Best Wati Alternatives for Indian SMBs in 2026 (Compared by Price, Features & Use Case)

A Mumbai EdTech startup moved from Wati to a different platform last quarter — not because Wati stopped working, but because their 8-person sales team needed 8 agent seats and discovered the bill would jump from ₹2,499 to over ₹12,000 per month. Wati's Growth plan caps at 3 users. Adding 5 more agents costs ₹1,299 per user per month on top of the base plan. That math surprises most Indian businesses after signup, not before.

If you're searching for a Wati alternative, you're likely in one of three situations: your team has grown past the 3-user limit, the total monthly bill (platform + per-user + message markup) is higher than expected, or you need features that Wati's plans reserve for expensive tiers. All three are legitimate reasons. This guide covers the six best Wati alternatives for Indian SMBs in 2026 — with verified pricing, honest trade-offs, and a clear framework for choosing based on your actual use case.

• Wati Growth caps at 3 users — adding a 4th forces an upgrade or costs ₹1,299/user/month
• Wati's message markup runs ~20% above Meta's base rates, compounding monthly costs
• Most Wati alternatives reviewed here offer unlimited agents on their base plans
• Pricing verified from live pages and third-party sources as of April 2026 — verify current rates before switching
• The best Wati alternative is not the cheapest one — it's the one built for how your team actually sells
• All platforms listed are official Meta WhatsApp Business Solution Partners — verified BSPs with direct API access

What Makes Someone Look for a Wati Alternative?

Wati is a legitimate, well-designed product. It's one of the most recognised WhatsApp Business API platforms globally, with clean UX, solid Shopify integration, and a reliable chatbot builder. If you're evaluating from scratch and need a platform for a small team with straightforward broadcast and support needs, Wati is worth considering.

But Wati was built with a global audience in mind, and its pricing reflects that. The problems Indian SMBs consistently hit fall into three categories:

The user seat problem: Wati's Growth plan (₹2,499/month) includes only 3 users. For a typical Indian sales team of 5–10 reps, this creates an immediate pricing cliff. Moving to Pro at ₹5,999/month gets you 5 users but still charges ₹1,299/month per additional user beyond that. A 10-person team on Pro pays: ₹5,999 base + (5 × ₹1,299) = ₹12,494/month — before any message costs.

The automation trigger problem: Wati shifted from chatbot-session billing to "automation triggers" in 2025. Growth plan includes 1,000 free triggers/month. Overages cost $40 (~₹3,320) per additional 1,000 triggers. For businesses running lead nurture sequences or chatbot-heavy funnels, this adds up fast and appears as a surprise line item on the bill.

At 1,000 automation triggers/month on Wati Growth, a business running a 3-step welcome sequence for 400 new leads per month will exceed its monthly allocation — before adding any support bot interactions.

The message markup problem: Wati adds approximately 20% on top of Meta's base message rates. For a marketing conversation, Meta charges roughly ₹0.83 (at current India rates). Wati's effective rate runs closer to ₹1.00. At 50,000 marketing messages per month, that's an extra ₹8,500/month in markup that doesn't appear on the headline plan price.

Any Wati alternative worth switching to should solve at least one of these three problems for your specific situation.

How We Evaluated These Wati Alternatives

We scored six Wati alternatives across five dimensions relevant to Indian SMBs: base pricing in INR, user/agent flexibility, message markup transparency, India-specific integrations, and sales-vs-marketing orientation. Every pricing figure in this article is verified from live pricing pages or third-party sources — flagged where data is triangulated rather than directly scraped.

We specifically excluded global enterprise platforms (Twilio, MessageBird, Infobip) where India pricing requires a sales call and minimum annual commitment. We also excluded tools with no Indian user base or no INR billing.

