Channel
A channel is the live link between your account and Instagram or WhatsApp. It also decides which triggers and steps are available to you.
Last updated: September 30, 2026
Loading…
A channel is the live link between your account and Instagram or WhatsApp. It also decides which triggers and steps are available to you.
Last updated: September 30, 2026
A channel is the live link an account keeps with Instagram or WhatsApp. Messages reach {{brand.name}}, replies reach the customer and automations fire over that link. When a channel breaks, the account stays in the panel but nothing comes in and nothing goes out.
💡 Do not confuse the channel with the account: the account is the box the data sits in, and the channel is the cable connecting that box to the outside world.
{{brand.name}} works with two channel types today:
An account carries one type only. To run both Instagram and WhatsApp you connect two separate accounts, and both can live in the same portfolio.
There are two channel types but three ways to connect:
The two Instagram paths run on separate Meta apps, and permission approval is granted per app. That is why changing the connection path can also change who is able to message your account. The detailed comparison lives in the Connecting accounts section.
The health of the connection is shown on the account's Settings › Connection page and as a badge in account lists:
⚠️ Note: renewing a connection loses no data. Sign back in with the same Instagram account or the same WhatsApp number and your conversations, contacts and flows stay exactly as they were.
Settings › Connection varies by channel type.
The identity of the connected account, the permissions granted, the state of the access token and your conversation entry points (the links that start a chat with your account) are all here. You can also switch the connection path from this page.
Alongside the number's identity and the business profile, the page shows the status information Meta provides:
The channel is not only the route a message takes; it also decides which options exist in a flow. An option with no counterpart never appears in the menu, because choosing it would produce an automation that never runs, with no way of seeing why.
Options already saved in a flow are never removed: if an account's channel changes, the old option stays where it is, the pre-publish check warns you, and you decide what to do.
Text and button limits are the channel's own rules, and they are not the same:
| Measure | ||
|---|---|---|
| Text | 1,000 (bytes) | 4,096 characters |
| Text with buttons | 1,000 (bytes) | 1,024 characters |
| Maximum buttons | 13 | 3 |
| Button label | 20 characters | 20 characters |
The Instagram limit counts bytes: accented letters take 2 and emoji take 4. WhatsApp counts characters. The counter in the editor works this out for you, and if your account has more than one channel type it shows the tightest limit.
From the moment someone writes to you, you have 24 hours in which you can send free-form messages. Once it expires, only an approved template goes out on WhatsApp, and nothing at all goes out on Instagram. This is a restriction on Meta's side and applies to every tool that uses their API.
👉 For the detail, see Conversations and the 24-hour window.
When you see the Reconnect required badge, do this in order:
Messages arriving while the connection was down never reach {{brand.name}}, and that period cannot be recovered afterwards. Treat connection warnings as urgent.
Keep the channel healthy and the rest of the panel takes care of itself; once it breaks, no other setting matters.
Was this article helpful?