04Documentation

Everything you need
before deployment.

Explore every module, understand how Relay works, learn how deployment happens and discover exactly what is included with your purchase.

Average reading time12 minutesWritten by the engineers who ship the platform

Getting started

04.01 · Getting started

What Relay is — and what it isn't.

Relay is a production-grade WhatsApp CRM platform delivered as source. It is purchased once and deployed on your own infrastructure. It is not a subscription, not a hosted SaaS, and not a template.

Note

Who should purchase Relay

  • · Businesses running WhatsApp as a primary sales or support channel
  • · Agencies deploying CRMs on behalf of clients
  • · Teams tired of per-user SaaS pricing and vendor lock-in
  • · Companies with strict data residency or compliance requirements

Note

Who should not purchase Relay

  • · Teams that don't want to host their own software
  • · Buyers looking for a free tier or trial account
  • · Businesses that don't use WhatsApp for customer communication

Delivery timeline · under 24 hours

Step01

Purchase

Step02

License verification

Step03

Source code delivery

Step04

Deployment guide

Step05

Installation

Step06

Business ready

Next

Installation

04.02 · Installation

Deploy in 30 to 60 minutes.

Relay ships as a Docker Compose bundle with a documented environment file. Every value has a sane default. A live engineer will pair with you during initial deployment — included with every purchase.

Server requirements

Node.js≥ 20.x LTS
DatabasePostgreSQL 15+
Reverse proxyNginx or Caddy
SSL certificateLet's Encrypt or your provider
Meta accountBusiness verified · Cloud API
AI provider keyOpenAI / Anthropic / Ollama (optional)
Baseline sizing2 vCPU · 4 GB RAM · 40 GB SSD

Business value

Free initial deployment included

An engineer joins your call, walks through the environment file line-by-line, and ships your first workspace live — usually inside an hour.

Best practice

Recommended first deployment

Deploy against a staging domain first. Point a test WhatsApp number, run a mock conversation, then cut over to production. The environment supports zero-downtime swap.

Next

Dashboard

04.03 · Dashboard

One glass for the whole business.

Revenue, response time, message volume, pipeline movement and per-agent performance — updated in real time and scoped to the viewer's role.

relay / dashboard

Revenue

₹42.8L

+18%

Conversations

12,441

+7%

Response time

42s

-31%

Message volume

Last 30d

Purpose

  • Business overview at a glance
  • Live metrics across every channel
  • Quick actions to the most-used flows
  • Conversation and pipeline analytics
  • Activity monitoring per agent

Business value

Business value

Managers understand business performance without opening a second tool. Owners see the health of the business in the first minute of the day.

Technical notes

Technical notes

Role-based widgets. Workspace-aware. Real-time updates over websockets.

Next

Inbox

04.04 · Inbox

Every customer. One place.

A unified conversation surface across every WhatsApp number, agent and workspace — with assignments, SLAs, internal notes and keyboard-first triage.

relay / inbox
app.relay.build / inbox

Inbox

12 open · 3 waiting

⌘K
PR

Priya Ramesh

2m

Also, can we self-host it?

Sales
MW

Marcus Weiss

14m

Contract signed. Sending PO.

Sales
AS

Aditi Sharma

1h

Login issue on mobile app

Support
JB

Jordan Blake

3h

When does the license activate?

Onboarding
LW

Lin Wei

5h

Thanks — sorted it out.

SR

Sofia Rossi

1d

Ping when live demo is ready

PR

Priya Ramesh

+91 · online

Qualified
Interested in the enterprise plan — 40 seats.
Great. I'll send over the proposal today.
Also, can we self-host it?
AI

Suggested reply — Yes. You own the full source and can deploy on your infra.

Message Priya…

Purpose

  • Unified conversation management
  • WhatsApp communication in a native inbox
  • Customer assignment and SLAs
  • Internal collaboration and notes
  • Reply drafting with templates
  • AI-assisted suggestions

Business value

Business value

Teams respond faster while keeping every customer conversation organised, assigned and auditable.

