WhatsApp CoExistence: connect the WhatsApp Business app to your CRM without losing the number or the history

WhatsApp CoExistence is Meta's official mode in which one and the same number runs at the same time in the WhatsApp Business app on your phone and in the WhatsApp Cloud API. The app stays on the phone, the number doesn't change, and the chat history from the last 6 months moves into your CRM. Below: what this gives a business in Kazakhstan, the requirements Meta has set, and how to connect the WhatsApp Business app through WazzaBee step by step.

Your customers know your number, and that is exactly why you never went official

You know the picture. A salon, a shop or a service centre has been running on one number for five years. The WhatsApp Business app holds three thousand conversations, a base of regulars, order history, chats with suppliers. That number is printed on the business cards, the sign above the door, the packaging, the map listings and every ad.

Then the task arrives: connect a CRM, run a broadcast to the customer base, add a chatbot, hand chats out to agents. You go to an integrator and hear: "The number has to be freed up. Delete the app from the phone. The history stays on the phone, it will not reach the CRM."

And that is where it always stalled. Giving up your only working number, blinding the agents who are used to replying from a phone, and losing access to years of correspondence: too high a price for automation. So the move got postponed by a year, then two, then three.

CoExistence cancels that trade-off. You keep the number, keep the app and keep the history, and you still get an official Meta channel with broadcasts, templates, bots and an integration with Bitrix24 or amoCRM.

What WhatsApp CoExistence is, in plain language

CoExistence (literally "living side by side") is a mode where your number lives in two places at once:

• On the phone: the WhatsApp Business app works exactly as before. The agent on the shop floor opens it and replies the way they always have.

• In Meta's cloud (Cloud API): the same messages land in WazzaBee, and from there they flow into your CRM, your reports and your automations.

The customer notices nothing: they write to the same number and get an answer in ordinary WhatsApp. A message sent from the phone also appears in WazzaBee. A message sent from WazzaBee reaches the customer as a normal WhatsApp message. No duplicates: Meta keeps both channels in sync on its own side.

If you want the big-picture view (what exactly Meta changed and why it matters to the market), we cover that separately: WhatsApp Coexistence: connecting your business to a CRM without deleting the app. This article is the practical half: requirements, steps and money.

Until now you had to pick between three bad options. Let's be honest about each one.

Option 1. Connecting by QR code

Fast, cheap, live in two minutes. And fine right up until your first broadcast: mass sending from an unofficial connection breaks WhatsApp's rules, and the number gets banned. We took apart the mechanics of those bans in a separate piece: why business numbers get blocked on WhatsApp and how to get back to work. Recovering a banned number does not always succeed.

Option 2. Classic WABA

Official, safe, broadcasts allowed. But the number has to be freed up: delete WhatsApp from the phone so Meta can take it into the Cloud API. The history stays on the phone, agents lose the tool they know, and the number goes quiet while the move happens. The details are in our article on official WhatsApp for business and WABA setup in Kazakhstan.

Option 3. A second number

The most common compromise: leave the old number to the agents and get a new one for the API. The result is a business paying for two lines, customers still writing to the old number, and broadcasts going out from an unfamiliar one, and conversion drops, because the recipient doesn't recognise the sender.

CoExistence removes all three compromises at once: an official channel, the same number, and a live app on the phone.

How CoExistence works under the hood

Technically, when you connect, Meta links your WhatsApp Business account to the WhatsApp Cloud API and starts mirroring the message flow in both directions. The phone stays the "lead" device; it is what keeps the link alive.

What that means day to day:

• An incoming message from a customer arrives both on the phone and in WazzaBee, and from there in your CRM.

• A reply sent from the phone shows up in WazzaBee marked "📱 from phone"; you always know who answered the customer and from where. In a Bitrix24 Open Channel the same message is signed "📱 Agent (from phone)".

• A reply sent from WazzaBee goes to the customer through the Cloud API and arrives as an ordinary WhatsApp message.

• Broadcasts and templates are sent only from WazzaBee; that is the official route Meta allows.

One detail that matters to owners: an agent's phone conversations stop being a black box. Everything sent to a customer from a staff member's personal phone is visible in the CRM and stays with the company, even if that person leaves and takes the handset with them.

What your business gets once CoExistence is live

This is no longer "WhatsApp on a phone"; it is a full sales channel. Here is what opens up:

• Official broadcasts to your base: through Meta templates, with no risk of a ban. Scenarios and pricing are covered in our piece on WhatsApp broadcasts in Kazakhstan.

• Two-way CRM integration: WhatsApp in Bitrix24 and WhatsApp in amoCRM: leads, deals, contact cards, and the whole conversation stored in the customer's history.