Platform	Starting Price (INR/mo)	Users Included	Msg Markup	Best For
Wati	₹2,499	3	~20%	SMBs needing Shopify + broadcast
AiSensy	₹1,500	1+5 included	₹1.09/msg (marketing)	Lowest platform fee, broadcast-first
Interakt	~₹1,166 (qtr billing)	Unlimited	~25% (Growth)	D2C/Shopify, unlimited agents
Gallabox	~₹7,400 (~$89)	6	Pass-through	No-code automation, India SMB
Respond.io	~₹6,600 ($79)	10	0%	Omnichannel enterprise teams
Kraya AI	₹2,999	Unlimited	0%	Indian sales teams, pipeline tracking
WANotifier	~₹700	Varies	0%	Zero markup, budget-focused

1. AiSensy — Best Wati Alternative for Lowest Base Price

AiSensy is an India-founded WhatsApp Business API platform built primarily for marketing and broadcast — think bulk campaigns, audience segmentation, and click-to-WhatsApp ad integration. It's the most frequently cited Wati alternative in Indian WhatsApp communities, largely because the entry price is lower.

Pricing (verified April 2026): Basic plan at ₹1,500/month includes 1 owner + 5 agents, with additional agents at ₹750/month each. Pro plan at ₹3,200/month adds broadcast scheduling, click tracking, and campaign analytics. Enterprise pricing is custom. Marketing messages cost ₹1.09 per message; utility/authentication at ₹0.145 per message — these are per-message charges on top of the platform fee.

Best for: Businesses running frequent broadcast campaigns to large contact lists, ecommerce brands with Meta/Shopify flows, and teams that need a free-tier entry point to test the platform (AiSensy offers a free plan with ₹50 conversation credits).

Not the best Wati alternative if: You need CRM integration depth (AiSensy integrates with Zoho and HubSpot but is not a native CRM), if your team has grown beyond 5 agents (the per-agent fee adds up quickly), or if contact data privacy matters — AiSensy's stated policy is that uploaded contact lists cannot be deleted from the backend, which is a concern for PDPB compliance.

AiSensy added per-agent billing (₹750/agent/month) in July 2025 — teams that onboarded before that date and had large agent counts saw unexpected cost increases. If you have more than 8 agents, calculate the full AiSensy bill before assuming it's cheaper than Wati.

Trade-offs vs Wati: Lower base price, more agents included, but weaker automation depth (Wati's flow builder handles 200+ step sequences; AiSensy's is simpler). AiSensy has a larger India user base and faster local support response for simple issues, but G2 reviews cite 2–3 day response times for complex tickets — similar to the Wati support complaint patterns.

2. Interakt — Best Wati Alternative for D2C and Unlimited Agents

Interakt is backed by Haptik (part of the Reliance Jio group), making it one of the few WhatsApp platforms with serious Indian institutional backing. It's positioned specifically for D2C and ecommerce brands on Shopify and Instagram, with features like catalog selling, cart recovery, and COD confirmation flows built in.

Pricing (verified April 2026): Starter plan on quarterly billing: ₹3,499/quarter (~₹1,166/month effective). Growth: ₹7,699/quarter (~₹2,566/month). Advanced: ₹10,499/quarter (~₹3,499/month). Important caveat: the ₹999/month figure that appears in searches is for the annual plan — and that plan only gives you Instagram access, not WhatsApp. To get WhatsApp on Starter, you must commit to at least quarterly billing.

Per-message markup on Growth: approximately 25% above Meta's base rates. Enterprise plan has no per-message markup.

Best for: D2C brands running WhatsApp as their primary sales and support channel, Shopify merchants who want native cart recovery and order update automations, and teams that need unlimited agents without per-seat billing. Interakt's Growth plan includes unlimited team members — no user cap.

Not the best Wati alternative if: You're not in ecommerce — Interakt is heavily ecommerce-first, and non-ecommerce use cases (B2B sales, coaching institutes, healthcare) find the platform's chatbot logic too linear. Monthly billing for WhatsApp is locked behind quarterly commitment, which is a cash flow concern for early-stage businesses. Email-only support with 24–48hr response times is a recurring complaint for teams needing faster resolution.

