Schools and colleges

WhatsApp for schools, answered by the whole office.

Haiya gives a school one WhatsApp Business number that the whole office answers, each person from their own phone, with one owner for every family. Admissions enquiries arrive through a WhatsApp form and move through a ready-made education pipeline, and notices go to the parents and guardians who agreed to hear from the school.

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Where it starts to go wrong.

Most businesses start with WhatsApp on one phone. These are usually the first things to slip once more customers write in.

The school WhatsApp is the phone on the bursar's desk. When she is on leave, parents hear nothing.
One handset means one person, and parents wait whenever that person is away.
A parent asked about a place for her son on Friday evening. By Monday, she had chosen another school.
An admissions enquiry that nobody owns can sit unanswered over a weekend.
Our notices go out from a teacher's own number, and parents reply to her at midnight.
Personal numbers blur the line between the school and the staff member.

Examples, not customer quotes.

How a school office uses Haiya, from enquiry to evening questions.

Follow one day at Mwangaza Academy, a sample day school in Nairobi with an admissions office of three and one WhatsApp Business number. Names and numbers are examples.

Smiling woman at a school desk in front of a hand-drawn board, beside a parent's question and a WhatsApp admissions form

An admissions enquiry

08:10

A parent asks about a place, and a WhatsApp form takes the details.

Joseph Mutua (+254733555902) asks whether there is a place in Grade 4 for his daughter next term. Faith, the admissions officer, starts the school's ready-made Lead collector automation from the chat. A short WhatsApp form asks for the grade, the term and the best time to call, and Joseph fills it in without leaving WhatsApp.

Forms are built on the web without code; teammates send them from a chat in the apps
The answers become a lead, and the team is reminded to follow up
Pick the questions it asks, or use a form the school built itself

See how WhatsApp forms work

Teacher in a houndstooth blazer typing on a laptop in front of a whiteboard, beside an admissions lead in Haiya

Into the admissions pipeline

09:00

Joseph's enquiry becomes a lead in the Education pipeline.

The school started its pipeline from the ready-made Education template, with stages from Enquiry to Admission and fields for the programme and the intake. Faith owns Joseph's lead, moves it to Counselling after their call, notes what he asked about transport and sets a follow-up date for Thursday.

Stages: Enquiry, Counselling, Application, Documents and Admission, all renamable
For a school visit, the ready-made Appointment request automation confirms the time and sends a reminder
CRM pipelines: 1 on Hobby and 3 on Professional

See the WhatsApp CRM

Empty classroom with wooden desks, a whiteboard and a wall clock, beside a WhatsApp open-day notice sent to parents

A notice to parents

15:30

One broadcast tells every family who opted in about the open day.

Parents and guardians who agreed to hear from the school get its notices on WhatsApp. The office sends one approved template about Saturday's open day to all your contacts or a tagged group, now or at a scheduled time, and Haiya counts delivered and read afterwards. Replies come back as normal chats in the shared inbox.

Every recipient gets the same message: there are no per-person fields in a broadcast
Blocked and opted-out contacts are left out of every broadcast automatically
Broadcast recipients: 1,000 a month on Hobby and 10,000 on Professional

See how broadcasts work

Smiling teacher in a grey polo writing at his desk in a school office, with a parent's evening question and the reply

A parent writes in the evening

19:30

Grace asks about Monday's bus, and the teacher on duty answers.

Grace Wanjiku (+254712555468) asks what time the school bus leaves on Monday. Mr Otieno, on evening duty this week, sees her message in the shared inbox on his own phone and answers with the office's saved reply for bus times. His personal number never appears, and the office sees the whole conversation in the morning.

Every member of staff signs in as themselves; nobody shares a phone or a password
Type / in a chat to drop in a saved reply for term dates or the documents to bring
Quiet hours make notifications silent for staff who are off duty

See how the team inbox works

Woman in a patterned robe on a sofa reading her phone, beside a parent's question answered by the school's AI agent

After the office closes

21:15

The AI agent answers general questions and leaves the rest for the morning.

On the school's number, the AI agent answers first after hours, from the FAQs and admission pages the office added: term dates, the documents to bring, how to apply. Anything about a particular child, it hands to a person, and the office picks it up in the morning.

The AI agent is on every plan; Meta decides whether a school is eligible
Choose the topics it must always hand over to a person
Any member of staff takes over by sending a message

See how Haiya AI works

The features this kind of team uses most.

Each part of the day above has its own page with the detail.

Broadcasts
Notices and open days to all your contacts or a tagged group.
WhatsApp forms
Admissions enquiries and visit requests filled in inside the chat.
Shared team inbox
One school number on every staff member's phone, with one owner per family.
WhatsApp CRM
A ready-made admissions pipeline from enquiry to admission.
Haiya AI
Evening answers from your own FAQs and pages, then a hand-over to the office.
Team chat
Ask a colleague about a family in a thread the parent never sees.

