Customer service
Live Chat Widget or WhatsApp Button: What Should Your Website Offer?
A live chat widget answers a visitor while they are still on the page. A WhatsApp button gives you a conversation that survives after they leave. Here is how to choose, and how to offer both without two inboxes.
MonoChat Team Updated: 4 min read
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Open a business website and you often see two round buttons in the corner: a chat bubble and a green WhatsApp icon. They look similar, but they behave differently. One opens a conversation inside the page. The other hands the visitor to an app on their phone. Choosing between them, or offering both, is a question of when your customers ask, and how long your team needs to answer.
What each one does well
| Live chat widget | WhatsApp button | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the conversation happens | On your page, in the browser | In the customer’s WhatsApp app |
| Setup for the visitor | None: type and send | Needs WhatsApp, and a tap to leave the page |
| After the visitor leaves | The chat is tied to that browser session | The thread stays on their phone |
| Best for | A quick pre-sale or support question while they decide | Questions that need time, files, photos or a follow-up |
| Reaching them later | Only if they gave contact details | Reply any time in the thread; after 24 hours with an approved template |
The last row comes from Meta’s own rules: when a customer messages you on WhatsApp, a 24-hour customer service window opens, and it resets each time they write again. While it is open you can send free-form replies. When it closes, you can only send pre-approved template messages, and the user must have opted in.
When the widget is the better first choice
- The visitor is on a product, pricing or booking page and is about to decide.
- The question is short: sizing, stock, opening hours, a price.
- Your audience is on a desktop at work and may not want to switch to a phone.
In MonoChat, the WebChat channel takes a name, your site URL and a welcome message. You then paste the script it gives you into the header of your site. You can also open the chat with the visitor’s details already filled in, by passing their first name, last name, email and optionally phone number as query parameters, and you can set the chat language and the title.
When the WhatsApp button is the better first choice
- The answer needs a document, a photo or a back-and-forth over hours.
- You want the customer to be able to return to the thread tomorrow.
- Your customers already use WhatsApp for most things, which is the case in much of the Gulf, Türkiye, Latin America and South Asia.
For the link, button and QR code, follow how to create a WhatsApp link, QR code and website button.
Offer both, and keep one inbox
The common mistake is to run two tools: a chat plugin that emails you, and a WhatsApp number on a phone. Conversations split, nobody sees the whole history, and the same question is answered twice.
In MonoChat both are channels of one workspace:
- Add WebChat and paste the script on your site. Add your WhatsApp number through the WhatsApp Business API (see the help center).
- Answer in one place: your agents reply from the shared team inbox, in the browser or the mobile apps.
- Route by hours: a business-hours condition in a flow can tell web visitors when the team is back, and offer to continue on WhatsApp.
- Add an AI agent for the first reply if you want one, with a handover to a person. See WhatsApp auto-reply messages for how to write the first answer.
- Measure: collect a rating after each chat and compare response times in the analytics.
A customer who starts on the website and continues on WhatsApp can then be read in the context of the conversations around them, which is what an omnichannel inbox is for.
A simple rule of thumb
- Short, urgent, on-page question: widget.
- Complex or slow answer, or you want the relationship to continue: WhatsApp.
- Not sure: show the widget first, and let your welcome message offer “Continue on WhatsApp” when the answer will take time.
Whichever you pick, tell customers what to expect: opening hours, how long a reply takes, and whether they are talking to an AI assistant or a person. See WhatsApp customer service for the habits that make a channel feel quick.
You can start on the free Basic plan at app.monochat.ai; see the pricing page for plans with more agents and channels.
Sources
- MonoChat help center: Channels, WebChat (opened 27 Oct 2026)
- MonoChat help center: AI Landing Page, with a WebChat window that opens on its own (opened 27 Oct 2026)
- Send messages and the customer service window (Meta for Developers) (opened 27 Oct 2026)
- MonoChat live chat widget
Put this into practice with MonoChat