| If you need | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Answers from your catalog and FAQ, or simple actions on an API you already run | Meta Business Agent | Set up inside Meta's tools. It bills per agent message from the first one, about 4 to 5 US cents each by Meta's estimate. Meta does not offer it to health, finance or government businesses. |
| One company number, a shared inbox, broadcasts and leads into Salesforce | Mindcat Inbox | From AED/SAR 89 per agent a month, hosted in the UAE or the Kingdom. People answer; there is no AI reply in Inbox today. |
| An agent where the work already lives in Salesforce | Agentforce on WhatsApp | Agentforce Service Agent runs on Salesforce's enhanced WhatsApp channel. Arabic is in Beta in Agentforce, so we test it on your messages first. |
| An agent that writes to an ERP, a Mindcat app or several systems | A custom agent | A model chosen per step, your rules in one gateway, and hosting where your data has to be. |
WhatsApp for UAE and Saudi teams
Your customers write on WhatsApp at 10 pm. Answer, book and write it down before morning.
Mindcat sets up WhatsApp for teams in the UAE and Saudi Arabia: one company number, a shared inbox, and an AI agent that answers in Arabic and English, books the slot and writes it to Salesforce, Mindcat Inbox or your ERP. A person takes over when the agent is unsure. Meta’s fees stay on your own Meta account, at cost.
Works with the WhatsApp Business Platform. Your number, your Meta account.
Where customers slip away
Four ways Gulf teams lose customers on WhatsApp.
What it looks like
The agent answers, books, and writes it down.
Most WhatsApp bots stop at the reply. The record is the part that pays: the lead with its budget, the booking on the calendar, the order confirmed in the ERP.
On WhatsApp, the brokerage’s company number · 9:42 pm
- BuyerHi, is the 2-bed in JVC from Property Finder still available?
- AgentYes, it is. AED 95,000 a year, unfurnished. Are you moving this month or later?
- BuyerNext month. Budget up to 100k. Can I see it Saturday?
- AgentSaturday has 11:00 or 16:30. Which one suits you?
- Buyer11
- WrittenLead updated: budget AED 100,000, move-in next month, viewing Saturday 11:00
- HandoffRania, the listing agent, takes the chat for the viewing
Salesforce · Lead
JVC 2-bed enquiry
- Source
- Property Finder, then WhatsApp
- Budget
- AED 100,000 a year
- Move-in
- Next month
- Viewing
- Saturday 11:00
- Owner
- Rania (listing agent)
- First reply
- Under a minute, at 9:42 pm
What Gulf brands report
Gulf brands already sell here. Meta published their numbers.
From Meta’s own success stories, checked on 10 October 2026. Each figure is the brand’s own report, and none of these brands is a Mindcat client.
Three ways in
Start with the door that matches your week.
Which path
Agent, inbox, or Meta’s own agent.
Sometimes we are not the answer. If the job is mostly answers and you are not a clinic, a finance business or a government body, Meta’s own agent is the faster start.
The window and the bill
Free inside the window, until the 1,001st reply.
How Meta charges depends on who spoke last and how the chat started. Three ways a conversation starts, and what each part costs since 1 October 2026.
The customer writes first
- Inside 24 hoursYour replies
- First 1,000 a month on each number are free
- Then USD 0.0157 each to a UAE number, 0.0107 to a Saudi one
- Inside 24 hoursA utility template
- Charged even inside the window since 1 October 2026
- After 24 hoursTemplates only
- Free-form replies stop
- Each template is charged by its type
The customer taps your ad
- Up to 7 daysThe free entry window
- Replies and templates are free while it is open
- Meta Business Agent messages are still charged
- After it closesNormal rules
- Back to the 24-hour window and templates
You write first
- Any timeA marketing template
- USD 0.0576 to a UAE or Saudi number
- Only to people who opted in
- Any timeA utility template
- Order, booking or delivery updates
- Promotional wording moves it to marketing
What a message costs
Meta’s fees, at cost, on your account.