Trade-offs vs Wati: More India-specific, competitive pricing with unlimited agents, but higher message markup on mid-tier plans. Better for ecommerce automation; weaker for general sales pipelines. Template rejection issues with Meta have been reported on Interakt — Wati handles template approval more reliably per user reviews.

3. Gallabox — Best Wati Alternative for No-Code Automation

Gallabox positions itself as "India's Favourite WhatsApp Solution Provider" and has earned that tagline in the SMB segment with a genuinely strong no-code chatbot builder, solid India-specific integrations (Zoho CRM, Razorpay, Shiprocket), and a drag-and-drop flow designer that non-technical teams can use without developer help.

Pricing (verified April 2026): Growth plan at approximately $89/month (~₹7,400/month at current rates, billed annually), includes 6 users. Scale at ~$197/month (~₹16,400/month), 6 users. Pro at ~$377/month (~₹31,400/month). Additional users at $15/month (~₹1,250) on Scale and Pro. Pricing shown in USD; INR billing available but rates fluctuate with exchange rates.

Best for: Indian SMBs in education, healthcare, real estate, and travel who want plug-and-play automation without engineering resources, teams already using Zoho CRM or Razorpay who want native sync, and businesses where no-code setup speed (Gallabox claims 2-hour go-live) matters more than deep customisation.

Not the best Wati alternative if: You're comparing on price — Gallabox Growth at ₹7,400/month is nearly 3× Wati's Growth plan. Analytics is a known weak spot: Gallabox doesn't offer per-agent response time metrics or individual rep performance dashboards, which matters for sales managers. WhatsApp-only — no Instagram inbox, no Telegram, no Facebook Messenger if omnichannel matters to your team.

Trade-offs vs Wati: Better no-code experience, stronger India-specific integrations, but significantly higher cost and weaker reporting. Wati's broadcast analytics are more detailed. Gallabox is a good Wati alternative specifically for teams where the India stack (Zoho/Razorpay/Shiprocket) is already in place.

4. Respond.io — Best Wati Alternative for Omnichannel Teams

Respond.io is a global conversation management platform that handles WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and live chat in a single unified inbox. It's the go-to Wati alternative for businesses that need omnichannel coverage — where WhatsApp is one of several channels, not the only one.

Pricing: Growth plan at $79/month (~₹6,600/month), includes 10 users. Scale at $159/month, unlimited users. Advanced at $279/month. No per-message markup — 0% on top of Meta rates, which is a meaningful cost advantage at high message volumes.

Best for: Teams managing customer conversations across 3+ channels simultaneously, businesses with global customer bases, and companies with dedicated support engineering teams who want deep workflow automation (Respond.io's automation builder supports complex conditional logic that Wati's doesn't).

Not the best Wati alternative if: You're a pure WhatsApp-first Indian sales team — Respond.io's India focus is limited and local support is available only via tickets. The platform complexity is significant; most small Indian teams don't need 30% of the features and pay for them anyway. At $79/month for a team that just needs WhatsApp, Respond.io is overbuilt.

For more on choosing between Indian-first vs global platforms, see our guide to Best WhatsApp Business API Providers for Indian businesses.

5. Kraya AI — Best Wati Alternative for Indian Sales Teams

Kraya AI is built specifically for Indian sales teams — not broadcast marketing or ecommerce, but the specific problem of WhatsApp leads going cold because of missed follow-ups and no pipeline visibility. Where Wati and most other platforms are built around the inbox, Kraya is built around the pipeline: every WhatsApp conversation maps to a lead stage, every rep has a follow-up queue, and managers see conversion by rep without manual reporting.

Pricing: Plans starting from ₹2,999/month. Unlimited agents on all plans — no per-seat billing. 0% markup on Meta message rates. A free tier exists with limited functionality (5 pipeline stages, 50 AI replies) to test before committing.

