Frequently asked.

DukaBot is a WhatsApp commerce platform for Kenyan merchants. It runs on the WhatsApp Business Platform and accepts M-Pesa payments (plus card through IntaSend), so a customer can browse a catalog and pay without leaving the WhatsApp chat.

No. Customers use their normal WhatsApp, no Business account required on their end. On the merchant side, DukaBot runs on the shared WhatsApp Business Platform number for the Free, Starter and Growth plans; Scale customers can bring their own WABA if they want.

About five minutes: register, pick a shop code, add three products, set up how you receive M-Pesa, and share your link.

Nothing. On Free, Starter and Growth you ride DukaBot's shared, verified WhatsApp Business Platform number; you need only a normal phone with WhatsApp. Scale merchants can optionally bring their own WABA, for which you'll need a Meta Business Manager; we handle onboarding.

M-Pesa orders use an STK Push prompt on the customer's phone, sent through IntaSend, our payments partner. The customer enters their M-Pesa PIN, the prompt clears in seconds, and once the payment completes and IntaSend confirms it, the order is marked paid inside the WhatsApp thread. Card customers use an IntaSend Hosted Checkout link instead.

Today: M-Pesa STK Push, plus card (Visa & Mastercard) via IntaSend Hosted Checkout. IntaSend also handles partial and full refunds and your cash-outs from your merchant wallet to M-Pesa. Additional modalities (bank transfers, other mobile-money wallets, cross-border) roll out on DukaBot as IntaSend adds them to their platform.

DukaBot charges a per-order fee only on paid orders collected into your DukaBot wallet, never as a separate bill: Free, KSh 10 per paid order; Starter, 250 paid orders included a month, then KSh 5 per paid order; Growth, 500 paid orders included a month, then KSh 5 per paid order. The fee is taken off when you cash out to M-Pesa, and an order refunded in full has its fee reversed. IntaSend's own M-Pesa fees still apply on collections into your wallet, and their fee schedule is public.

Customers pay by M-Pesa STK Push inside the WhatsApp chat, or by card on IntaSend's Hosted Checkout. Every payment lands in 1 dedicated wallet for your business at IntaSend, our payments partner, and you cash out to your M-Pesa from the DukaBot dashboard. Any DukaBot per-order fee is taken off when you cash out, so there is no separate bill to pay. IntaSend is PCI-DSS compliant: M-Pesa PINs and card details are entered in the Safaricom STK prompt or IntaSend's Hosted Checkout, not on DukaBot's servers.

You can downgrade or cancel any DukaBot plan from the merchant dashboard; cancellation stops the next KES billing cycle. Customer refunds are issued by DukaBot support through IntaSend, in part or in full, for M-Pesa and card orders. When an order is refunded in full, its DukaBot per-order fee is reversed. For M-Pesa orders the receipt IDs are surfaced in your dashboard for reconciliation.

Yes. DukaBot doesn't provide riders (yet). You add riders to your merchant account with name, phone, and vehicle type (Motorbike / Bicycle / Boda / Car). Every paid delivery order is offered to your active riders.

When the delivery starts, DukaBot sends the customer a secure tracking link on WhatsApp: track.dukabot.app/t/…. It opens a live map with the rider's position, ETA, and status timeline. The link expires when the order is delivered or cancelled.

You set the fee per zone (e.g. CBD KSh 100 · Westlands KSh 150 · Kilimani KSh 200). When the customer confirms a delivery address, DukaBot matches the zone and adds the fee to the order total before the M-Pesa STK Push.

The Free tier has no subscription and covers unlimited orders with M-Pesa STK Push and card checkout, your shop link and 1 staff seat. Per-order fee: KSh 10 on each paid order collected into your DukaBot wallet, taken off when you cash out. It's enough to validate WhatsApp ordering for a small shop in KES before you pick a paid plan.

The DukaBot dashboard is English-only today. On the WhatsApp Business Platform side the bot tries to answer customers in the language they message in, so short Swahili and Sheng phrases may be understood, but full Swahili dashboard parity is on the roadmap and not yet shipped.

DukaBot stores each shop's orders, its customers' phone numbers, the name and delivery address a customer gives, and the M-Pesa receipt IDs of their payments in its PostgreSQL database. M-Pesa receipt IDs are kept to match each payment to its order. The database is hosted in the EU (Frankfurt, Germany); payments are handled by IntaSend, a payment provider based in Kenya.

Yes. IntaSend is our payments partner and holds PCI-DSS. DukaBot never sees or stores M-Pesa PINs or card details; they're captured inside IntaSend's Hosted Checkout or the Safaricom STK Push, not on DukaBot's servers.