Technical notes

Technical notes

Supports Meta Cloud API. Workspace isolated. Assignment-ready with round-robin, load-balanced or manual modes.

Next

Contacts

04.05 · Contacts

Your customer database.

Every conversation writes to a contact record in your own PostgreSQL — not a vendor database. Full history, unlimited attributes, exportable any time.

relay / contacts

Contacts · 2,841

postgres · yours
NameEmailStageOwner
Priya Shahpriya@studio.inCustomerSales
Rohit Vermarohit@acme.coLeadOnboarding
Aditi Raoaditi@labs.ioCustomerSupport
Karan M.karan@vault.inTrialSales
Neha Iyerneha@stellar.coCustomerSales
Vikram J.vikram@nova.inLeadOnboarding

Purpose

  • Central customer database
  • Tags and segments
  • Custom fields per contact type
  • Import from CSV and CRM
  • Export to CSV, warehouse or webhook
  • Full-text search

Business value

Business value

Own your customer data instead of depending on external platforms. Move providers without losing a single record.

Technical notes

Technical notes

Lives in your Postgres. Schema is documented and stable. Every field is queryable via the REST API.

Next

Pipelines

04.06 · Pipelines

Revenue becomes visible.

A drag-and-drop pipeline with unlimited stages, per-deal custom fields and rules that fire on every transition. Attribution flows back to the originating conversation.

relay / pipelines

New

12 deals

Qualified

8 deals

Proposal

5 deals

Won

3 deals

Purpose

  • Configurable sales stages
  • Drag-and-drop deal management
  • Deal tracking with owners and due dates
  • Revenue forecasting per stage

Business value

Business value

Turn conversations into measurable revenue. Every won deal is traceable to the message that started it.

Technical notes

Technical notes

Unlimited stages, unlimited pipelines. Every transition emits a workspace event that automations can subscribe to.

Next

Broadcasts

04.07 · Broadcasts

Reach everyone from your own platform.

Approved Meta templates, audience segmentation from any CRM attribute, and delivery, read and reply attribution — all from inside your Relay installation.

relay / broadcasts

Campaign

Q4 · Product launch

Sent

8,420

Delivered

8,391

Read

6,102

Weekend flash sale

Scheduled · Tue 9:00

Queued

Onboarding drip · Day 3

Scheduled · Tue 9:00

Live

Renewal reminder

Scheduled · Tue 9:00

Draft

Purpose

  • Meta-approved template flows
  • Bulk campaigns to segments
  • Audience selection by any attribute
  • Campaign history and reports

Business value

Business value

Reach customers directly from your own platform, on your own schedule, without paying per message beyond Meta's own fees.

Next

Automations

04.08 · Automations

Codify the flows you keep re-explaining.

Event-based workflows built in a visual builder — triggers, filters, branches and actions, with retries, dead-letter and audit logs on every run.

relay / automations

Step 1

Trigger · New message

Step 2

Filter · contains 'demo'

Step 3

Action · Assign to Sales

Step 4

Action · Send template

Flow

Purpose

  • Event-based workflows
  • Welcome messages on first contact
  • Lead qualification via forms and tags
  • Follow-up reminders
  • Slack / email / webhook actions

Business value

Business value

Reduce repetitive work while improving response time. Every rule the team writes is a permanent capability.

Technical notes

Technical notes

Runs inside your infrastructure. Retries with exponential backoff. Every run is auditable and replayable.

Next

Flows

04.09 · Flows

Guide conversations automatically.

Interactive WhatsApp menus, button responses and customer routing — built as a graph, deployed as a message flow.

relay / flows

Flow · Onboarding menu

v3 · live
MenuIntentHumanAutoAssignClose

Purpose

  • Interactive WhatsApp menus
  • Button responses and quick replies
  • Customer routing to the right team
  • Human handoff on any node

Business value

Business value

Guide customers to the answer they need before human intervention becomes necessary.

Next

AI Agents

04.10 · AI Agents

Your provider. Your keys. Your policies.

