Key takeaways
- Interakt and Chatbox AI both run on the official WhatsApp Business API, so broadcasts, templates and inbox basics overlap.
- Chatbox AI's Growth plan (₹3,200/month) adds a campaign scheduler, click tracking, campaign budget and analytics and automatic failed message retry.
- Chatbox AI integrates with Shopify and Razorpay for abandoned cart reminders, COD confirmation, order updates and payment links.
- Meta's WhatsApp message charges are billed separately from any platform subscription.
- Verify Interakt's current plans and features on its own website before comparing costs.
For Indian D2C brands, WhatsApp is often the shop window, the checkout nudge and the support desk at once. Interakt is a WhatsApp Business API platform offering broadcasts, chatbots and a shared inbox, and it is widely used by online sellers. Chatbox AI is an official WhatsApp Business API platform built for the same jobs. This page compares them on the criteria a commerce team should care about, and shows precisely what Chatbox AI includes.
Last reviewed: September 2026, verify current competitor plans on their websites. We describe Interakt only in general, publicly known terms and do not quote its prices or limits.
At a glance
| Capability | Chatbox AI | Interakt |
|---|---|---|
| Official WhatsApp Business API | Yes: WhatsApp Cloud API on all plans | Yes (publicly listed) |
| Broadcast campaigns | Yes; audience segmentation on every plan | Yes (publicly listed) |
| Shared team inbox | Yes; smart agent routing and custom agent rules on Growth | Yes (publicly listed) |
| Chatbot builder | Visual, no-code; chatflow delays and timeouts on Growth | Yes (publicly listed) |
| WhatsApp catalogue and cart | Yes | Check vendor site |
| Shopify integration | Yes, every plan (plus WooCommerce) | Check vendor site |
| Razorpay payment flows | Yes | Check vendor site |
| Click-to-WhatsApp ads support | Ads manager on every plan | Check vendor site |
| Revenue attribution | Click tracking and campaign analytics on Growth | Check vendor site |
| Starting price | ₹1,500/month + GST | Check vendor site |
Evaluation criteria for commerce teams
Catalogue and in-chat shopping
What to check: Can customers browse products, add to cart and check out inside WhatsApp? Does stock stay in sync with your store?
How Chatbox AI handles it, honestly: no. The catalogue sends matching products as photos captioned with name and price, and the order is taken in the conversation. WhatsApp's native product and multi-product messages, the WhatsApp cart and in-chat checkout are not implemented, and there is no merchant payment integration. If native cart-and-checkout is the deciding feature, check what each vendor actually sends before you choose.
Store and payment integrations
What to check: Which events from your store can trigger messages? Can you send payment links, reminders and receipts?
How Chatbox AI handles it: The Shopify and WooCommerce plugins trigger WhatsApp messages on events such as order placed, paid, shipped, delivered, cancelled, refunded and cart abandoned, and support COD confirmation before dispatch. There is no payment-gateway integration: payment reminders carry your own gateway's link, and a receipt is sent when your system reports the payment through the API.
Abandoned cart and post-purchase automation
What to check: Can you build timed sequences, a reminder an hour after checkout abandonment, a review request after delivery, without code?
How Chatbox AI handles it: WhatsApp automation includes keyword triggers, drip campaigns and out-of-office replies. Typical flows are an abandoned cart reminder one hour after checkout drop-off, a post-purchase onboarding sequence and a feedback request 24 hours after delivery. Growth adds chatflow delays and timeouts and automatic failed message retry.
Broadcasts and segmentation
What to check: Can you segment by purchase history or tags and schedule sale announcements?
How Chatbox AI handles it: Broadcasts and audience segmentation are available on every plan, with a campaign scheduler, including a CSV scheduler, in Growth. Contact management stores custom attributes like city, VIP status or last purchase date, and supports smart segments and CSV import. Rich message templates carry product images and CTA buttons.
Support at order-volume scale
What to check: When a sale drives hundreds of "where is my order" chats, can a bot answer the easy ones and route the rest?
How Chatbox AI handles it: A no-code chatbot can answer order-status questions by order ID and hand off to a human when needed. The team inbox routes the remaining chats to agents, with quick replies for common answers.
Measuring revenue
What to check: Can you see which campaigns drove orders, not just opens?
How Chatbox AI handles it: The analytics dashboard covers campaign performance and agent productivity. Growth adds click tracking and campaign budget and analytics, and Pro adds downloadable reports.