Best for: Indian B2B and B2C sales teams where WhatsApp is the primary conversion channel, businesses that generate leads from JustDial, IndiaMART, or Meta Lead Ads (Kraya has native integrations for all three — no Zapier required), and managers who need to see which reps are converting and which are letting leads go cold.

What makes Kraya a distinct Wati alternative isn't just pricing — it's the integration layer. Native connections for JustDial, IndiaMART, Meta Lead Ad Forms, Zoho CRM, NeoDove, MyOperator, and Google Sheets mean that leads from India's primary sources land directly in the WhatsApp pipeline without middleware. See the full explanation of how WhatsApp CRM differs from broadcast tools for context on why this matters.

Not the best Wati alternative if: You primarily need broadcast/campaign capabilities to large lists (Kraya is sales-pipeline focused, not marketing broadcast focused), or if you're in ecommerce with complex Shopify flows (that's Interakt or Wati's stronger territory).

The difference between a WhatsApp broadcast platform and a WhatsApp sales CRM isn't features — it's orientation. Broadcast tools start from the message. Sales CRMs start from the lead. Most businesses switching from Wati realise they were using a broadcast tool for a sales problem.

6. WANotifier — Best Wati Alternative for Zero Message Markup

WANotifier is a lean WhatsApp Business API platform built specifically around the message cost transparency argument: 0% markup on Meta's official rates. If you send high volumes and the Wati/AiSensy/Interakt markups are adding ₹5,000–₹20,000 per month to your bill, WANotifier eliminates that markup entirely.

Pricing: Starts at approximately ₹700/month for the platform fee. Meta's message rates passed through at cost. This is the cheapest Wati alternative for high-volume broadcast users who primarily care about cost-per-message.

Best for: High-volume senders (100,000+ marketing messages/month) where the markup difference compounds significantly, price-sensitive businesses willing to accept a less polished product, and teams with in-house technical resources to handle platform setup without extensive onboarding support.

Not the best Wati alternative if: You need a managed platform with support, rich automation, or CRM integration depth. WANotifier's strength is price transparency — its feature set is more limited than Wati, AiSensy, or Gallabox.

How to Choose the Right Wati Alternative

Before switching, answer these four questions:

1. Why are you leaving Wati? User seat cost → Interakt (unlimited agents). Automation trigger caps → Gallabox or Respond.io. Message markup → WANotifier or Respond.io. Missing India-specific integrations → Kraya AI. Cheaper base plan needed → AiSensy.

2. What is your primary WhatsApp use case? Marketing broadcasts → AiSensy. Ecommerce / Shopify flows → Interakt. Omnichannel support → Respond.io. B2B or B2C sales pipeline → Kraya AI. General SMB automation → Gallabox.

3. How many agents do you need? Under 5: Wati Growth, AiSensy Basic, Kraya AI — all viable. 5–10: Interakt (unlimited agents) or Kraya AI save significantly vs Wati Pro + add-ons. 10+: Respond.io or Interakt Growth are the best-value options.

4. What Indian integrations does your stack require? JustDial / IndiaMART / Meta Lead Ads → Kraya AI (native, no Zapier). Zoho CRM → Gallabox or Kraya AI. Shopify / WooCommerce → Interakt or Wati. Razorpay → Gallabox. If your lead sources are India-native marketplaces, only Kraya has direct native integrations without middleware.

For the full guide on how WhatsApp sales pipelines are structured, read our article on building a WhatsApp sales pipeline.

Migrating From Wati: What to Expect

Switching WhatsApp Business API providers requires migrating your phone number from one BSP to another. Meta's number porting process takes 24–72 hours and requires the current BSP (Wati) to release the number. Some platforms offer migration assistance; others don't. Check with your chosen Wati alternative before signing up whether they handle the migration or whether you handle it independently.

