How to connect your WhatsApp number to Replai

Connecting is the shortest step in setting Replai up and the one people most often get stuck on, almost always for the same two reasons. Both are covered below.

What connecting actually does

Replai pairs with your number the same way WhatsApp Web does: as a linked device. WhatsApp allows several devices on one account, and the bot becomes one of them.

That has three consequences worth understanding before you scan anything:

• Your phone is unaffected. It keeps sending and receiving. You are adding a device, not handing one over.
• There is no Meta application. No business verification, no template approval, no per-message fee. You are not on the WhatsApp Business API and you do not need to be.
• The number carries the risk. Because this is unofficial, WhatsApp judges the account by how recipients react to it. That is why the rest of these guides keep returning to consent and pacing.

Step 1: Open the Connect page

Sign in on a computer, not the phone that owns the number, and open Connect in the sidebar.

The code rotates because WhatsApp expires each pairing code quickly. You do not need to press anything to get a new one, and there is no penalty for letting one expire while you find your phone.

Step 2: Open Linked Devices on the phone

On the phone that owns the number:

1. Open WhatsApp
2. Tap Settings, or the menu icon on Android
3. Tap Linked Devices
4. Tap Link a Device

The camera opens. Point it at the QR on your computer screen.

If the QR is on the same phone, this cannot work. The camera has to look at the code, and a phone cannot look at its own screen. This is the most common failed first connection we see, and it looks like the product is broken when it is really just a geometry problem. If your laptop is not to hand, the Connect page has a button that emails you the link so you can open it on any other screen.

Step 3: Wait for connected

After a successful scan the page changes by itself, usually within a minute. You do not need to refresh.

If it sits on pairing for more than two minutes, the scan did not register. Close the camera on your phone and scan the next code.

What the bot will and will not answer

By default Replai answers new customers straight away. A thread that already existed on the phone before you connected waits 5 minutes: the bot joins it only if nobody from your team has replied by then.

This default exists because the alternative is alarming: connect on a Tuesday afternoon and suddenly a bot is answering a conversation you have been having with a supplier for two years. Mark a contact like that Never answer this contact and the bot leaves them alone for good. To keep it out of every existing chat while you watch how it does, choose New conversations only under Settings, Auto-reply rules, and widen it later when you trust it.

If the session ends later

WhatsApp sometimes logs a linked device out. The usual causes are someone removing it under Linked Devices on the phone, or WhatsApp flagging the account.

When that happens Replai clears the stored credentials automatically and shows a fresh QR, so recovery is a rescan rather than a support ticket. You will see Session ended on the Connect page. Scan again and the bot resumes with its knowledge base, settings and history intact.

A number that gets logged out repeatedly is telling you something else, though. Repeated logouts usually follow heavy outbound sending, and the fix is in how you are using the number rather than in reconnecting it faster.

What to do next

A connected bot with an empty knowledge base will tell every customer it needs to check with the team, which is worse than not answering. The next guide fills that gap, and it is the one that decides whether any of this is useful.