What happens if I leave the phone turned off?

The answer depends on how you connected the number, and it is the single most important difference between the two modes:

• Pure Cloud API: the phone plays no part. You could throw it in a river. The number lives on Meta's servers.
• Coexistence: the phone is part of the link. The WhatsApp Business app has to be opened now and then and the device needs data or wifi. If the phone stays off, loses signal, or the app goes unopened for several days, the link drops.

What it looks like when it happens

The number goes disconnected and stops sending and receiving over the API. Messages sent to you in the meantime reach the phone when it comes back, but your system never hears about them.

⚠ And it isn't always the phone. A number can disconnect for at least five other reasons: WhatsApp took it down, it was removed from the account, Meta rejected the whole account, the payment method is missing, or the business isn't verified. Be suspicious of any alert that tells you "you probably didn't open the app" without having looked: that's the most common cause, not the diagnosis.

How to avoid it

• Leave the phone plugged into mains power with stable wifi. It sounds obvious and it is cause number one.
• Turn off battery saver for WhatsApp Business — on many Android devices that's what kills the app overnight.
• If a person is answering on that number, you're fine: the app opens every day by itself. The risk is the number nobody uses, the one connected purely for automation.
• If that's your case, consider pure Cloud API instead of Coexistence: if nobody is going to answer from the phone, the phone is only a point of failure.

And if it already disconnected

Ask whoever has the phone to open WhatsApp Business and leave it with signal for a while. It usually comes back within minutes. If it doesn't, you reconnect from the panel — it's the same connection step as always and nothing you configured is lost.

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