Bring your own OpenAI, Anthropic or local model. The AI reads your knowledge base and drafts replies in your tone — the request goes directly from your server to the provider, never through us.

relay / ai
AI

Provider · OpenAI

gpt-4o-mini
API Keysk-••••••••••1a2b
Temperature0.4
FallbackAnthropic Claude
Monthly spend₹4,120

Latest suggestion

"Yes — Relay ships as source. You deploy on your own infra and own the license outright."

Purpose

  • Bring your own API key
  • OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, Ollama
  • Knowledge base with RAG retrieval
  • Draft replies for human review
  • Provider-side usage analytics
  • Prompt playground for tuning

Business value

Business value

Keep complete control over which AI provider you use, which model you run and who receives the invoice. Swap providers by changing one environment variable.

Technical notes

Technical notes

API keys remain in your environment. Requests go directly to the provider — zero routing through Relay. Drafts never auto-send.

Next

Settings

04.11 · Settings

Configure once. Operate confidently.

Workspace, branding, teams, roles, templates, Meta credentials, AI keys, currency, custom fields — every surface is a settings screen, not a database migration.

relay / settings

Branding

Every surface, in your identity.

Product nameAcme Connect
Primary color#0F766E
Domainconnect.acme.com
Logoacme-mark.svg

Purpose

  • Workspace configuration
  • WhatsApp templates and fields
  • Team members and roles (RBAC)
  • Meta business credentials
  • AI provider API keys
  • Currency and locale
  • Custom fields per entity

Business value

Business value

Configure the platform once at deployment; operate confidently forever. Nothing important is buried in code.

Next

API & Webhooks

04.12 · API & Webhooks

Every entity, every action, every event.

Relay exposes the same REST surface the UI uses. Every entity is readable and writable. Every action publishes a signed webhook you can subscribe to.

REST APIs

  • Documented OpenAPI 3.1 specification
  • Same authentication as the UI (JWT + workspace scope)
  • Predictable pagination and filtering
  • Rate limits configurable per workspace

Webhook events

  • message.received / message.sent
  • contact.created / contact.updated
  • deal.stage_changed / deal.won
  • automation.run.completed
  • Signed payloads · retry with exponential backoff

Custom integrations

ERPExternal CRMAccounting softwareInternal applicationsPayment gatewayWarehouse / BI

Detailed developer documentation — including a Postman collection, TypeScript SDK and end-to-end examples — is included after purchase.

Next

Deployment

04.13 · Deployment

Own every layer of the stack.

From the customer message down to nightly backups on your S3 bucket — every layer belongs to you. Nothing depends on a Relay-hosted service to keep working.

Architecture · request lifecycle

L1
Customer
yours
L2
Meta / WhatsApp
yours
L3
Relay platform
yours
L4
Your server
yours
L5
Your database
yours
L6
OpenAI / Anthropic (your key)
yours
L7
Your backups
yours

Next

Customization

04.14 · Customization

Your business isn't standard. Your software shouldn't be either.

Every purchased installation can be extended by our engineering team — modules, integrations and workflows built inside your repository, delivered as merged pull requests.

  • Industry-specific workflows
  • ERP integration
  • Accounting software
  • Internal dashboards
  • Approval systems
  • Payment gateway
  • Inventory modules
  • Custom reports
  • AI workflows
  • Bespoke modules

Business value

Every feature becomes part of your installation

Custom work lives in your repository forever. No per-feature subscription. No re-purchase on renewal. No vendor lock-in on what we built for you.

Next

Frequently asked

04.15 · FAQ

Buyers ask these first.

Next step

Need more technical
information?

  • One-time lifetime license
  • Complete source code
  • Self hosted
  • Unlimited users
  • Unlimited ownership
  • Free initial deployment
  • Engineering support
  • Official Meta Cloud API
  • Bring your own AI keys
  • Your database
  • Your server
  • Your customer data
  • No monthly platform fees
  • No vendor lock-in
  • Deploy anywhere
  • White label ready
  • Custom development available