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The website channel is a chat widget you paste onto your own site. A visitor opens it, types, and a conversation appears in the Inbox alongside WhatsApp and Instagram — same contacts, same automations, same AI agents. Unlike the other two channels there is no third party in the middle. Watx is the transport, which is why the rules are different.

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What the widget does

  • A launcher in the corner of every page, with your colour, icon and shape.
  • An opening message and an optional teaser bubble that appears after a delay.
  • Live chat with your team, updating without a page refresh in both directions.
  • AI replies, when you switch them on, using your agent’s knowledge.
  • Buttons and list choices as real tappable controls, because the widget is the UI.
  • File uploads from the visitor, and from your team in the Inbox.
  • Typing indicators and read receipts, both ways.
  • Conversation history that survives a page reload and a return visit.
  • A pre-chat screen that collects details before the first message.
  • Business hours, with an offline form or a plain “we’re away” message outside them.

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How it differs from the other channels

There is no reply window. Nobody imposes a re-engagement rule, so a conversation never closes on you and there is nothing to re-open with a template. The Inbox composer shows no window banner on a web conversation. There are no broadcasts, and cannot be. A visitor is only reachable while their tab is open, so there is no audience to send to. This is also why a contact who exists only on the website cannot be messaged out of the blue. Delivery ticks are honest here. The message either reached the visitor’s open connection or it did not — unlike WhatsApp, which reports Meta’s opinion, and Instagram, which reports nothing.
Flows are WhatsApp-only. Website chats run on automations, which work on every channel and skip the individual steps a channel cannot do.

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How a visitor becomes a contact

The widget mints an anonymous visitor identity in the browser and keeps it, so somebody who asked a question yesterday comes back to the same thread rather than an empty box. That is the resume path, and it is the common case — most widget loads are a returning visitor. When the visitor gives you a phone number — through the built-in pre-chat screen or a form you chose — Watx looks for an existing contact with that number and uses it. Somebody who already reached you on WhatsApp and then types the same number into the widget is one contact, not two.
The widget is public and unauthenticated, so everything a visitor types is an unverified claim. Details they give only ever fill blank fields on a contact — nothing a teammate has entered is overwritten, and no existing name, email or phone is changed.
If your own site has logged-in users, you can have your server vouch for who a visitor is, so a stranger cannot claim to be one of your customers and read their chat history. A misconfigured signature degrades to an anonymous chat rather than breaking the widget.

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Where things live

Install the widget

Allowed domains, the snippet, and how the channel goes live.

Widget settings

Colour, launcher, wording, AI replies and branding, with a live preview.

Behaviour

Pre-chat form, business hours, and what happens when you are away.

Sessions and analytics

Where your web chats came from, and how the channel is performing.
Hosted forms and booking pages sit under the same panel. They are not part of the widget — a form link works just as well sent over WhatsApp — but they are the two things most often built alongside one.