What you can connect to WhatsApp, and what you cannot

An integration is anything that either starts a WhatsApp flow or gives one access to data it would not otherwise have. There are five, and knowing which of them applies to you decides how much you can automate.

The rest of this page is deliberately narrow. Feature lists in this category tend to imply connections that turn out to be a link you can paste somewhere, so everything below is something that genuinely changes what a flow can do.

By the numbers: Shopify contributes 7 events, Google Sheets 3 actions, the external API 2 steps, and the Claude connection 23 tools. Instagram and Messenger add 2 channels to the same inbox. That is the whole surface.

The five, at a glance

Connection	What it gives a flow	Needs a developer?
Shopify	Seven store events that start flows, plus order tag and status write-back	No
Google Sheets	Read a row, write a row, update a row	No
Your own software	Start a flow on any event you choose; call your endpoints mid-flow	Briefly
Instagram and Messenger	The same flows and inbox on two more channels	No
Claude, over MCP	Read your chats and automations, and build or edit flows	No

Shopify: seven events, no more

Connecting Shopify gives your flows exactly seven triggers: order placed, payment success, payment failed, order shipped, order delivered, order cancelled and abandoned cart. There is no stock-level event, no price-change event and no wishlist event, whatever a competitor's feature grid suggests.

Flows can also write back — adding or removing order tags, and changing order status including cancellation. Cancelling needs the write permission, so a store connected before that scope existed has to reconnect. Details in WhatsApp automation for Shopify.

Google Sheets: the database most small stores already have

A flow can append a row, find a row and copy its cells onto the customer's contact record, or update the first matching row. That covers order lookups, returns logs, waitlists and lead capture without any development at all.

It is genuinely the right tool at small scale, and the honest reason is that the alternative is usually not a better integration — it is not building the flow. Using a Google Sheet as your automation's database covers the mechanics, including the column header that silently breaks everything when someone renames it.

Your own software: the escape hatch

Two steps make anything possible. The External Event trigger starts a flow when your system posts an event, and the Call External API step lets a flow read from or write to your endpoints mid-conversation. Between them they cover everything the fixed integrations do not: subscription renewals, appointment confirmations, delivery-slot booking, repair-ready notices, WooCommerce order events.

This is the only integration needing a developer, and the task is genuinely small — one HTTP request when something happens. Everything after it you build on the canvas. See starting a flow from your own system.

Instagram and Messenger

Both run alongside WhatsApp in the same inbox, with the same flow builder. The practical differences are worth knowing before you assume a flow transfers unchanged — approved templates are WhatsApp-only, so anything that reaches a cold chat behaves differently. Covered in running Instagram and Messenger alongside WhatsApp.

Claude: the one nobody else has

You can point Claude at your own account and have it read your conversations, inspect your automations, and build or edit flows for you. It runs over MCP, it is admin-only, and every automation it creates lands as an unpublished draft that you review before anything goes live.

That is a genuinely different way to work — describing what you want in plain words rather than dragging steps onto a canvas — and it is set up in a couple of minutes. See connecting Claude to your WhatsApp account.

It pairs naturally with a Google Sheet: Claude can read what customers ask, and the sheet holds the data a flow needs to answer them.

What is not a connection

Being straight about the edges, because this is where feature grids mislead:

• No in-chat payment. A flow sends a link from your payment provider; the customer pays on their page.
• No product catalogue inside a flow. Products are described in messages, not selected from a catalogue step.
• No stock or inventory feed. Nothing watches your levels, which is why back-in-stock alerts are capture-then-broadcast rather than automatic.
• No direct CRM or helpdesk integrations as fixed connectors. Anything with an API can be reached through the Call External API step, but that is a build rather than a switch.
• No WooCommerce connector. WooCommerce works through the external event API instead — the guide is here.

Which ones you actually need

1. Selling on Shopify? Connect it. Seven events cover the order lifecycle and it takes minutes.
2. Answering the same questions all day? You need no integration at all — keyword flows and a knowledge base work on their own.
3. Need to look something up mid-conversation? Google Sheets first; your own API when you outgrow it.
4. On WooCommerce, custom, or no store at all? The external event API, and an hour of a developer's time.
5. Want to build flows by describing them? Connect Claude.

What every integration shares

None of them changes Meta's rules. A flow started by any integration lands on a chat that may be outside the 24-hour customer service window, which means an approved template and a charge — Meta's sending messages documentation sets out the window, and its pricing documentation confirms messages inside one are free.

So the design advice is identical whichever connection you use: make the first message earn a reply, and everything after it costs nothing.

How to tell a real integration from a link

A useful test when reading anyone's feature list, including ours. Ask what the connection lets a flow do:

Claim	Real integration?
"Starts a flow when X happens"	Yes — that is a trigger
"A flow can read or write data in X"	Yes
"Send a WhatsApp link from X"	No — that is a link
"Add a chat button to X"	No — useful, but not an integration
"Export your contacts to X"	No — that is a file

The first two change what you can automate. The others are conveniences, and they are frequently listed alongside genuine connections in a way that makes a platform look more connected than it is.

Setting them up, in order

1. Instagram and Messenger first, if you use them — no dependencies, and it makes the inbox complete.
2. Shopify next, if you sell there. Test with a real order.
3. Google Sheets when a flow needs data, not before.
4. Claude whenever you like — it is admin-only and everything it builds is a draft.
5. Your own software last, once you know which event you actually want.

That order front-loads everything that needs nobody's help and leaves the one developer task until you can specify it precisely.

Maintenance nobody schedules

Integrations rot quietly, and always in the same few ways: a Google Sheet column renamed, a Shopify store reconnected without the write permission, an API token rotated, a colleague's Google account revoked when they left.

None of those produce an error you would notice. Add a quarterly check alongside your template audit — place a test order, run one lookup, confirm one flow writes where it should. Fifteen minutes, and it is the difference between finding out yourself and hearing it from a customer.

Frequently asked

Does connecting a tool cost extra?

No. The connections listed here are part of the platform. What you pay for is WhatsApp messaging itself, and only when a template reaches a chat outside the 24-hour window.

Can a flow read from two places at once?

Yes. A single flow can look a customer up in a Google Sheet, call your own API, and branch on both answers. Each lookup is its own step, and each can fail independently, so build the fallback path for both.

What if my platform is not Shopify?

Then the store triggers are not available to you, and the route is the external event API — your system posts an event, the flow starts. It needs a developer once, and after that any event you can emit can start any flow.

Do I need a developer for any of this?

Only for the external event API and for calling your own system mid-flow. Shopify, Google Sheets, Instagram, Messenger and the Claude connection are all set up from Settings with no code.

Can I connect a CRM?

Not directly. If the CRM has an API, the call-your-own-system step can reach it and the external event API can start flows from it. There is no one-click CRM connector, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise.

The shortest useful summary

Five connections, of which three need nobody technical. Start with the channels and the store, add a sheet when a flow needs data it does not have, and reach for the API only when the thing you want to react to lives in software of your own.