WhatsApp messages after hours: what to send at night, on weekends and on holidays

The best after-hours setup on WhatsApp does three things: it tells the customer honestly when a person will answer, it lets an AI agent or a flow handle the questions that have a factual answer, and it makes sure no conversation is left until the 24-hour customer service window has closed. That last point is the one most teams miss: a Friday-evening message that is first read on Monday can no longer get a normal reply.

This guide covers what to send, which questions to automate at night, how weekends and holidays interact with WhatsApp’s rules, and how to build it in MonoChat with working hours and a Within Working Hours condition.

Why after-hours messages matter more on WhatsApp

On WhatsApp customers write the way they write to friends: in the evening, on the bus, on Sunday. A message that sits unanswered until morning feels like silence, and the customer often asks a competitor the same question. Two WhatsApp rules make the timing more than a matter of politeness:

• The 24-hour customer service window. It opens when the customer writes and lasts 24 hours from their last message. Inside it you can reply with any message; after it closes, only approved template messages can be sent.
• Replies are charged. Since October 1, 2026 Meta charges service messages (replies inside the window) per delivered message, after a free tier of 1,000 service messages a month per business phone number. Long automated menus at night cost more than a short, useful reply.

What happens to the window over a weekend

Customer writes	Window closes	First human reply	Can the agent reply freely?
Tuesday 23:10	Wednesday 23:10	Wednesday 09:00	Yes
Friday 18:30	Saturday 18:30	Monday 09:00	No, a template is needed
Saturday 11:00	Sunday 11:00	Monday 09:00	No, a template is needed
Sunday 20:00	Monday 20:00	Monday 09:00	Yes

Weeknights are rarely a problem. Weekends and public holidays are: anything written between Friday evening and Sunday morning is out of the window by Monday. You have three ways to handle it:

1. Answer what you can on the weekend, with an AI agent or a flow, so the conversation does not wait.
2. Ask the customer to write again. A friendly line in the after-hours reply (“if we haven’t answered by Monday 10:00, just send us a message and we’ll pick it up straight away”) reopens the window from their side.
3. Use a template on Monday, a utility template that refers to their request (“about your question on Saturday: …”). It costs a template message, so keep it for conversations that matter.

What to send after hours

A good after-hours reply is short and specific:

Thanks for your message! Our team is back tomorrow from 9:00 (Dubai time). Send us your order number or your question and we’ll have the answer ready when we start. For opening hours and delivery times, see the menu below.

What it does well: it says when, in which time zone, and what the customer can do now. What it avoids: “We will get back to you as soon as possible” (meaningless at night), several messages in a row, and offers or discounts nobody asked for.

Which questions to automate at night

Question	At night	Why
Opening hours, address, delivery areas	Answer automatically	Fixed facts
Prices, stock, product details	AI agent with your catalog or knowledge base	Factual, but phrased in many ways
Order status	Look it up in your system	Our order status bot guide shows how
Booking a slot	Offer free slots, confirm in the morning if needed	Customers book when they think of it
Complaint, refund, damaged item	Collect details, hand to a person	Needs judgment
Urgent safety or medical issue	Give the emergency contact, alert on-call staff	Never wait for morning

Build it in MonoChat

MonoChat is an official Meta Business Partner. The Within Working Hours condition, added in version 3.8.37 (October 2026), lets one flow behave differently inside and outside your hours.

1. Set your working hours. Go to Settings › Team › Working Hours. Each day of the week has its start and end times and a toggle; switch a day off for a weekly closing day. The hours are evaluated in your tenant’s timezone, so check it if your team and your customers are in different time zones.

2. Branch the flow on the hours. In your inbound flow, after the New Message Received event, add an If node with the Within Working Hours condition. The yes branch continues as during the day: an Assign Session node puts the chat in your team’s queue. The no branch is your after-hours path.

3. Reply once, then help. On the after-hours branch, a Send Message node sends the short reply above. Then either:

• hand over to an AI Agent node that can answer from your knowledge base and tools, and ends on its own outputs (Completed, Budget Exceeded, Timed Out, On Fail), so you can still assign the chat to a person afterwards; or
• use Question Answer nodes to collect the order number or the request, so the morning agent starts with the facts.

4. Handle holidays. Working hours repeat every week. For a public holiday, switch that day off for the week or add a Date Time condition in front of the Within Working Hours check that sends holiday traffic to the after-hours branch.

5. Escalate what cannot wait. For keywords that signal urgency, a Message Text condition can route the chat to an on-call colleague with Assign Session, even at night.

In the morning everything is waiting in the same team inbox as your Instagram, Messenger and web chat conversations, with the customer’s answers and the AI agent’s replies above the first human message. To see how fast you then answer, use the reply-time metrics in our support metrics and SLA guide.

Common mistakes

• An away message that fires all day. Check the time zone and the hours of every day after you set them.
• An auto reply to every message. Send the after-hours reply once per conversation, not after each message the customer sends.
• A bot that can’t hand over. Every automated path, at night too, needs a way to leave a request for a person. See AI-to-human handoff.
• Forgetting the weekend backlog. On Monday, start with the oldest conversations whose window is about to close.

To start, create a free account at app.monochat.ai, connect your WhatsApp number and compare plans on the pricing page. For greeting and away message wording, see our WhatsApp auto reply examples.

Sources

• Meta for Developers: Pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform (customer service window, service message charges and free tier from October 1, 2026; opened October 31, 2026)
• MonoChat help center: Working Hours
• MonoChat help center: Flows, conditions and the AI Agent node
• MonoChat changelog 3.8.37