WhatsApp Groups

Who can use this?

• Accounts with Groups enabled. It’s currently in Alpha — if you don’t see it, talk to your Gallabox account manager or support to have it turned on.
• Roles: anyone who can manage WhatsApp, Instagram and Web channels (Owners and Admins by default) can create and manage groups. Agents can read and reply in the group conversation from the Inbox.

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Plan Availability

Groups is an Alpha feature and is enabled per account. Once it’s on, you’ll find it in the left navigation under Assets → Groups (Alpha).

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What Is a WhatsApp Group in Gallabox?

A WhatsApp Group in Gallabox is a small, business-owned group chat that you create from your WhatsApp Business number — not from a phone. Your business number is the group Admin, and up to 8 customers can join. Everything that happens in the group — messages, joins, exits, join requests — lands in a single group conversation in your Inbox, so your team replies to the whole group in one place. This is very different from a Broadcast. A Broadcast sends the same message to many people in separate, private conversations. A Group puts everyone in one shared conversation where members can see and reply to each other.

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Before You Start

1. A connected and Verified WhatsApp channel. Groups are created on a specific WhatsApp number. If you have several, you’ll pick one when you create the group. 2. Groups enabled on your account. It’s Alpha — support switches it on. 3. The right permission. You need the channel management permission to create groups, change settings, remove members, or delete a group. 4. An approved template for invites. To invite a contact from Gallabox you send them a WhatsApp template containing the group’s invite link. Have one approved in Assets → Templates before you start — a template with at least one body variable works best, because Gallabox drops the invite link straight into it.

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Create a Group

1. Go to Assets → Groups (Alpha) and click Create Group.
2. Pick the WhatsApp Channel the group should belong to.
3. Enter a Group Name — up to 128 characters. This is what members see at the top of the chat.
4. Choose Approval Required:
   • Permission — an admin has to approve every person who tries to join through the invite link.
   • Auto — anyone with the invite link joins instantly, no approval needed.
5. Click Create Group.

Gallabox asks WhatsApp to create the group and waits for confirmation, which usually takes a few seconds. When it’s done you’ll see Group created successfully along with the group’s Invite Link, ready to copy. From there you can Send Invite straight away, or Go to Group to open the group’s detail page.

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Invite People to the Group

You can’t silently add someone to a WhatsApp group — WhatsApp requires people to join themselves. So inviting always means getting the invite link in front of them. There are two ways to do it.

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Send an invite from Gallabox

1. Open the group and click Send Invite (also available right after you create a group).
2. Search and pick up to 8 contacts. Each contact needs a phone number or a WhatsApp identifier on file.
3. Click the template picker, choose an approved template, and fill in its variables. Gallabox automatically fills the group’s invite link into the first empty body variable.
4. Click Send.

Invites are queued and sent as normal WhatsApp template messages. Each contact you invite is billed as a template message.

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Share the link yourself

Open the group → Settings → Invite Link → Copy. Paste it anywhere you like — a broadcast, an email, your website, a support reply.

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Approve or Decline Join Requests

This applies to groups created with Permission approval. When someone taps your invite link, they appear as a pending join request. You’ll see them in two places:

• At the top of the group conversation in the Inbox, as a Pending Join Requests card with Approve and Decline buttons.
• In the contact panel on the right of the group conversation, with a Review button that takes you to the group.

Approve, and they join and appear under Active Members. Decline, and the request is dismissed — they can request again later with the same link.

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Manage Members

Open a group and go to the Members tab. Members are grouped into three lists: To remove someone, hover their row and click the remove icon, then confirm. They’re moved to Past Members and can re-join later if they still have a working invite link. Contact names are shown wherever Gallabox recognises the number as one of your contacts; otherwise you’ll see the phone number.

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Message the Group

Every group has one conversation in your Inbox — open it from the group’s View Conversation button, or find it in the conversation list. Replies work as usual. Type in the composer and send. Everyone in the group receives the message, and every member’s reply appears in the same thread, labelled with who sent it. Delivery status is aggregated. Because a group message goes to several people, the tick beside your message reflects the whole group — it moves to delivered once it’s delivered, and to read once it’s been read, across recipients. Mentions. When a member mentions someone with @, Gallabox shows the mention with the contact’s name where it can resolve it. Pin important messages. Hover any message in a group conversation and click the pin icon, then choose how long the pin should last — 1 day, 7 days, or 30 days. You can pin up to 3 messages at a time; unpin one to make room. Pinned messages are visible to everyone in the group. The 24-hour window applies here too. Like any WhatsApp conversation, a group has a service window that reopens each time a member sends a message. Outside it, send an approved template to start the conversation again.

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Group Settings

Open a group and go to the Settings tab. Changes are sent to WhatsApp and confirmed in the background, so a rename may take a few seconds to appear for members.

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Group Statuses

You’ll see a status against each group in the list. Use the status filter and search at the top of the Groups page to find what you need, and the channel selector to switch between WhatsApp numbers.

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What a Group Costs

Group messaging is billed the same way as any other WhatsApp conversation — per delivered message, per recipient. That means sending one template to a group of 8 members counts as 8 charges, not one. A group of 8 is roughly 8× the cost of the same message to a single contact, so groups are for small, high-value cohorts rather than reach. Invite templates are billed the same way — one charge per contact you invite.

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Limits at a Glance

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What You Can’t Do (Yet)

Meta limitations — platform rules that apply no matter what Gallabox does:

• A group holds a maximum of 8 customers. This is far smaller than a personal WhatsApp group.
• You can’t add someone directly — they have to join via the invite link themselves.
• Approval mode can’t be changed after the group is created.
• WhatsApp limits how many groups a number can create, and may temporarily disable group creation for a number that creates too many.
• Group photos must be square and at least 192 × 192 pixels.
• A suspended group can’t be messaged until WhatsApp clears the suspension.

Gallabox limitations — product gaps we’re working on:

• Groups are WhatsApp only. Instagram and Web Chat aren’t supported.
• Bots, AI Agents, Broadcasts, and Sequences don’t run on group conversations — group replies are handled by your team in the Inbox.
• Members can only be invited from your existing Gallabox contacts, or by sharing the invite link manually.
• There’s no bulk group creation or bulk invite import.
• A per-group cost breakdown isn’t surfaced in the app yet — group message spend appears in your regular WhatsApp usage.

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Example

Scenario: Nova Interiors runs a premium design service and wants a shared chat for each project.

1. The project lead goes to Assets → Groups (Alpha) → Create Group, picks the studio’s WhatsApp number, names it Sharma Residence — Living Room, and chooses Permission so nobody wanders in from a forwarded link.
2. The group is created and the invite link appears. The lead clicks Send Invite, selects the three people on the client’s side, picks the approved project_group_invite template, and sends. The invite link is filled in automatically.
3. Two clients tap the link. They show up as Pending Join Requests at the top of the group conversation in the Inbox. The lead clicks Approve for both.
4. The designer shares mood boards in the group. She pins the final approved layout for 30 days so nobody scrolls back looking for it.
5. When the project wraps, the lead opens Settings → Delete group.

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FAQs

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Note

• Ask support to enable Groups (Alpha) if you don’t see it under Assets.
• Start with one small pilot group — a VIP cohort or a live project — before rolling groups out across your team.