Connecting OpenClaw to Telegram and WhatsApp

A self-hosted OpenClaw agent does not really feel real until you can message it from your phone. Telegram and WhatsApp are the two channels people pair first, and both can be live in under five minutes if you know which buttons to press.

This guide assumes you already have OpenClaw running. If not, the setup walkthrough on Hostinger gets you there.

Telegram in five minutes

Telegram is the friendlier option because it gives you a real bot token in one chat conversation.

1. Talk to @BotFather on Telegram. Send /newbot, give it a name (the display name people see) and a username ending in bot. BotFather replies with an API token that looks like a long string of digits, a colon, and a random hash.

2. Open OpenClaw’s web UI. Go to Channels → Telegram. Paste the token, click Connect, and wait for the green dot.

3. Send your bot a /start message. The agent should reply within a second or two using the AI provider you have configured.

The gotcha: Telegram bots ignore messages in group chats by default. If you want your bot to listen to a family or team group, go back to BotFather, run /setprivacy, pick your bot, and select Disable. Now the bot can read group messages it is mentioned in.

WhatsApp in five-ish minutes

WhatsApp is fussier because Meta has tightened the rules. The good news is that OpenClaw’s built-in pairing flow handles the painful parts.

1. Decide which path you want.

• Personal number via WhatsApp Web pairing. Easiest. Free. Counts against your personal WhatsApp account. Good for personal automations and side projects, not for businesses with strict policies.
• WhatsApp Cloud API number. Official, free for the first thousand conversations a month, requires a Meta Business account and a phone number that is not already on WhatsApp. Better for anything you would call a “product.”

2a. Personal pairing. In OpenClaw, go to Channels → WhatsApp → Pair phone. The UI shows a QR code. Open WhatsApp on your phone, go to Settings → Linked devices → Link a device, and scan. Within a few seconds the channel goes green and any message to that number reaches the agent.

2b. Cloud API. In OpenClaw, choose Cloud API instead. You will need three things from your Meta Business dashboard: the phone number ID, a permanent access token, and the webhook verify token of your choice. Paste them in, set the webhook URL in Meta’s console to https://your-domain/whatsapp/webhook, and click Verify.

The gotcha: WhatsApp drops the linked-device session every few weeks. The agent will mark the channel as disconnected, and you will need to scan the QR code again. Set up a notification so you find out before your users do.

Two channels at once

OpenClaw routes incoming messages from every connected channel into the same agent loop. That means your Telegram conversation and your WhatsApp conversation share memory by default. Sometimes this is great — you start a research task on your laptop and continue it from your phone. Sometimes it is confusing — your spouse can now read the thread where you were drafting their birthday surprise.

You have three options for splitting them up:

1. Separate users. Tag each channel with a different user ID. Memory and tool access become per-user.
2. Separate workspaces. Run two OpenClaw containers on the same host with different config files. Heaviest option; cleanest separation.
3. Channel-scoped memory. Tell OpenClaw’s memory layer to namespace by channel. Lightest option; conversations stay separate without doubling your infrastructure.

For a household setup, option one is usually the right balance.

What we use day to day

Personally, our test agent runs on a Hostinger Docker host, talks to Telegram for quick personal questions, and to WhatsApp for shared family logistics. The Telegram side is wired into a few tools (calendar, web search, a small home-automation API). The WhatsApp side is intentionally read-only — it can answer questions but cannot trigger actions. That separation has saved us from at least one accidental grocery order.

If you have not picked a host yet, our twenty-percent-off Hostinger partner link is the cheapest reliable option we know of right now. Once the box is up, the OpenClaw setup guide takes you from blank server to working agent, and you can come back here to pair the messaging channels.