• One inbox for every messenger: WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram Direct, Facebook Messenger and OLX in a single chat list, with tags, search and assignment to agents.

• A team instead of one phone: several agents work the same line from their computers, and the manager sees who replies and how.

• Chatbots and robots: auto-greetings, menus, routing by department, automatic template sending from Bitrix24 workflows.

• "Click to WhatsApp" ads: clicks from Facebook and Instagram land straight in the chat, and each enquiry reaches the CRM with its source attached.

• Analytics: number of conversations, response speed, agent workload, broadcast results.

• A website widget and an API: a WhatsApp button on your site and the ability to send from your own systems.

• Higher sending limits: instead of homemade rules like "40 messages a day so we don't get banned", you get Meta's official tier system, which grows as your number's quality rating grows.

Who CoExistence suits and who it doesn't

An honest filter, so nobody wastes time.

It fits if:

• the number has been in use for years, customers know that exact number, changing it is out of the question;

• part of the team physically replies from a phone: on the floor, on the road, in the workshop;

• you need broadcasts and notifications but you're afraid of a ban;

• you need a CRM, but there is nobody to retrain the agents on a new interface;

• it matters that customer conversations stay with the company, not in employees' phones.

It doesn't fit if:

• the number is new and has no history: classic WABA is the simpler route;

• you plan to drop the phone entirely and work only from the CRM: then the phone is a spare part in this scheme;

• the account is younger than three months or fails one of Meta's requirements listed below.

Side by side: QR connection, classic WABA and CoExistence

Criterion	QR connection	Classic WABA	CoExistence
App on the phone	Stays	Deleted	Stays and works
Number	The same	The same, but with downtime	The same, no downtime
Chat history	Not transferred	Not transferred	Up to 6 months in the CRM
Official broadcasts	Forbidden	Allowed	Allowed
Ban risk	High	Low	Low
Meta templates and bots	No	Yes	Yes
Replies from the phone	Yes	No	Yes, flagged in the CRM
Blue checkmark	Impossible	Possible	Possible
Best for	Testing and first steps	A new number for the business	A working number with history

Meta's requirements: check the number before you start

CoExistence is a Meta feature with strict entry conditions. Miss a single one and the connection breaks off with an error on Meta's side. Check everything in advance.

Requirement	How to check
WhatsApp Business App version 2.24.17 or higher	WhatsApp Business → Settings → Help → App info. Older version, update it in Google Play or the App Store
The number is actively used in WhatsApp Business	Meta looks at the number age and messaging quality. A brand new account may not be eligible yet
The number is not connected to another WhatsApp API provider	If the number already lives in another official API service, disconnect it there first
You have a Facebook account	Needed to sign in to Meta Business; a personal one is fine

Check separately that the number is currently "clean": not under review and not restricted. What to do if WhatsApp is already showing a review status is covered in "Account under review": what to do and how to keep your number.

How to connect the WhatsApp Business app through WazzaBee, step by step

We run CoExistence connections hands-on: your phone, your Facebook and Meta are all involved, and a mistake halfway through is expensive. That is why the mode is opened on request rather than switched on blind with a button.

Step 1. Request and number check

Message WazzaBee support and say you want to connect a number through CoExistence. We'll walk the requirements above together and tell you straight whether your account qualifies, before you pay anything.

Step 2. Payment and opening the mode

Once the check is done you pay for the connection and we open CoExistence in your account. A second option appears in the WhatsApp connection wizard: "Keep WhatsApp Business on the phone".

Step 3. Launching the wizard

In your account go to Channels → Add channel → WhatsApp → "WABA (Official API)". Choose "Keep WhatsApp Business on the phone (CoExistence)".

Step 4. Pre-flight checklist

The system shows Meta's list of requirements and asks you to confirm you meet them. The "Next" button unlocks only after the tickbox; that is your protection against the connection dying on Meta's side.

Step 5. Decide about the chat history

Here you choose: start with a clean slate, or pull the last 6 months of history into WazzaBee. This decision is made once and for good. Details in the next section.

Step 6. Facebook authorisation

Click "Sign in with Facebook". In the Meta window that opens, pick your WhatsApp Business Account, confirm your rights to the number and go through the "Connect existing WhatsApp Business" step; that is the CoExistence activation itself. Then come back to the WazzaBee tab.

Step 7. Pick the number and finish

Select your number from the list. Within 5–10 seconds you'll see "CoExistence channel created": the line is ready. The app on the phone keeps working, and new messages go to both places.

The full manual, with every screen described and the typical errors explained, lives in the documentation: connecting WhatsApp CoExistence in WazzaBee.