During the migration window, your WhatsApp number will be unavailable for API calls — typically 2–6 hours. Plan for this during a low-traffic period. Your contact list, templates, and conversation history don't transfer automatically — most businesses export contacts via CSV and re-upload. Templates need to be resubmitted and re-approved by Meta on the new platform, which takes 24–72 hours.

For background on how the API itself works and what to check before switching platforms, read the WhatsApp Business API complete guide.

Frequently Asked Questions About Wati Alternatives

Is AiSensy cheaper than Wati for Indian businesses?

On base platform fees, AiSensy Basic (₹1,500/month) is cheaper than Wati Growth (₹2,499/month). However, AiSensy charges ₹1.09 per marketing message — at 20,000 messages/month, that's ₹21,800 in message costs alone. Wati also marks up message costs (~20%), but at lower volume, the difference may be smaller than the platform fee gap. Run the full math: (platform fee) + (messages/month × per-message rate) for your actual volume before deciding which is cheaper.

Does switching from Wati to a Wati alternative mean losing my conversation history?

Yes — WhatsApp conversation history doesn't transfer between BSPs. Meta's API stores conversations at the platform level, not portably. Most businesses export contacts (available via all platforms as CSV) but accept that historical chat threads will be available only in the old Wati dashboard (not deleted — you can still log in to view history) while new conversations happen in the new platform.

Which Wati alternative is best for a 10-person sales team?

Interakt Growth (~₹2,566/month) or Kraya AI (₹2,999/month) — both include unlimited agents without per-seat billing. Compare: Wati Pro for 10 agents would cost ₹5,999 base + (5 extra agents × ₹1,299) = ₹12,494/month. Both alternatives represent 75–80% cost savings for the same team size.

Can I use a Wati alternative with my existing WhatsApp number?

Yes, but porting requires your current provider's cooperation. Wati must release the number, and Meta processes the transfer. The process is standard across all official BSPs. Timeline: 24–72 hours typically. Your number's reputation score and green tick (if you have one) transfers with the number — it's linked to the phone number, not the platform.

What Wati features are hardest to replace?

Wati's Shopify integration is natively built — cart abandonment, order status, COD confirmation flows are well-implemented. Most Wati alternatives either don't have native Shopify integration (Respond.io, Kraya AI) or have it as an add-on (Gallabox: $5/month). If Shopify flows are central to your business, Interakt has the most comparable native Shopify integration among the alternatives. AiSensy also has a Shopify app on the app store.

Is there a free Wati alternative?

AiSensy has a free forever plan with ₹50 in conversation credits — useful for testing the platform but not for production use. Kraya AI has a free tier with limited functionality (5 pipeline stages, 50 AI replies). Respond.io and Interakt offer 14-day free trials. Wati itself has a 7-day trial. "Free" WhatsApp API access technically exists via Meta's Cloud API directly, but that's an engineering project, not a platform.

How long does it take to switch from Wati to an alternative?

Platform setup: 1–2 hours for most alternatives. Number porting: 24–72 hours. Template re-approval: 24–72 hours. Full team migration (contacts, sequences, team training): 3–5 business days realistically for a 5–10 person team. Budget a week if you're switching mid-cycle; 2 weeks if you're running parallel during a high-volume period.

Which Wati alternative works best with JustDial and IndiaMART?

Kraya AI is the only platform with native (non-Zapier) integrations for both JustDial and IndiaMART, plus Meta Lead Ad Forms. Other platforms can connect via Zapier webhooks, but that adds per-task costs and latency. If JustDial and IndiaMART are significant lead sources for your business, the native integration is a meaningful operational difference — leads land in your pipeline in real time without additional middleware cost or delay.

For more on how Indian businesses structure lead capture from multiple sources, read our guide on qualifying leads on WhatsApp and our breakdown of why lead response time determines whether leads convert.

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About the Author

Kraya AI is a WhatsApp CRM platform built for Indian sales teams. This guide is based on pricing data verified from live platform pages and third-party sources as of April 2026. Pricing changes frequently — verify current rates on each platform's pricing page before making a switch decision.

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