Connect the tools you already use.

Each one shows how it connects to Haiya.

WordPress
A Haiya capture form on the school's website sends each admissions enquiry into your pipeline.
- Via API and webhooks
Zapier
Send new admissions leads and stage changes to a Zap, for example to a spreadsheet.
- Via API and webhooks
n8n
Pass admissions events to an n8n workflow you run yourself.
- Via API and webhooks

Custom module

A lookup in your own stock, booking or order system is built by the Haiya team for your business. Book a demo

See all integrations

Message ideas to adapt.

Example templates. The parts in double braces are filled in when the message is sent.

Examples. Meta reviews every template before it can be sent.

Open day
Marketing
Mwangaza Academy holds its open day this Saturday from 10:00. Reply here to ask a question or to book a tour for your family.
First day of term
Marketing
Term starts on {{1}} at Mwangaza Academy. Reply here if you have a question about the first week.
Filled in when it is sent: the first day of term, the same for everyone the broadcast goes to.
Enquiry received
Utility
Thank you, {{1}}. Mwangaza Academy has your admissions enquiry, and our admissions office will reply in this chat.
Filled in when it is sent: the parent's first name, from their contact, sent by an automation after the enquiry form.
School visit confirmed
Utility
Your {{1}} at Mwangaza Academy is confirmed for {{2}}. Reply here if you need to change it.
Filled in when it is sent: what was requested, such as a school visit and the day and time the office agreed.

Reviews on Trustpilot

What customers say about Haiya.

Written by businesses that use Haiya, on Haiya's public Trustpilot page. Each one links to the original review.

At Zinen Technologies Ltd we use Haiya every day, and it has made team communication much easier. When a WhatsApp message comes in, we assign the lead to the right team member. From there, they can create a quote, send an invoice and even request payment through M-Pesa, all in one place. This has helped us a lot. We’re very satisfied and looking forward to more features.
James MwangiDirector, Zinen Technologies, KenyaTrustpilot, November 15, 2026
Read the storyZinen Technologies
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Read every review on Trustpilot · 1 review

Plans and pricing.

From $8 to $89 a month, with a 3-day free trial on every plan.

Hobby$8 / monthFor solos & side projects
Professional$39 / monthFor growing teams
Business$89 / monthFor busy, multi-number teams

Haiya charges for the plan. Meta charges for each delivered message by category and bills you directly, with no Haiya markup.

Compare every plan

Questions about WhatsApp for schools.

Meta sets and bills its own message fees. From Meta's rate card, November 2026.

How can a school use WhatsApp?

A school can use one WhatsApp Business number for admissions enquiries, questions from parents and notices such as open days and term dates. With the official WhatsApp Business API through a platform such as Haiya, several staff answer that number from their own phones, enquiries become leads in an admissions pipeline, and notices go to the families who agreed to receive them.

Can several staff answer the school's WhatsApp number?

Yes. In Haiya every member of staff signs in as themselves and answers the same number, from a phone, a tablet or the web, and each family has one owner the whole office can see. Your plan sets how many people have a login: 2 on Hobby, 6 on Professional and 20 on Business.

Can parents send an admissions enquiry on WhatsApp?

Yes. A member of staff sends a WhatsApp form from the chat, and the parent fills in the grade, the term and the best time to call without leaving WhatsApp. The answers become a lead in your admissions pipeline, and the office is reminded to follow up. Forms are built on the web without code.

Can a school send notices to all parents on WhatsApp?

To the parents and guardians who agreed to hear from the school, yes. A broadcast sends one approved template to all your contacts or a tagged group, and Haiya leaves out anyone who opted out or blocked the number. WhatsApp sets a minimum age for its own users, so reach younger pupils through their parents. Meta charges for each delivered message by category and bills the school directly.

Can Haiya show a pupil's timetable or results?

Not as a ready feature. A lookup in the school's own system, such as timetables or results, is a custom module, built by the Haiya team for your school, so book a demo to ask about it. If your system already answers web requests, an automation's Call another system step can ask it directly.

Is a business number better than a WhatsApp group for parents?

For admissions and office questions, usually yes. In a group every parent sees every message and every number; on a business number each family writes to the school in its own private chat, and notices reach each family separately. Staff answer from their own logins, so no teacher's personal number is shared.

How much does WhatsApp for schools cost with Haiya?

Haiya costs $8 a month on Hobby, $39 on Professional and $89 on Business, after a 3-day free trial that you start in the iPhone or Android app. Meta's message fees are separate: Meta charges per delivered message, by category, and bills you directly, with no Haiya markup; each number has a monthly free tier of 1,000 service messages.

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