Meta charges per delivered message, by the country of the customer's number. What your customers send you is free. Rates since 1 October 2026, checked on 10 October 2026.
| Customer's number | Marketing template | Utility, authentication or reply |
|---|---|---|
| United Arab Emirates | USD 0.0576 (AED 0.2115) | USD 0.0157 (AED 0.0576) |
| Saudi Arabia | USD 0.0576 (SAR 0.2159) | USD 0.0107 (SAR 0.0401) |
| Kuwait | USD 0.0792 | USD 0.044 |
Each business number gets 1,000 free replies a month inside customers' 24-hour windows. Since 1 October 2026, utility templates are charged even inside the window. Three short bubbles for one answer are three messages once the free replies run out. Meta's pricing page.
Rules we build in
Built so your number stays yours.
How long it takes
One week for answers. Up to six when it takes actions.
| Scope | What it does | Build time, first job | Build price, first job |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answers and handoff | Answers from your content, buttons, handoff to a person, the lead written to your CRM | About 1 week | From AED/SAR 25,000 (USD 6,807.35) |
| Agent with integrations | Grounded answers, reads and writes in one or two systems, a human inbox | 3 to 4 weeks | From AED/SAR 75,000 (USD 20,422.06) |
| Agent that takes actions, plus follow-ups | Bookings, payments, CRM or ERP writes, follow-up messages, Arabic and English, reporting | 5 to 6 weeks | From AED/SAR 120,000 (USD 32,675.29) |
The build price is one job, one system it writes to and one person it hands over to, quoted in writing from your brief. Meta’s message fees and the model calls are extra, at cost. Extra work is AED/SAR 900 an hour.
Most of the calendar is Meta's business verification and access to your systems, not code. Add one to two weeks when the agent writes bookings or payments. These are our delivery estimates for one or two builders, not published benchmarks.
Where your data lives
Hosted where your data has to be.
| What | Where it can live |
|---|---|
| Mindcat apps (Inbox, Bookings, Clinic and the rest) | In the UAE, in Jeddah or Riyadh, or on your own servers. You pick before go-live. |
| Salesforce | Hyperforce runs in 18 countries. The UAE is one; Saudi Arabia is not yet. New UAE trial orgs can land in the EU, so we check your org's region before you sign. |
| Messages in transit | Through Meta's Cloud API on your own WhatsApp Business Account. |
| Model calls | Named per step in the plan, with the region of each provider written down. |
Saudi personal data law covers people in the Kingdom even when the work is done from Dubai, so a Saudi pilot gets the same map. The rules page has the sources.
Read next
Go deeper on the part you are deciding.
FAQ
Straight answers.
- How much does a WhatsApp agent cost to run?
- Two parts. Meta’s message fees, which sit on your own Meta account at cost: 1,000 free replies a month on each number, then a fee per reply, and utility templates charged inside the window since 1 October 2026. Then the model calls, which we price from the pilot’s own log rather than a list price. The build is one-time: from AED/SAR 25,000 for an answers agent, 75,000 with integrations and 120,000 when it takes actions. The cost calculator works out the Meta part for your volumes.
- Can it answer in Arabic?
- Yes, in Arabic and English. Before go-live we run a test set of your own customers’ messages, with Gulf dialects and Arabic written in Latin letters, and fix what it gets wrong. Agentforce’s Arabic is still in Beta at Salesforce, so we test it the same way.
- Can we keep our current number?
- Usually. If the number runs on the WhatsApp Business app, Meta’s coexistence setup keeps the app working and syncs about six months of chats to the API. If the number sits with a provider, we move it to your own account. If it sits on a staff member’s personal phone, we move the work to a company number first.
- Does it work with Salesforce?
- Yes. Agentforce Service runs WhatsApp in the console, Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud send on it, and a custom agent can write to any Salesforce object. The Salesforce page explains which product does what.
- Does it connect to our store, DMS, clinic system or ATS?
- Shopify, Salla, Zid, Greenhouse, Workable and Zoho Recruit have open APIs, so they are part of the build. Property portals, dealer systems and clinic systems need the vendor’s sign-off, so we start that request the day the scope is signed. The AI agents page lists which is which.
- Can a Saudi bank use it?
- Not on WhatsApp. SAMA tells the institutions it supervises not to use WhatsApp with customers and to consider chat inside their own app or website. We build that agent instead.
- Is an AI agent allowed under Meta’s rules?
- Yes, for an agent that serves your own customers about your own business. Meta’s terms bar general-purpose AI assistants from the platform, so every agent we build stays on your business.
The brief · one email
Name the job, the number and the system.
The honest no: if the work is a software factory with a named delivery date, we are the wrong partner.