SoftGlaze Click to Chat

SoftGlaze Chat adds a WhatsApp chat button to your WordPress site. A visitor taps it, WhatsApp opens with a message already written, and the conversation carries on in WhatsApp as normal.

This plugin is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by WhatsApp LLC or Meta Platforms, Inc. WhatsApp is a trademark of its respective owner.

WhatsApp chat button for WordPress

Add the button from one settings screen. Choose one of six positions, three sizes, your own colours and an entrance animation, then decide whether it appears immediately, after a few seconds, or once someone has scrolled part of the way down. You can show it on desktop only, on phones only, or on both, and hide it while the visitor is scrolling down so it stays out of the way while they read. There is no page builder step and no code to paste; to add WhatsApp to WordPress you fill in a phone number and save.

Click to chat links (wa.me) with no API needed

Every button is an ordinary wa.me link. There is no WhatsApp Business API to apply for, no access token to paste, no third-party gateway in the middle and no monthly message fee. Click to chat on WhatsApp in WordPress works the moment you enter a number.

Nothing is sent when a visitor taps the button. WhatsApp opens with your message pre-filled and the visitor presses send themselves, so no message ever leaves your site.

Multiple WhatsApp agents with schedules

Add as many people as you need. Each one gets a photo, a name, a role, a department, their own WhatsApp number and, if you want, their own pre-written message. WhatsApp multi agent support is built in rather than bolted on: give each person their own working hours, with several time ranges per day and a list of holidays, and the plugin works out who is available in your site's timezone.

When somebody is off shift you choose what visitors see: keep them listed with a "back tomorrow at 9:00 am" note, or hide them until they return. With more than one person available, decide who gets the chat — let the visitor pick from the list, take turns in rotation, choose at random, or send it to whoever was contacted longest ago.

WhatsApp button for WooCommerce products

If WooCommerce is active, extra entry points become available:

• A WhatsApp order button on WooCommerce product pages, under the add to cart button or under the whole product summary. On a product with options, the name, price and SKU in the message follow whichever variation the shopper selects.
• A WhatsApp share button so a shopper can send the product to somebody else.
• A basket nudge for shoppers with a question before they commit, carrying the basket total.
• A help button at checkout.
• A thank-you page button inviting the customer to send you their order number.

All of it is optional and switched off until you turn it on, apart from the product button.

Floating chat widget positions and design

The floating chat widget for WordPress opens a panel listing your team with online and offline badges, grouped by department, with a search box that appears by itself once you have more than five people. You can set the panel heading and wording, follow the visitor's dark mode, choose the button shape and shadow, and set how wide the panel opens. The panel is keyboard accessible and works with a screen reader.

An optional greeting bubble can appear beside the button after a delay, at a scroll position, or when the visitor moves to leave. It remembers being dismissed so it does not become a nuisance.

Show the WhatsApp contact button only where you want it

Display rules decide where the button appears: include or exclude particular pages, whole post types, categories and tags, WooCommerce product categories, URL patterns, device, logged-in state and user role. You can also create several named campaigns, each with its own rules, wording, greeting and design, so a WhatsApp support button on your documentation can look and speak differently from the order button in your shop.

Chat analytics and lead capture

A dashboard shows how often the button is used: totals with a comparison against the previous period, a chart by day, the split between desktop and mobile, which page sends the most people to WhatsApp, a leaderboard of your team, and a breakdown of which WooCommerce placement is working. Pick today, the last 7 days, the last 30, or any custom range, and export any of it to CSV. These counts are kept in your own database and are never sent anywhere.

If you use Google Analytics 4 and want clicks to reach it, there is a setting that pushes an sgwa_click event to the data layer. It is off unless you turn it on, because that is the one thing the plugin can do that hands a visitor's action to someone else. The plugin never loads Google's script itself.

When nobody is on shift, the panel can offer a short form instead — name, phone number, message and a consent checkbox whose wording you write. Submissions are stored in your own database, listed on the Contacts screen, and emailed to you with a link that opens WhatsApp ready to reply, so an enquiry that arrives at midnight is still there in the morning.

WhatsApp QR code generator

The Tools screen builds a click to chat link from any number and message, or from an agent you have already added, and turns it into a QR code you can download as a PNG at the size you need. Print it for a shop window, a menu, a receipt or a business card, and a phone camera opens the chat. The QR code is drawn in your browser; nothing is uploaded anywhere to produce it.

Buttons inside your posts and pages

As well as the floating button, you can place a button in your content three ways: the [sgwa_chat] shortcode, the "WhatsApp Chat Button" block in the editor, and an Elementor widget if you use Elementor. Each one takes an agent, its own wording and a solid or outline treatment:

Compliance and privacy

The plugin uses nothing but public wa.me links, which is what WhatsApp publishes them for. It does not use any unofficial WhatsApp API or automation library, because those get the number they are used with banned.

There are no SoftGlaze servers. The plugin makes no external HTTP requests of any kind: no telemetry, no analytics call-home, no licence check, no update check, no remote fonts and no CDN. Everything it records lives in your own database.

It adds a section to your site's suggested privacy policy text explaining what is stored, and captured contacts are included in WordPress's own personal data export and erase tools. The lead form has a consent checkbox you write yourself. A "remove all data when the plugin is deleted" setting on the System Check screen, off by default, clears the options, tables and scheduled job on uninstall.

Third-party code

The QR code generator bundles qrcode-generator 2.0.4 by Kazuhiko Arase, used under the MIT licence. It is vendored unmodified at lib/qrcode-generator/ with its licence text beside it, it runs entirely in the browser, and it makes no network requests.

For developers

Everything the front end decides can be filtered:

• sgwa_should_display — whether a campaign renders on this request. Passed the decision, the campaign and the device bucket.
• sgwa_agents — the agents available to the current request.
• sgwa_campaigns — the active campaigns, in priority order.
• sgwa_message_template — the message template before its variables are resolved.
• sgwa_message_vars — the variables a template can use, so you can add your own.
• sgwa_click_logged — fires after a click is written to the log, with the stored row.
• sgwa_lead_captured — fires after a lead is stored, with the contact id and the lead.

Message templates understand {page_title}, {page_url}, {site_name}, {product_name}, {product_price}, {product_sku}, {cart_total} and {order_id}.

The plugin also ships a small add-on contract — sgwa_register_modules plus filters on the admin tabs, dashboard cards and REST routes — so a separate add-on can extend it without patching it. Nothing in this plugin registers a module; the contract is there for add-ons to use.

The free version

The free version is complete — everything on this page works forever, free. SoftGlaze Chat Pro is a separate product that adds a WhatsApp team inbox, operators, automations and AI on top.

There is no licence check, no expiry, no locked button and no upgrade prompt in your admin.

What's next

Two other SoftGlaze plugins are in the directory, built to the same rules — everything on your own server, no external calls:

• SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce — PDF invoices, packing slips, proformas and credit notes, generated locally.
• SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon — coming soon and maintenance pages with lead capture.