History transfer: a 24-hour window you can't replay

Meta hands over the conversation archive exactly once: within a day of connecting. Miss the window, change your mind a week later, and the old chats will never reach the CRM. So the decision is made before you press the button.

What comes across: message texts from the last 6 months, captions on photos and files, dates and times, plus contact names from your phonebook, so your chats show proper names instead of bare digits. If you have already renamed a contact in WazzaBee by hand, your version is kept.

What doesn't come across: the files themselves: photos, videos and documents stay in the app on the phone, and imported messages carry only the caption and a note about the attachment type. Group chats are not transferred either: only one-to-one conversations are imported. None of this applies to new messages; those arrive in WazzaBee with attachments as usual.

The import starts automatically a few minutes after connection and runs in the background. Nothing to click, no need to keep the tab open. Occasionally the data takes up to a day to appear rather than minutes; that is normal.

House rules once you're connected

CoExistence asks for a little discipline. Five rules worth passing on to the team.

Rule	Why
Open WhatsApp Business on the phone at least once every 14 days	Meta's requirement. If the app hasn't been opened for two weeks, the link to the Cloud API can break and the connection has to be redone
Don't delete the app from the phone	The phone is the lead device here. Delete the app and CoExistence switches off
Don't change the number inside the app	Changing the number breaks the link. The new number would have to be connected from scratch
Broadcasts only from WazzaBee	Mass sending from the app still breaks WhatsApp's rules and leads to a ban. WazzaBee has Meta templates for exactly this
Keep an eye on the line balance	Charges happen in real time for every message that goes through the API

What CoExistence costs

The cost has two parts, and it's important not to mix them up.

1. The WazzaBee subscription. CoExistence is billed as a WABA line: the ENTERPRISE plan, 29 $1.99 per month, with no cap on the number of conversations. There is no separate fee for the CoExistence mode itself. How line activation, invoice payment for companies and renewals work is set out in channel activation and billing.

2. The message balance. Spent only on what actually travels through the official API. The logic is simple:

What happened	Charged to the balance
A customer wrote to you	Yes, a technical fee for processing through the API
You replied from WazzaBee within 24 hours	Yes, the technical fee only
You replied from the phone	No, those messages don't go through the API
A broadcast or template from WazzaBee outside the 24-hour window	Yes, Meta's template rate plus the fee
A customer arrived from a "Click to WhatsApp" ad	The technical fee only

In short: anything done from the phone is free; anything that goes through the API is paid. Current Meta template rates by category are always visible in your account; Meta changes them several times a year, so trust the figures in the interface rather than a price list from a year ago. We broke down today's rates in how much WhatsApp Business API costs in Kazakhstan, and the next rule change is explained in our article on paid service messages from 1 October 2026.

We never block incoming messages: even at a zero balance a customer still gets through to you, and the charge is settled afterwards. Only outgoing messages are held, and sending resumes the moment you top up. You will not lose enquiries because an invoice went unpaid on a Friday evening.

Why connect CoExistence through WazzaBee

• We run the connection by hand instead of sending you a link. We check the number before you pay, walk you through Meta and help on every screen. You are never left alone with an English error message halfway through.

• One of the first platforms in Kazakhstan to support CoExistence. The mode runs in production for us, and we already know every rake Meta leaves lying around.

• You can see who replied from a phone. The "📱 from phone" flag in chats and in Bitrix24 Open Channels means you always know where a reply came from.

• A Kazakhstan-based service. Payment in tenge, invoices and closing documents for companies, support in Kazakh and the other languages our market speaks, real people in the chat rather than a bot with canned replies.

• Every channel in one window. Alongside WhatsApp: Telegram, Instagram Direct, Facebook Messenger, OLX and a website widget. One platform instead of five browser tabs.

• Ready-made integrations. Bitrix24 (including via the Marketplace) and amoCRM connect without developers, together with robots and automatic template sending.

🔗 If freeing up the number is no problem and you don't need the app on the phone, the setup is even simpler: see the guide on how to connect official WhatsApp (WABA) step by step.

Connect CoExistence and keep your phone

Your number already works. It carries your customer base, your reputation and half your sales. CoExistence doesn't ask you to risk any of that; it adds an official Meta channel on top of the phone you already use: broadcasts, templates, bots, CRM and analytics.

Fifteen minutes to connect, and customer conversations stop living inside employees' phones, while broadcasts stop being a game of roulette with the ban hammer.

🚀 Sign up for WazzaBee and request CoExistence →

Registration is free. We'll check your number before you pay and tell you honestly whether it meets Meta's requirements.