WhatsApp notifications: credits vs. your own account
Updated on Wednesday 09 September 2026
What Citauno actually sends over WhatsApp, how your plan's credits are consumed, and what changes if you connect your own number.
WhatsApp is the preferred channel for most of your customers. Before setting it up, it’s worth knowing exactly what Citauno sends over WhatsApp, because it’s less than people assume: the booking reminder. Everything else (we got your booking, confirmed, cancelled) goes by email.
What Citauno sends on each channel
| Message | Channel | When |
|---|---|---|
| We got your booking | When the booking is created (and when it’s rescheduled) | |
| Booking confirmed | When it’s confirmed | |
| Booking cancelled | When it’s cancelled or rejected | |
| Appointment reminder | Email + WhatsApp | At the lead time you configure |
| Calendar invite (.ics) | Email to the professional | When the booking is created, moved or cancelled |
| New-booking notice to the owner | When a booking comes in, if you turned it on |
How platform credits work
Your plan includes 50 WhatsApp messages per seat per month — one seat per professional. With 3 seats, that’s 150 free credits per period.
There are two credit pools, and they’re spent in this order:
| Pool | Where it comes from | What happens when the period closes |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly free | 50 × number of seats | Wiped and granted again. Whatever you didn’t use does not carry over. |
| Purchased (packs) | The packs you buy | Never expires. It stays until you use it. |
The free pool is drawn down first; the purchased pool is only touched once the free one hits zero. Each reminder sent over WhatsApp costs 1 credit. If the send fails, the credit is refunded automatically.
Message packs
| Pack | Messages | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 100 messages | 100 | PYG 39,000 |
| 500 messages | 500 | PYG 169,000 |
| 1,000 messages | 1,000 | PYG 320,000 |
| 5,000 messages | 5,000 | PYG 1,450,000 |
You buy them in WhatsApp → Buy messages and pay by card. The credits land in the purchased pool as soon as the payment is confirmed.
Where to see your balance and history
Go to WhatsApp in the dashboard menu. At the top you’ll see the balance split into “Monthly plan (free)” and “Packs (no expiration)”, and below it three tabs:
| Tab | What you’ll find |
|---|---|
| History | Every notification that went out (email and WhatsApp), with its status: sent, failed, or why it was skipped. Next to it, your credit movements. |
| Buy messages | The four packs above. |
| Reminders | The three settings in the next section. |
History is the answer when a customer says “I never got anything”: it shows whether the message went out, failed, or was skipped because the customer had no phone number on file or you had run out of credits.
What you can configure
WhatsApp → Reminders has exactly three settings, and they apply to the whole business:
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Send the reminder by email. | On | |
| Send the reminder by WhatsApp (uses credits). | On | |
| How far ahead? | How long before the appointment it goes out. | 180 minutes (3 hours) |
There are no per-message or per-customer settings: the email and WhatsApp switches apply to the reminder for all of your bookings.
One reminder per booking
Citauno sends one reminder per booking, at the lead time you set. There is no second “2 hours before” reminder, and you cannot add one.
That has an important consequence: if the booking is created inside its own reminder window, there is no reminder. With the 3-hour default, a booking made less than three and a half hours before the appointment produces none — it would be a second message stepping on the confirmation the customer just received. In History, that booking is marked as skipped for short notice.
If you reschedule a booking, the reminder is re-scheduled automatically for the new time.
Sending from your own number
Connecting your own WhatsApp Business account with Meta is possible, but today it’s a controlled rollout: the “Your own WhatsApp number” section only appears in WhatsApp → Reminders for businesses that have it enabled. If you don’t see it, it isn’t available for your account yet.
And it’s worth being clear about what changes and what doesn’t, even once it is enabled:
| Reality today | |
|---|---|
| Booking reminders | Still go out from Citauno’s shared number, even if you connect your own. |
| Automatic button replies | Go out from the same number the reminder arrived on — that is, Citauno’s shared number, whether or not yours is connected. |
| Event invitations | Go out from your number (see Event invitations). |
| Credit usage | The reminder still costs 1 credit. Connecting your number does not make reminders cheaper. |
The step-by-step for connecting is in Connect your own WhatsApp with Embedded Signup.
What happens when the customer replies
The reminder arrives with two buttons: Confirm and Cancel. That part works end to end:
- The customer taps a button.
- Citauno checks that the replying number is the one on the booking.
- The booking flips to confirmed or cancelled on its own, and the customer gets a WhatsApp acknowledgement plus the matching email.
- You see the change on the calendar and in History.
What isn’t possible yet: reading and replying to free-text messages your customers send. If a customer replies “hi, can I come later?”, Citauno does receive and store the message, but there is no WhatsApp conversation inbox in the business dashboard: you don’t see it, you get no notification, and the booking doesn’t move. Only the Citauno team can read and answer it, from their internal console.
What you do today to have a conversation with a customer:
- Use your own WhatsApp (the app, with your usual number) — the customer’s phone number is on their record under Clients.
- Fill in the WhatsApp field under Settings so the WhatsApp button appears on your public page and conversations start there.
Templates
The reminder’s wording is a template registered with Meta and is not editable from the dashboard: not the text, not a signature, not a brand emoji. The template already includes your business name, the service, the date and time in the customer’s timezone, the professional, the location address and your contact phone — all filled in automatically from the booking.
The language comes from the language the customer booked in, not yours.
Common problems
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The customer says the reminder never arrived | Could be any of several things | Look the booking up in WhatsApp → History: it says whether it went out, failed or was skipped, and why |
| The reminder was never sent at all | The booking was made inside its own lead-time window | That’s expected. Lower “How far ahead?” if you want to cover last-minute bookings |
| I ran out of credits mid-month | More bookings than free credits | Buy a pack in WhatsApp → Buy messages |
| I had free credits left and they disappeared | The free pool resets every period | That’s expected. Only purchased packs carry over |
| The name shown is “Citauno” | Reminders go out from the shared number | There’s no alternative today (see above) |
| My customer replied and I can’t see it | There’s no WhatsApp inbox in the dashboard | Reply from your own personal or business WhatsApp |
What you’ve got now
- A clear picture of which messages go by WhatsApp and which by email.
- An understanding of the two credit pools and which one carries over.
- The real pack prices.
- The three settings that exist and where they live.
Next step
If your account has own-number connection enabled, continue with Connect your own WhatsApp with Embedded Signup.