WhatsApp automation templates: what the premade recipes do

Open a blank automation canvas and the cursor blinks at you. You know you want "something that sends a reminder before an appointment", but you don't yet know which trigger to pick, what happens if the customer taps Reschedule, or what to do with a cancelled booking.

That gap is why we ship premade recipes. In the Avox library there are 34 premade WhatsApp automation templates today, sorted into five groups: Sales and leads (11), Bookings (8), Support (7), Engagement (6) and Opening hours (2). Each one is a real trigger plus a short, editable chain of steps. It's a head start, not a finished product, and we'll be plain about where the edges are.

This isn't a ranking. It's a tour of the recipes we'd read first, and what makes each one worth a look before you build your own. (If you want the basics of how premades work, our earlier post on premade automations covers that. Here we go a layer deeper.)

How to read the premade WhatsApp automation templates

In the dashboard, open AI Automation and look for Start from a premade, or click Library to see them all with search and the five filter chips. A few things on each card save you a surprise later:

• A credit line. It shows the most one run can cost, such as "Up to 2 credits a run" or "Free to run". That number is the costliest path through the recipe's branches. Credits are what automations spend on sends, and they are separate from what Meta charges; the credits guide has the details.
• "Uses your tables" and "Uses a connected app." These tell you the recipe reads or writes table rows, or calls an app such as a payments tool.
• What it needs. If the recipe wants something your Switchboard lacks, the card says so, with a link to fix it: an approved template, calling turned on, a published Flow, a table made from a premade table, or a connected app. You can still create the automation; it just can't be switched on until the missing piece exists.
• Preview the chat. It plays the recipe as a WhatsApp conversation with sample values, customer side and your side, before anything is live.

That last one is the feature we'd use first. Reading a chain of steps tells you what a recipe is supposed to do. Watching the chat tells you how it will feel to the customer.

The booking chain

Eight recipes sit in the Bookings group, and most of them are designed to work together around one table: the premade Appointments table.

• Booking confirmation from your calendar starts when a row is added to Appointments, whether it came from a Flow, the API or you typing it in. It sends a confirmation template with the service, day, time and booking number.
• Reminder a day before each booking fires at the booking's own time, a day earlier, in your time zone. The message carries Confirm and Reschedule buttons. Confirm marks the row Confirmed; Reschedule tells your team. The button text is matched in English and in Hindi, and cancelled bookings are skipped.
• Reminder an hour before each booking is the short version. It also skips cancelled bookings, and a booking added less than an hour ahead doesn't get a late reminder, which is the kind of thing you only think of after it has annoyed someone.
• Booking cancelled message starts when a row's status becomes Cancelled, tells the customer with a template and lets your team know.
• Change or cancel a booking starts when a customer writes "reschedule" or "cancel booking". It asks for the booking number, finds it in the table (it must have been booked on that customer's own number, so nobody can cancel a stranger's slot), then either cancels it or asks for a new time and alerts your team.
• Payment link after a booking looks up the service's price in a Services and prices table, makes a payment link in your connected payments app and sends it. It needs one of those apps connected.

Because they share a table, you change a status in one place and the right message follows. The recipes that send templates are matched to ready-written ones in the Avox template library, so you submit them to Meta and wait for approval, rather than writing from scratch. Templates can be sent outside the 24-hour window; Meta's pricing page describes how that works and what it costs as of October 2026, so check it before you plan volume.

Three that are smaller than they look

Event seats with a waitlist. A customer asks to book a seat. The recipe asks which event, finds it in an Events and seats table, adds one to the Booked count and confirms with a template. When the event is full, it undoes the count, puts the customer on a waitlist, tells them, and notifies your team. Counting seats is the part that's easy to get subtly wrong by hand.

Low stock alert. When an item in your Stock table drops to its "Reorder at" level, your team gets a notification and Admins get an email. It alerts once per drop, not on every change, and it's free to run because it sends nothing to customers.

Lead qualifier. It files a new lead under the Lead category, asks for a budget with three answer buttons, saves the answer, and moves them to Qualified. If they don't answer, it sends a gentle "reply any time" note instead of nagging. It costs up to 3 credits a run.

Opening hours and re-engagement

Out of hours away message replies at once outside your hours, tags the contact, waits 12 hours and then tells them you're open. The wait is chosen on purpose: it stays inside WhatsApp's 24-hour window, so the follow-up is a normal message and not a template.

Re-engagement with a template starts when you tag a contact "re_engage". It sends an approved template, because that's what works after the window has closed, swaps the tag for "re_engaged", then waits 12 hours. A reply notifies your team; silence files them under Dormant. If you have no approved template yet, the card offers Create one from the Avox library, pre-filled as "We miss you".

Where the recipes are honest about being a head start

We'd rather you hear this from us. Several recipes ship with placeholders that you must replace before switching them on:

• Bracketed text in replies, such as the pricing link in the FAQ: pricing questions recipe.
• https://example.com links, including the booking page in Booking & appointment inquiry and the webhook address in Lead to CRM via webhook.
• The Share your store location recipe carries sample coordinates and an address that aren't yours.
• VIP tag follow-up sends a thank-you offer with a discount written into the message. Edit that line to something you actually offer.

None of this is hidden. It's in the steps, in plain text, where you'll find it when you open the recipe.

Questions people ask

Do I need Avox AI (Beta) to use these?

Premade recipes live on the AI Automation page, and automations are the rule-based part of Avox AI (Beta), which is still in beta. Your plan sets how many automations you can have and how many credits you get each month.

Can I change a recipe after I create it?

Yes. A premade fills the creation wizard in and opens it at the name step so you can review everything, and in the builder you can edit any step. You can also insert a recipe's steps into an automation you're already building, from the Premade group in the Actions panel.

What if a recipe needs a table I don't have?

The card says which premade table it expects and offers Create it, which makes the table with example rows for you to replace with your own.

Next step

Open the Library, pick the Bookings chip and click Preview the chat on "Reminder a day before each booking". If the conversation reads the way you'd say it, create it. If not, you've lost two minutes and learned what to change.