WhatsApp AI chatbot, South Africa
A WhatsApp AI chatbot that does the work, not just the chat.
IndunAI puts an AI assistant on your own WhatsApp Business number. It answers customers at any hour, books them into your real calendar, sends the forms, reminders and payment links that follow, and hands the chat to a person when a person is needed. Built in Durban, hosted in Johannesburg.
The number above is ours, and our own assistant answers it. Ask it what you would ask a supplier. Or use the chat bubble in the corner of this page, which is the same assistant on a website.
online, replies in seconds
How much is a gel overlay and can I come Saturday?20:41
A gel overlay is R350 and takes about an hour. Saturday has three times open, tap below to pick one.20:41
Choose a timeBooked for Saturday 09:00. You will get a reminder the day before.20:42
An illustration of the pattern. The price comes from your own list, the times from your own diary, and the server checks a slot is still free before it books it.
What it does on your number
What a WhatsApp AI agent does on your number.
Most WhatsApp chatbots stop at the reply. The useful part of a conversation with a customer is what happens next: the booking, the form, the reminder, the payment, the person who has to pick it up. IndunAI is built for that part, and the rule running through all of it is simple. The AI proposes; the server checks. Anything that matters, a time, a price, an amount, is verified by software before the customer sees it.
Answers from your own price list and knowledge
You give it your services, your prices and the questions customers keep asking. A price list is composed by the server and sent whole, so the AI never retypes a figure and never rounds one. When a customer asks something the setup does not cover, it says it will check with the team rather than making an answer up or refusing them.
Books into your real calendar
This is the WhatsApp booking bot part. Times are read from Google Calendar, a CalDAV calendar or GoHighLevel, and offered as one Choose a time list the customer taps. The booking is a claim the database grants once, so two people cannot take the same slot. Moving or cancelling happens in the same chat.
Sends forms, reminders and payment links
Intake forms go out as a button, and a form the assistant hosts comes back as one PDF on the booking. Reminders go the day before on an approved WhatsApp template, review requests after the visit, and a PayFast payment link where you have connected PayFast.
Hands the chat to a person
When a question needs a human, it files a hand-off with the whole conversation attached and alerts your team. When somebody replies, the assistant steps back on that chat, so the customer is never talking to two voices at once. Everything already asked is there for whoever picks it up.
It also answers in the language the customer writes in, English, Afrikaans or isiZulu among them, and keeps the whole message in that one language. On a health practice's number the first message says plainly that the customer is talking to an AI. More on the booking side is in AI appointment booking, and on what else can run by itself on the number in WhatsApp automation.
Your number, your account
Your number, your WhatsApp Business account, set up by Embedded Signup.
The assistant answers on your business's own number, under your business name, on your own WhatsApp Business account. It is connected through Meta's Embedded Signup: one button in the dashboard opens Meta's own window, you choose the number, and the connection comes back to your instance. We never ask for your Meta password.
Keep the app on your phone
With coexistence, the number stays on the WhatsApp Business app and on the assistant at the same time. When you reply from the app, the assistant treats it as you taking over that chat and stays out of it.
More than one number
A business with several WhatsApp numbers can put them all on one instance. Each reply leaves from the number the customer wrote to.
Watched, not assumed
Each instance asks Meta about its numbers every hour. If Meta stops the account sending, for a missing payment method or an unverified business, a warning names the fault and where in Meta's Business Manager to fix it.
You can also choose which chats it takes. It can cover only the hours your team is not at the desk, or only answer the people who came from your Meta ad or typed a phrase you chose, and leave every other chat on the number to you.
What it costs
What it costs to run on WhatsApp (Meta's fees vs ours).
There are two bills, and it is worth keeping them apart. Ours is a fixed monthly plan. Meta's depends on how many messages go out and what kind they are.
