Frequently Asked Questions

More. The AI employee is the front door — it answers your customers 24/7 in their own language — and behind it is a mini-CRM: every lead who shares a number is saved as Hot or Cold with an instant alert, followed up by email or SMS (an add-on), assigned to your staff, and tracked in a simple funnel. It also books appointments with reminders, has team logins with tasks and attendance (an add-on), a notebook-style Business Diary for daily accounts, and a dashboard you can install on your phone. Some business types get their own tools too: table QR codes for restaurants, place QR codes and a daily meal count (to cook for the real number and waste less food) for a mess. Chatsettu is updated regularly with what clients ask for.

No. You get a share link and a QR code that work on their own — put the link in your WhatsApp Business "About", Instagram bio, or print the QR code at your counter. If you do have a website, you can also embed a chat widget in one line of code.

About 5-10 minutes for most businesses. Pick your industry, give your business details (a website link, a PDF, or just type it in), and your AI employee is ready to share.

Chatsettu has 15 industry-specific behaviors built in — clinics, restaurants, mess / tiffin / catering services, hotels, gyms, salons, colleges, admission consultancies, real estate, travel, legal, e-commerce, printing, digital marketing agencies, and IoT/smart device brands. If yours isn't an exact match, "General" business type still works well.

No. Everything is done from your dashboard — no code, except pasting one line to embed the widget on your own website (copy-paste, not written by you).

Yes, anytime. Add new URLs, upload new PDFs or images, or type in new information from the Edit Agent page. Existing knowledge stays safe — new knowledge is added on top of it, never replacing what's already there.

Yes. No contracts, no lock-in, and nothing auto-renews — you only pay when you choose to recharge or add an add-on. To close your account, email chatsettu@gmail.com and your data is removed within 30 days.

It automatically detects and replies in whichever language the customer types in — Hindi, English, Hinglish, and several other Indian languages (Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, and more) — with zero setup.

No — it only answers from the information you've given it (your website, documents, or typed knowledge). If it genuinely doesn't know something, it says so honestly and offers to connect the customer with your team, instead of guessing.

Instead of dumping the whole list, it asks one short question to narrow things down first (like a real salesperson would) — category, budget, or what the customer is looking for — then shows only the matching items.

A website URL (it reads the page automatically), a PDF, Word, or Excel file, an image (it extracts text from photos), a Google Sheet (auto-syncs weekly, so you edit the sheet, not your dashboard), or just typing information directly.

Only the first 500 rows of a single sheet sync are used — this is a deliberate per-sync cap, not a bug. You'll see a clear message telling you exactly how many rows were used if your sheet goes over. If you genuinely have more data, don't link a second Google Sheet — syncing a new sheet fully replaces the previous one's content rather than adding to it. Instead, trim the sheet down to your most important 500 rows, or add the overflow as a separate PDF/Excel upload or typed text (those combine with your knowledge base rather than replacing anything). Note that this 500-row cap is separate from (not a carve-out from) your plan's overall Knowledge Base Entries limit — a synced sheet's content counts toward that total the same as any other source.

It lets your AI employee check real availability and confirm a booking directly inside the chat, instead of only capturing the enquiry for your team to call back. Turn it on from Edit Agent → Enable appointment booking, then set your working hours (per day), slot length, and how many bookings can share one slot (e.g. number of chairs, doctors, or trainers).

It checks your real, live availability (never guesses), offers the customer genuinely open times, and confirms the slot the moment they agree — showing up instantly on your Appointments dashboard page with an email alert to you.

It doesn't sync with an external calendar like Google Calendar — availability is calculated from the hours and capacity you set inside Chatsettu. It doesn't send WhatsApp reminders. Reminders go by email (if the customer shared one), and by SMS too once you've set up your own DLT registration from the Appointments page. It doesn't collect payment or a deposit — your team handles that after the booking is confirmed.

No — bookings are checked and confirmed atomically, so a slot can never be booked past the capacity you've set, even if two customers try at the exact same moment.

Yes — each day of the week has its own hours and open/closed toggle, so something like "Sunday half-day, Monday closed" is a normal setup, not a workaround.

The toggle is available for every agent regardless of industry — gyms, clinics, salons, restaurants, and beyond. It's most naturally suited to businesses that take slot-based bookings (appointments, trials, tables, site visits, consultations).

It never invents an answer to sound helpful. Instead, the customer sees a "Talk to a human" option right in the same chat window — one tap, and you get an instant email notification.

From your dashboard's Live Conversations page — you reply directly, and it appears in the customer's chat window within seconds. They never have to repeat what they already told the AI.

The opposite, actually — research on customer support design consistently shows people engage more with an AI assistant, not less, when they know a real person is available as backup. It's also honest: the AI never pretends to be a human.

