Feature Request

Request a Feature for the respond.io platform.
WhatsApp: WhatsApp Business App as a Manual Messaging Channel
Business Problem Since October 1, 2026, the new WhatsApp Business Platform pricing model has significantly increased the cost of human-to-human conversations for businesses with a consultative sales model. In our case, WhatsApp conversations often involve many individual messages exchanged between a sales agent and a customer. These are not automated or bulk conversations — they are genuine one-to-one sales consultations. We already use respond.io as our central inbox and would like our agents to continue working there. However, when an agent replies through the existing WhatsApp API channel, the message is sent through the WhatsApp Business Platform and is therefore subject to API message charges. With WhatsApp Coexistence, agents can avoid these API charges by replying directly from the WhatsApp Business App. The problem is that they then have to leave respond.io and work from the WhatsApp Business App, losing the benefits of having a centralized inbox. Desired Outcome We would like respond.io to support a WhatsApp Business App manual messaging channel or mode that allows agents to send and receive human messages from the respond.io Inbox without those messages being sent through the WhatsApp Cloud API. We fully understand and accept that this channel/mode could have important limitations: No Workflows No AI Agents or bots No automated messages No broadcasts or campaigns No API-triggered outbound messages No message templates Its purpose would be exclusively manual, human-to-human communication . Ideally, businesses using WhatsApp Coexistence could choose how a message is sent: API mode: for automation, bots, workflows and integrations. Business App / Manual mode: for messages manually written by an agent, without using the Cloud API messaging route. Use Case A business could use the same WhatsApp number with Coexistence: respond.io + WhatsApp API for automated conversations. WhatsApp Business App for human conversations. Today, when a conversation is transferred to a human agent, the agent must leave respond.io and open WhatsApp Business App to avoid API messaging costs. The desired experience would be: Customer → respond.io Inbox → Human Agent → WhatsApp Business App messaging route → Customer The agent would remain inside respond.io , while the message would behave as if it had been manually sent from the WhatsApp Business App. Business Impact This has become especially important for businesses with consultative sales or customer service models , where a single customer conversation may involve many short human messages. The recent WhatsApp API pricing changes can make these conversations disproportionately expensive, despite requiring no automation. Providing a manual Business App messaging option would allow companies to: Keep respond.io as their central customer communication workspace. Continue using automation where it adds value. Switch to human-only messaging when an agent takes over. Avoid forcing agents to work simultaneously in respond.io and WhatsApp Business App. Make WhatsApp Coexistence much more valuable for businesses affected by per-message API pricing. Current Workaround Use WhatsApp Coexistence and ask agents to reply directly from the WhatsApp Business App whenever a conversation becomes human-led. This avoids API messaging costs, but forces the team to leave respond.io and manage conversations in two different interfaces.
0
MCP: To create and manage Workflows
Business Problem Businesses often know the automation outcome they want but still need to manually configure every Workflow through the UI. Creating triggers, connecting steps, setting up branches, validating the graph, testing different paths, and publishing safely can be time-consuming and requires detailed knowledge of the Workflow builder. Without agent-assisted Workflow creation and validation, users may create incomplete configurations, miss required connections, introduce unintended side effects during testing, or publish changes without a clear understanding of their impact. Managing existing Draft or Stopped Workflows also requires users to inspect and troubleshoot them manually. Desired Outcome Enable an AI agent to turn an approved automation goal into a working Workflow through a controlled, permission-aware process. The agent should be able to: Propose and create a Draft Workflow using supported Triggers, Steps, Branches, and connections. Inspect and edit Draft or Stopped Workflows while respecting user permissions and protecting existing versions. Validate the complete Workflow graph and return actionable errors, warnings, and publish blockers. Test representative paths using the supported test mechanism, with side effects isolated where the platform allows. Present a clear publish summary and require explicit user confirmation before publishing. Publish an attributable Workflow version, inspect authoritative run status, and support eligible retries or recovery to a previous version where the platform supports it. Use Cases An onboarding specialist describes a business goal, such as qualifying new leads and assigning them to the right team, and the agent creates a Draft Workflow for review. A user asks the agent to inspect a Stopped Workflow, identify the failure, and propose or apply a permitted fix without overwriting the existing version. A user validates a Workflow before publishing and receives clear information about missing connections, invalid configurations, warnings, and blockers. A user tests representative branches without triggering unintended customer messages or other side effects where isolation is supported. A team reviews the proposed changes, affected paths, and expected behavior before explicitly approving publication. After publishing, users can identify which agent or user created the version, inspect the authoritative run status, retry eligible runs, or recover a previous version where supported.
3
·
planned
Load More
→