R1 450 / month, including VAT
+ R2 500 once-off setup
- The assistant as it is: WhatsApp, website chat and email, bookings, forms, reminders, hand-overs
- Up to 300 conversations a month
- 300 to 500 conversations: R2 250 a month
- Managed, fully looked after: R4 995 a month, setup included, 2,000 conversations, build items within reason; anything IndunAI does not already do is priced per project
- Meta's WhatsApp fees are Meta's, billed to your own WhatsApp Business account, not added to ours
Meta charges by message category, and the rules changed recently. Rather than repeat the rates here and let them go stale, they are in one place: what WhatsApp costs a South African business, with the arithmetic to work out your own number. The one habit that saves money either way is an assistant that answers in one message instead of four.
Meta's agent, or ours
Meta's own WhatsApp AI vs a WhatsApp chatbot built for your business.
Meta now ships its own AI agent inside the WhatsApp Business app. It answers from your business information and books into a Google Calendar, and for a business whose whole job ends at the booking it may be all you need. We have written a full, sourced guide to it, including the licence its terms take over what goes through it and the verticals Meta's developer documentation excludes: Meta's WhatsApp AI agent, for South African owners.
It responds; this one also follows up
Meta's agent only answers messages. IndunAI sends the reminder the day before, the review request after, and the nudge on an unpaid invoice.
Money after the booking
Payment links, quotes and invoices in Rand are part of the assistant, worked out by the server from your own prices.
Your website too
The same assistant runs in a chat bubble on your site and answers email, not only WhatsApp.
Your own instance
One isolated instance per business, hosted in Johannesburg, with your own privacy notice in your business's name. The AI model that composes the replies runs outside South Africa.
Who it suits
Who it suits: small businesses, clinics, salons, trades, studios.
The common thread is a business where customers message to book, ask the same questions many times a day, and then need something sent to them.
Medical practices
Bookings, forms before the visit and the AI disclosure first. It is designed never to give clinical advice, and a distress message always reaches a person.
Salons and beauty
Treatment prices, the right slot length per service, and reminders that cut no-shows.
Plumbers and electricians
The enquiry that arrives while you are on a job, answered and booked before the customer phones the next number.
Studios and consultancies
Portfolio and form links as buttons, screening questions before a consultation, and a lead that lands in GoHighLevel already qualified.
What it does not do today: it answers messages, not phone calls. And it is not a marketing blaster: a promotion goes out only on request, as a Meta-approved template, when a person presses Send. For the wider picture across channels, see AI chatbots for South African businesses.
FAQ
Fair questions.
Can I keep my existing WhatsApp number?
Yes. You connect your own number through Meta's Embedded Signup window from the dashboard, or take a new one there. With coexistence you can keep using the WhatsApp Business app on your phone for the same number, and a reply you send from the app tells the assistant you have taken that chat over.
Do I need the WhatsApp Business API?
The assistant runs on Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform, the Cloud API, but you do not need a developer to get onto it. Meta's own signup window, opened from the dashboard, sets up the account and the number. What you do need on your side is a Meta business account with a payment method on it, because Meta bills its WhatsApp fees to that account directly.
What does WhatsApp charge per message?
Meta charges per message by category, and those fees are Meta's, separate from IndunAI's monthly price, which starts at R1 450 a month. The current South African picture and a worked example are on our guide to what WhatsApp costs a South African business.
Is it the same as Meta's AI in WhatsApp?
No. Meta's Business Agent is Meta's own product inside the WhatsApp Business app. IndunAI is a separate assistant on your number, on your own isolated instance, that also sends reminders, forms, payment links and invoices and runs on your website. Our guide to Meta's agent sets out where each one fits.
Can it take bookings and payments?
Bookings, yes: into Google Calendar, a CalDAV calendar or GoHighLevel, with the slot checked by the server before it is confirmed. Payments go through a PayFast payment link it sends in the chat, where you have connected PayFast; the customer pays on PayFast's page, not inside WhatsApp.
What happens when it does not know the answer?
It tells the customer it will check with the team instead of guessing, files a hand-off with the whole conversation attached, and alerts you. When your team replies, the assistant steps back on that chat.
Message it yourself.
The quickest way to judge a WhatsApp chatbot is to talk to one. Ours answers +27 69 235 0986. Ask it the questions your customers ask you, then book a demo set up around your own business.
The rest of the plain-English guides, written the same way: what is documented, what is not, and how to check it yourself.