If a handoff request goes unanswered for 24 hours, it's automatically flagged, so a customer is never left waiting indefinitely because a notification got missed.

Not directly inside the WhatsApp app — your customers' chats don't run on the WhatsApp Business API. Instead, you get a share link and QR code you can put in your WhatsApp Business "About" section, status, or Instagram bio. A customer taps or scans it and starts chatting with your AI employee on its own page. We chose this deliberately — the WhatsApp Business API is heavier to set up, has its own per-conversation cost, and Meta has been tightening what third-party AI tools can do inside it. WhatsApp is used in one way only: the optional WhatsApp Lead Alerts add-on sends a message to your own number when a lead arrives (see Notifications).

Yes — the share link and QR code don't need one. This is exactly why they exist: plenty of small businesses in India don't have a website and shouldn't need one just to give customers an instant way to ask questions.

Yes — the share link works well as your Instagram/Facebook bio link, in a story, or as the destination link on a Facebook/Instagram/Google ad, with no separate landing page needed.

Yes — your dashboard shows a breakdown of visitors by widget, share link, QR code, or API, so you know which channel is actually working before investing more effort into it.

It shows up on your Leads page immediately, marked Hot or Cold based on genuine buying intent, with an instant email alert (and a phone notification if you've turned them on). From there you can mark it contacted/closed, assign it to a staff member, or set up automatic follow-up for it.

Yes — from the Leads page, upload a CSV or Excel file with Name/Phone/Email columns (any order). They're added as leads under whichever agent you pick, and become eligible for automatic follow-up exactly like a lead captured through chat.

A paid add-on (₹299/year, 500 email credits included) that automatically re-contacts a lead who hasn't been marked as handled — by default at day 1, day 3, and day 7, worded around your industry. You can customize the wording, timing, and which steps are active from the Follow-up Automation settings page.

Yes, as an option. Email works the moment you enable it — no extra setup. SMS needs your own DLT (Distributed Ledger) registration first, since TRAI requires every commercial SMS to be registered under the sending business's own GST, not Chatsettu's. Write your SMS wording, Chatsettu reviews it for spam/abuse, then you register that same wording on your own DLT platform (a one-time step, usually a day or two for approval) before it goes live. SMS credits are sold separately from email — from ₹149 for 300 SMS — since an SMS has a real per-message cost that email doesn't.

Yes — from the Leads page, each lead's follow-up can be set to email, SMS, or both, independent of the account-wide default.

Yes — each step in your follow-up sequence has an optional "only on these days" setting. Leave it blank and it sends every day (the normal behavior); check specific weekdays and that step only fires on those days.

No — the moment you mark a lead as contacted or closed, all automatic follow-up for that lead stops immediately, on every channel.

Yes — click a lead's name on the Leads page to open its Lead 360° view: contact details, the full chat, appointments they booked, follow-ups already sent, and any tasks linked to them. It only gathers what Chatsettu already has; nothing new is collected.

The Analytics page shows a real funnel per agent — conversations → leads → bookings — plus conversion percentages at each step, so you know how well your AI employee is genuinely performing.

The Ad Planner is free with every plan (Tools → Ad Planner). It has two parts. (1) Tracking: create an ad, get its own Chatsettu link and QR, use that as the ad's destination, and type in what you spend. Chatsettu counts the leads that came through that link or QR and shows leads, hot leads and your cost per lead. This is not limited. (2) AI plan: tell it which agent it is for, your goal (enquiries, walk-ins, bookings or orders), your city, what you sell and your monthly budget; it reads your agent's knowledge and suggests platforms, how to split the budget, ready-to-use ad texts, Google search words and a posting calendar in Hindi, Hinglish or English. Because each AI plan costs us a little, you get 3 a month on Starter, 10 on Pro and 20 on Agency. A Launch Guide tab explains, step by step, how to put the ad live on Instagram, Facebook, Google Search, YouTube, WhatsApp Status or a printed poster, and what to check after a few days; it is never limited. It does not run ads for you and cannot see your Meta or Google account, so the spend is whatever you type in. A lead is counted only when the customer used that ad's link or QR and shared a phone number. The plans are suggestions, not a promise of results, and you should check every ad against the platform's rules.

Yes, free on every plan. In your dashboard open Tools → Phone Notifications, tap "Turn on for this device" and allow notifications when your phone asks. You can then be alerted when a new lead arrives, when a customer asks for a human (and when they reply in that chat), when someone books an appointment, when a customer sends you a file, when your messages are running low, and — for a mess — the daily plate count after each meal's cut-off. You choose what to be told about. Live-chat alerts need a plan with Human Handoff, and appointment alerts need appointment booking switched on. Your email alerts keep working as before — they remain the reliable record, and phone alerts are an extra that depends on your phone and internet connection.

