The WhatsApp Business app and the official API on one number.
Coexistence is Meta’s feature: it connects your WhatsApp Business app number to the official WhatsApp API, and you keep answering your customers from your phone. In ATMET Chat you turn it on from the dashboard, on every plan.
The number your customers know · No new number
Last updated: 15 October 2026
What is WhatsApp coexistence?
It is Meta’s way of running the WhatsApp Business app and the official WhatsApp API on one number at the same time. Meta calls it “Onboard WhatsApp Business app users”, and any partner that supports it can offer it; ATMET Chat is one of them.
Before it, connecting your number to the official API meant leaving the app. With it, notifications, campaigns and the AI go out from the same number, you keep your chats on your phone, and WhatsApp keeps the messages in sync between the two.
What works in the app, and what works through the API?
The app mostly stays as you know it, and the API doesn’t support everything the app does:
- One-to-one chats: they work in both, and the messages sync. What you send from your phone shows in the ATMET Chat inbox and pauses the AI in that chat
- Through the API: order notifications, campaigns on Meta-approved templates, AI replies, and an inbox for your team
- Only in the app: groups, calls, the catalog, quick replies and labels
- Stop in the app: broadcast lists, and disappearing messages, view once and live location in one-to-one chats
How do you connect your number with coexistence in ATMET Chat?
You need your number on the WhatsApp Business app, version 2.24.17 or later, in use there for at least 7 days, and your phone in hand:
- In ATMET Chat, on the channels page, press “Continue with Facebook”.
- In Meta’s window, choose to continue with the number on your WhatsApp Business app.
- Confirm the connection in the app on your phone, and choose whether to share your chat history — sharing is optional.
- Once connected, every device linked to your number is unlinked, ATMET Chat channels included: link them again.
If you share your history, ATMET Chat keeps only your customers’ numbers from it, as customers on your list, and doesn’t bring your old messages into the inbox. From Pro it reads them once to suggest instructions for the AI, then deletes them.
What are the limits of coexistence?
These are Meta’s limits, and apply with any partner:
- Speed: 20 messages a second for the number, so a big campaign takes longer
- The app has to stay in use: if you don’t open the app on your phone for about two weeks, Meta disconnects the number from the API
- The daily limit: Meta sets how many customers you can start a conversation with on a template in 24 hours, across your account
- Messages you send from the app don’t open a customer service window on the API
What does coexistence cost?
Nothing from ATMET: both connections are on every plan. Messages you send from the app stay free, as they always were.
Messages through the API follow Meta’s pricing: the first 1,000 replies to your customers each month are free from Meta per number, and templates such as campaigns cost their category’s rate in the customer’s country. On a number connected both ways, ATMET Chat sends AI replies within Meta’s free share, and after that over ATMET Chat channels.
Why add ATMET Chat channels to the same number?
The API carries campaigns and interactive messages, and ATMET Chat channels complete it on the same number: your labels in ATMET Chat sync with the WhatsApp Business app on your phone through them.
And from Pro, WhatsApp groups reach your inbox only through ATMET Chat channels.
Which plan includes coexistence?
Every plan, for stores and businesses.
- Stores — Plus and up
- The official API with coexistence, and ATMET Chat channels on the same number
- Businesses — Plus and up
- The official API with coexistence, and ATMET Chat channels on the same number
Read the full guide to coexistence · What is the official WhatsApp API? · Every plan and price
Questions about coexistence
What merchants and business owners ask before connecting their number.
No. It is Meta’s feature, and any partner that supports it can offer it. ATMET Chat offers it on every plan, from its dashboard.
Yes, you use your business’s own number. ATMET Chat channels connect it as a linked device, like WhatsApp Web, so the app on your phone keeps working as usual. The official connection (WhatsApp API) keeps the app working if your number is on the WhatsApp Business app. A number that is not on the WhatsApp Business app moves to the official connection when you register it there, and stops working in the app.
Yes. They show in the ATMET Chat inbox, and the AI pauses in that conversation so it doesn’t talk over you.
No. If you share your history, ATMET Chat keeps only your customers’ numbers, as customers on your list. Your old messages stay in the app.
Yes. Meta disconnects a coexistence number from the API if the app on your phone isn’t opened for about two weeks, so keep using it.
Only for messages sent over the official connection (WhatsApp API): Meta charges for template messages such as campaigns, and for replies after the first 1,000 each month per number. You pay Meta directly from the payment method on your WhatsApp Business account, and ATMET adds no markup. Messages over ATMET Chat channels carry no Meta charge.
Meta’s message prices by country →Connect your number without leaving the app
Free trial: 7 days for stores from your platform’s app store, and 14 days for businesses without a store.
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