The best WhatsApp app for your Shopify store depends on what you are optimizing for: broadcast marketing (Zoko, Interakt), team inbox workflows (Wati, DelightChat), or AI-first automated selling with Arabic support (ReplAi). This comparison lays out what each does well and where each falls short, without pretending one tool wins everything.
What should you actually compare?
Feature lists blur together, so anchor on five questions:
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Who answers the customer? Your team in a shared inbox, a rules-based flow builder, or an AI agent?
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How deep is the Shopify integration? Product links only, or live orders, returns, and order creation in chat?
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What languages does it genuinely handle? English demos hide Arabic weaknesses.
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Which channels are covered? WhatsApp only, or Instagram, Messenger, and web chat in one inbox?
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What does it cost at your volume? Including Meta's per-template fees, which every vendor passes through.
How do the main contenders stack up?
Zoko
Zoko positions as WhatsApp-first commerce: broadcasts, catalogue sharing, and a sales-oriented feature set with deep WhatsApp API coverage. Stores running aggressive broadcast campaigns like it. The trade-offs: it is heavily WhatsApp-centric, so Instagram and Messenger conversations live elsewhere, and the automation is flow-based rather than AI-first, which means unstructured customer questions still land on your team. We cover the landscape around it in Zoko Alternatives for WhatsApp Commerce.
Wati
Wati is one of the most established WhatsApp API platforms: a polished shared team inbox, a no-code flow builder, broadcasts, and a large integration ecosystem. It is a strong choice for teams that want humans answering with better tooling. The trade-offs: automation depth relies on building flows yourself, per-agent pricing scales with headcount, and ecommerce actions like placing orders in chat are not the core design. More in Wati Alternatives for E-Commerce Support.
DelightChat
DelightChat leans into multi-channel support for small teams: WhatsApp, Instagram, email, and live chat unified in one clean inbox, with WhatsApp marketing added on. Its strength is genuinely pleasant team workflows at accessible pricing. The trade-offs: it is an inbox first and an automation layer second, so the heavy lifting of answering still belongs to your staff.
Interakt
Interakt offers affordable WhatsApp API access with Shopify integration, catalogue sharing, and campaign tools, and is popular with smaller stores, particularly in India. The trade-offs: the automation is template-and-flow driven, Arabic dialect support is not a focus, and multi-channel coverage is limited.
ReplAi
ReplAi takes a different bet: the answering itself is the product. An AI agent, not a flow builder, handles conversations end to end, grounded in your live Shopify data.
Where does ReplAi genuinely differ?
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AI-first, not inbox-first. Across the merchant cohort in Q1 2026, 80 percent of messages were fully automated, with replies under 14 seconds on average, 24/7. The inbox exists for the 20 percent that needs humans, with takeover from the same thread.
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Arabic at dialect level. Egyptian, Gulf (Saudi and Emirati), and Levantine Arabic, plus Franco-Arabic (Arabizi) and English, with gender-aware phrasing. For MENA stores this is usually the deciding factor.
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COD orders placed in chat. Beyond catalogue search, order tracking, and returns, ReplAi creates cash on delivery orders inside the conversation, which the inbox-centric tools do not attempt.
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Multi-channel inbox. WhatsApp Business, Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger, and an embeddable WebChat widget in one place.
And the honest trade-offs in the other direction: if you mainly want a broadcast cannon with human agents, Zoko or Wati's campaign tooling is more mature, and if you need email support unified in the same inbox, DelightChat covers that where ReplAi does not.
How do they compare at a glance?
| Zoko | Wati | DelightChat | Interakt | ReplAi | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary model | WhatsApp commerce + broadcasts | Team inbox + flows | Multi-channel inbox | Affordable API access | AI agent |
| Who answers | Team + flows | Team + flows | Team | Team + flows | AI (80% automated), human takeover |
| Channels | WhatsApp-centric | WhatsApp-centric | WhatsApp, IG, email, chat | WhatsApp, IG, Messenger, WebChat | |
| Arabic dialects | Limited | Limited | Limited | Limited | Egyptian, Gulf, Levantine, Arabizi |
| COD order in chat | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Entry price | Paid | Paid, per agent | Paid | Low | Free tier (100 replies/mo) |
ReplAi's paid tiers: Starter 24.99 dollars (500 replies), Grow 79.99 (2,500), Pro 299.95 (10,000). All vendors sit on top of Meta's per-template pricing, published per country; see the 2026 cost guide for how that model works.
Which should you pick?
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You want broadcasts and your team answers: Zoko or Wati.
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You are a small team unifying WhatsApp with email support: DelightChat.
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You want cheap API access and simple campaigns: Interakt.
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You want the conversations answered for you, sell in MENA, or need Arabic dialects and COD in chat: ReplAi. Merchants like Bronze, Blaze Sportswear, Ivory, Gioia, Basic Look, and Glo Swim run on it; Bronze grew DM sales 13x in a month (our top outlier; the pilot cohort median lift was 150 percent).
Setup on ReplAi takes about 10 minutes with one-click Shopify install. Try the free tier via pricing or book a demo and test it against your real product questions.
Frequently asked questions
Do all these apps charge Meta's message fees on top?
Yes. Every platform built on the WhatsApp Business Platform passes through Meta's per-message or per-template pricing, which varies by country and category and is published by Meta. Compare the software subscription and the expected Meta fees as two separate lines.
Is an AI agent riskier than a human-staffed inbox?
The risk profile is different, not higher. A good AI agent answers only from live store data, admits uncertainty, and escalates to a human in the same inbox. The inbox-only risk is slower and quieter: customers who never got answered at 2 am and never complained, they just left.
Which app is best for Arabic-speaking customers?
Test with real dialect messages, not formal Arabic. Most global platforms handle MSA at best. ReplAi supports Egyptian, Gulf (Saudi and Emirati), and Levantine dialects plus Franco-Arabic with gender-aware phrasing, which is the practical bar for MENA stores.
Can I switch platforms later without losing my WhatsApp number?
Yes. Your WhatsApp Business API number can be migrated between providers, though templates must be resubmitted and chat history rarely transfers cleanly. It is worth trialling seriously (most tools, ReplAi included, have free tiers or demos) before committing your number.