Chatbox AI pricing in brief
| Plan | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | ₹1,500/month | New stores: 1 owner + 5 agents, broadcasting and retargeting, audience segmentation, shared inbox, Shopify and WooCommerce, Click-to-WhatsApp ads manager |
| Growth (most popular) | ₹3,200/month | Scaling D2C brands: campaign scheduler, click tracking, campaign budget and analytics, smart agent routing, failed message retry, chatflow delays |
| Pro | ₹9,100/month | Busy stores: 1 owner + 9 agents, 250 messages/sec, number masking, downloadable reports, 1 webhook, priority support |
| Scale | Custom | High-volume brands (5 lakh+ messages/month): custom throughput, custom integrations, SSO and audit logs, SLA support, dedicated account manager |
All plans include a 7-day free trial, no credit card required, and you can cancel anytime. Prices are per month plus GST. Quarterly billing saves 5% and yearly billing saves 10%, extra agents cost ₹750 per agent per month, and there are no conversation caps on any plan. Meta's WhatsApp charges are separate and passed through at cost: for example, in India marketing messages cost ₹1.09 each and utility messages such as order updates ₹0.145. See full details on the pricing page.
Which should you pick?
Both tools can run a solid WhatsApp commerce programme. A practical way to decide:
- If your roadmap is catalogue plus Shopify plus Razorpay plus automation, check that everything you need is in one plan. On Chatbox AI, Shopify and the catalogue are available from Starter, and Growth adds scheduling, click tracking and chatflow delays.
- If you mostly need broadcasts and a simple inbox, compare Chatbox AI Starter with the entry plan on Interakt's website.
- If you need custom integrations, SSO or an SLA, speak to the Chatbox AI team about Scale via the contact page.
- If Interakt already works well for you, a switch only makes sense when a specific workflow or cost is clearly better elsewhere, test it first.
Understanding the full cost of WhatsApp commerce
Comparing platform subscriptions alone gives a misleading picture. Whichever provider you choose, your monthly WhatsApp spend has three parts:
- The platform plan. On Chatbox AI this is ₹1,500, ₹3,200, ₹9,100 or a custom Scale price per month plus GST, with 5% off quarterly and 10% off yearly billing.
- Meta's WhatsApp charges. These are billed by message category and passed through at cost. Order and delivery updates fall under utility, offers and sale announcements under marketing, and OTPs under authentication. In India, from 1 October 2026, marketing is ₹1.09 and utility and authentication ₹0.145 per delivered message. Service messages are free for the first 1,000 per number each month, then ₹0.145, and incoming customer messages are free.
- Your team's time. Features such as smart agent routing, quick replies and chatbots decide how many agents you need during a sale.
A practical exercise: take last month's orders, estimate how many order updates, cart reminders and sale broadcasts you would send, and price that on each platform's current plan. The platform whose plan fits your volume and automation needs without add-ons is usually the better value, whatever the headline price.
Questions to ask in any demo
Use the same questions with Chatbox AI, Interakt or any other provider so the answers are comparable:
- Which plan includes the catalogue, cart and order tracking I need?
- How are Shopify events such as cart abandoned or order delivered mapped to templates?
- Can I confirm COD orders automatically, and what happens when a customer replies "cancel"?
- How are payment links generated and tracked?
- What reporting shows orders or revenue from a campaign, and on which plan?
- What support will I get during a big sale, and through which channel?
- How long does it take to move my existing number, and who helps with it?
On Chatbox AI, you can answer most of these yourself during the free trial by connecting a test store and sending messages to your own phone.
Related reading
- WhatsApp for e-commerce and WhatsApp for retail
- Interakt alternative: how to switch
- Chatbox AI vs AiSensy
- The WhatsApp Business API explained
Start your free trial
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Frequently asked questions
Yes. Chatbox AI integrates with Shopify to trigger WhatsApp messages on events like order placed or cart abandoned, and supports COD confirmation and order tracking alerts. Test your own store flows during the 7-day free trial before switching.
Is Chatbox AI an alternative to Interakt for Shopify stores? Yes. Chatbox AI integrates with Shopify to trigger WhatsApp messages on events like order placed or cart abandoned, and supports COD confirmation and order tracking alerts. Test your own store flows during the 7-day free trial before switching.
Does Chatbox AI support a WhatsApp product catalogue? Yes. Chatbox AI includes the WhatsApp catalogue with native product browsing, a WhatsApp shopping cart, order tracking and payment link sharing, so customers can shop without leaving the chat.
How much does Chatbox AI cost compared to Interakt? Chatbox AI is ₹1,500/month for Starter, ₹3,200/month for Growth, ₹9,100/month for Pro and Custom for Scale, plus GST, with 5% off quarterly and 10% off yearly billing. Interakt publishes its own pricing, which can change, so compare equivalent plans and add Meta's message charges to both.
Can I accept payments inside WhatsApp with Chatbox AI? Chatbox AI has no payment-gateway integration and cannot collect money into your account. It sends the messaging around a payment: a reminder carrying your own gateway's link as a template button, and a receipt once your system reports the payment through the API. Customers pay on your gateway's page, not inside WhatsApp.
Can I keep my WhatsApp number if I switch from Interakt? Usually, yes. Meta allows a WhatsApp Business API number to be migrated between providers. Our Interakt alternative guide walks through the steps, including two-step verification and template re-approval.