Yes — Meal Check-in, for Mess / Tiffin agents. In the dashboard, click "🍽️ Meals" on your mess agent, add your members, and share the check-in link or QR with them. Before each meal's cut-off (you choose the time, for example 4 PM for dinner), members type their mobile number and tap "I'll eat" (with up to 5 guests) or "Skip". A minute after the cut-off you get one message — so you can cook for the real number and waste less food — — for example "Today Dinner: 70 plates (66 eating · 20 skipping · 4 guests)" — by email and phone notification, and on WhatsApp if you have turned on WhatsApp alerts (each WhatsApp summary uses one alert credit). You choose whether members who do not answer count as eating or not, and you can ask for a 4-digit PIN. Chatsettu does not remind members — you tell them the cut-off. There is no AI in it, so it does not use your message balance.

It saves the mess owner's daily cost, not the student's fee. The fee stays the same, but every day the owner spends on rice, vegetables, gas and cook time. If 15 of 80 members are away for a dinner, cooking for 65 instead of 80 means less raw material and fuel used and less food thrown away — and those days add up over a month. It also ends "I told you I am not eating" arguments and shows which meals are usually lighter, so the week can be planned. What the owner does with the saving is their choice (some give a small credit for skipped meals). Chatsettu gives the count; it never changes anyone's fee, and we do not promise a fixed saving because it depends on the mess. It works for private messes, PGs, hostel messes, company canteens and tiffin services.

Yes — with the optional WhatsApp Lead Alerts add-on. In your dashboard open Tools → WhatsApp Lead Alerts, save your own mobile number, tick the consent box, and switch it on. From then on, when a new lead arrives you also get a short WhatsApp message on that number (the lead's name, phone number and a one-line summary). It is a one-way alert to you only — Chatsettu never sends WhatsApp messages to your customers, and you cannot reply to it. Because WhatsApp charges per message, alerts run on credit packs — ₹149 for 500 alerts or ₹299 for 1,200 — 1 credit per alert, credits never expire, and a credit is only used when WhatsApp actually accepts the message (the same alert is also sent by email, which stays the reliable record). Mess and tiffin owners using Meal Check-in can get the daily plate count on WhatsApp too.

Only a short line: a lead's name (and the table number for a restaurant), an appointment time, or "a customer is waiting in live chat". Never a phone number, an email address or a chat message — those you see after tapping the notification and opening your dashboard. Notifications are also encrypted on their way to your phone.

Yes, without any app store. On Android (Chrome), tap Install on the banner at the top of your dashboard, or choose "Install app" from the browser menu. On iPhone (Safari), tap the Share button, then "Add to Home Screen". It opens straight to your dashboard and keeps you signed in for 7 days. It needs an internet connection — nothing private is stored on the phone, so if it's lost or shared, your leads and chats aren't sitting on it.

Yes, on iOS 16.4 or newer, once Chatsettu has been added to your Home Screen (Safari → Share → Add to Home Screen). Open Chatsettu from that icon, then turn notifications on from Tools → Phone Notifications. In a normal Safari tab, iPhone doesn't allow website notifications.

Signing out stops alerts on that device, so a shared or borrowed phone doesn't keep getting your business's alerts. Sign in again and turn notifications back on for that device. Your other signed-in devices are not affected.

A paid add-on (₹999/year) that lets you add staff accounts with their own separate login — completely apart from your own owner login — so your team can help out without ever seeing your full dashboard, billing, or every lead.

Only three things: the tasks you've assigned them, a simple clock in/out for attendance, and any leads you've specifically handed to them. They never see your other leads, your other agents' settings, billing, or analytics.

Anything — not just leads. Assign a task like "post today's Instagram story" or "call back this customer" to a specific staff member, with an optional priority and due date. They mark it in progress or done from their own screen, and you see the status update on yours.

As simple as it sounds — a staff member taps Clock In when they start, Clock Out when they're done, and the time is recorded. You see everyone's log from your side. No GPS tracking, no complicated shift rules.

Yes — from the Leads page, assign any lead to a team member and it shows up on their own Leads view. They update its status as they work it, and you see the change reflected on your dashboard immediately.

Yes, anytime — deactivate them from the Team Management page. Their login stops working immediately, but their task and attendance history stays intact (never deleted).

A notebook-style page where you write down your daily income and expenses. Chatsettu adds up each month's income, expense and profit (compared with last month), draws a day-by-day chart and a 6-month trend, and shows which categories your money went to. Find it under Tools → Business Diary in your dashboard.

It's an optional add-on: a 15-day free trial that starts the first time you open it, then ₹999/year. After the trial ends, your diary stays readable and downloadable — you just can't add or edit entries until you unlock it.

