How to send WhatsApp order notifications from WooCommerce, from your own number

A WooCommerce store's WhatsApp inbox fills with the same question in three forms: did you get my order, has it shipped, where is it. Every one of those messages is answerable before it is asked, from data the store already has. This guide connects the store to Replai so the update goes out from the shop's own WhatsApp number the moment the order status changes, with the tracking number filled in, and the customer's reply lands in the same inbox.

The whole setup takes about ten minutes. Nothing is sent to a customer until you switch test mode off.

What you need before you start

• A Replai workspace on the Growth plan or a trial, with your shop's WhatsApp number paired (Connect, scan the QR with the phone that holds the number).
• Admin access to your WordPress site with WooCommerce installed. The plugin was tested on WooCommerce 10.5 and works on any recent version.
• Five minutes with your own phone nearby, because the first message you send will be to yourself.

Step 1: download the plugin from the dashboard

In Replai, open Settings, then Integrations, then WooCommerce. The card offers two ways to connect. Choose the plugin: download the zip, and copy the delivery URL and the secret shown next to it. Keep that tab open.

Step 2: install it in WordPress

In WordPress go to Plugins, Add New, Upload Plugin, choose the zip, install and activate. Then open WooCommerce, Settings, and the new Replai tab. Paste the delivery URL and the secret, save.

That is the entire integration. No API keys, no webhooks to configure by hand. From this moment every new order and every status change is delivered to your workspace, signed with the secret so nothing else can post to it. Later versions of the plugin show up on the Plugins page with Update now, like any other plugin.

Step 3: check the connection

Back in Replai, open Orders. The Settings tab shows the plugin as connected, with the store's name and the time of the last event. If it says waiting, place a test order in your store or change the status of an existing one, and the line updates within seconds.

Step 4: pick the statuses and write the messages

The Messages tab lists your store's order statuses using the names your store uses, custom statuses included. Switch on the ones you want to message. Most stores start with three: order received, shipped, and ready for pickup or delivered.

Each status has ready-made text. Click into it to edit, and click a field to insert it at the cursor: order number, first item, totals, tracking number, courier, tracking link, pay link, first name, shop name and the rest. A shipped message usually looks like this:

Fourteen more, one per status, are in the templates guide. Optional: attach a picture to any message, and add the opt-out line (required on Growth, optional on Pro) so a customer can reply STOP.

Step 5: send yourself a test

Every card has Send me a test. It sends that status message to the shop's own number, tagged [TEST], with sample values in the fields. If you connected the API key as well, Preview with a real order fills the message with a real order's number and tracking, so you see exactly what a customer would.

Read it on your phone. If the courier name is missing, your shipping plugin is not writing tracking to the order yet; Replai reads the tracking number, courier and link that shipment-tracking plugins store on the order, so add them there.

Step 6: switch test mode off

Test mode is on for every new connection: until you turn it off, every message, including ones triggered by real orders, goes to your own number instead of the customer. When the messages read right, turn it off on the Settings tab. From then on customers get them, one per order and status, at a human pace.

Follow-ups for unpaid orders and abandoned carts

Two more switches on the same page pay for the plan on their own.

Unpaid, on-hold and failed orders. Add a follow-up "after N hours" to the pending status with the pay link field. It is sent only if the order is still unpaid, checked live against the store, and cancelled within seconds of payment. Follow-ups respect quiet hours (22:00 to 08:00 in the store's time zone by default); immediate updates do not, because the customer expects them.

Abandoned carts. The plugin remembers a cart once a phone number is typed at checkout, with a consent note or a checkbox you choose. After 60 minutes by default, the customer gets a link that rebuilds the exact cart on any device and opens checkout with the phone prefilled. The message is cancelled if an order is placed. The Orders page shows recovered revenue: orders paid within 7 days of a follow-up.

The other way to connect: API key and webhooks

If you would rather not install a plugin, or you want order lookup in chat, WooCommerce, Settings, Advanced, REST API can issue a read-only key. Paste it into the WooCommerce card in Replai, then add two webhooks in WooCommerce (Order created and Order updated) pointing at the delivery URL the card shows, signed with the secret. The key adds order lookup and Preview with a real order; the webhooks deliver events. Both methods can run at the same time.

Why not the WhatsApp Business API?

Most WooCommerce WhatsApp plugins send through the WhatsApp Business Platform. That route needs a dedicated number that is not on any phone, Meta's approval for every message template, and since 1 July 2025 a per-message fee for utility messages delivered outside a customer's 24-hour service window (Meta for Developers, 2025). For a store sending a few hundred updates a month the fees are small; the approval step and the second number are the real cost, and the replies go to a separate inbox.

Sent from your own number, the wording is yours, there is no fee, and the reply to "where is it?" is answered in the same thread by the assistant, which knows the last order the customer was messaged about. The trade-off is that the connection is unofficial. Replai handles that with the pacing gate: 5 to 10 seconds between messages, hourly and daily caps that queue rather than drop, one message per order and status, and STOP handled automatically. The ban guide covers what the restriction risk actually looks like.

WhatsApp Business app users are a large audience for this: the app passed 200 million monthly active users in 2023 (TechCrunch, 2023), most of them small shops answering order questions by hand.

Related

• WhatsApp order updates for WooCommerce and Shopify
• WhatsApp order confirmation and update messages: 14 templates
• WhatsApp customer service for your online store
• WhatsApp chatbot without the Business API
• WhatsApp broadcast limits per hour and per day