fails, check if two-step verification is active in WhatsApp Manager and turn it off before reconnecting.
The short version, steps, decoder and prompt on this page are written automatically from Lovable's own documentation and can lag or misread it. The official page is always the authority.