Income or expense, the amount, the date, and a category (like Sales, Rent, Salary / wages, Stock). Optionally add who it was paid to or received from, and a short note. You can edit or delete any entry later.

Yes — any month can be downloaded as a CSV that opens in Excel or Google Sheets, including after your trial has ended. It's handy for sharing with your accountant.

No. It's a simple income-and-expense record for your own tracking — it doesn't do invoicing, GST filing, or tax calculations, and isn't accounting, tax, or legal advice.

In a separate private database, apart from your chatbot data. Only your owner account can see it — staff accounts from Team Management can't, and other Chatsettu clients can never see yours. If your account is deleted, your diary entries are deleted with it.

An optional box where you write the way you'd write in a notebook — for example "chai 50, Ramesh se 3000 mile, bijli bill 1200 diya, kal 500 petrol" in English, Hindi, or Hinglish — and AI sorts it into separate income/expense entries. You review them first (you can fix anything or untick what you don't want), and nothing is saved until you press Save. It's off until you switch it on, and you can switch it off anytime.

Only if you switch on AI entry, and only the text you type into that AI box — it goes to OpenAI to be sorted into entries. Before it's sent, Chatsettu hides phone numbers, bank account numbers, Aadhaar, PAN, UPI IDs, and emails, but names and amounts you type are sent as written. Your saved diary entries, totals, and charts are never sent to an AI, and if you never switch AI entry on, nothing you write is sent anywhere. Please never write bank account numbers, PAN, Aadhaar, or passwords in your diary.

Yes, it can misread an amount, date, or category — that's exactly why you review every entry before saving, and anything it can't understand is listed for you to add manually instead of being guessed. To keep things fair, there's a daily limit on AI requests (shown on the page); manual entry always works without any limit.

Plans are one-time recharges, not monthly subscriptions. Free (₹0): 1 AI agent, 200 messages, 200 knowledge base entries per agent, share link + QR code. Pro (₹699): 5 agents, 5,000 messages, 1,000 knowledge base entries per agent (up to 5,000 total if you use all 5 agents), website widget, document training, human handoff, custom domain/white label access, branding removal. Agency (₹2,999): 8 agents, 20,000 messages, 5,000 knowledge base entries per agent (up to 40,000 total), all Pro features, API access. Email and phone notifications are free on every plan. On top of a plan, a few things are billed separately as add-ons: Custom Domain / White Label at ₹499/year per agent, Follow-up Automation at ₹299/year (500 email credits included), SMS credits from ₹149 for 300, Team Management at ₹999/year, and Business Diary at ₹999/year (15-day free trial) — see the relevant sections below for what each one does.

No. Messages don't expire on a monthly cycle — use them in 1 month or 6 months, your choice. You only renew once you've actually used up your limit.

Your AI employee stops replying to new customers until you recharge. You'll get a warning email (and a dashboard banner) when you've used 80% of your messages, and another when they run out.

One "entry" is roughly one paragraph's worth of trained content (about 500 words) — a website page, a PDF, or a block of text you've added all break down into entries behind the scenes. This limit applies per agent, not to your account as a whole — so if your plan includes multiple agents, each one gets its own full allowance (e.g. on Pro, 5 agents x 1,000 entries each = up to 5,000 entries total across your account). The limit is a generous safety ceiling, not a real usage cap: even the Free plan's 200 entries per agent is around 350 pages of text, far more than a typical small business ever needs (most use 20-100 entries total). It exists purely to prevent an accidental runaway upload (like the same huge file re-uploaded on repeat) from silently ballooning costs — you'll always get a clear message if you're close to or at your limit, never a silent failure.

You'll get a clear on-screen message the moment you try to add more, telling you exactly how much room is left. To add more content, either remove some existing knowledge you no longer need, or upgrade to a plan with a higher entry limit — since the limit is tied to your overall plan (Free/Pro/Agency), not purchasable separately.

Yes, upgrade or downgrade anytime from your dashboard's Upgrade page.

Yes — Custom Domain is ₹499/year per agent, separate from your monthly plan (like a domain/SSL renewal). It's available from the Edit Agent page once you're on Pro or above. Removing and reconnecting a different domain for the same agent doesn't charge again within the same year.

A private arrangement (not a standard plan) where we agree to never onboard another business in your category — in your city, or across all of India — for as long as it's active. It's priced individually based on your business category and area, so email chatsettu@gmail.com to discuss it directly. Once agreed, it never applies retroactively to businesses already using Chatsettu.

Raw chat logs and answered questions are automatically deleted after 30 days. Leads and appointments are not time-deleted, since businesses need to keep following up on those.

No. Each business's knowledge base, conversations, and leads are completely isolated — your AI employee only ever answers from your own information and never mixes data across different Chatsettu accounts.

Yes — your data is retained for 30 days after cancellation in case you come back, then removed.