Everything about Merdot Connect, in plain words.

What Merdot Connect is

Merdot Connect sends your business messages on every channel from one place: email from your own domain, SMS in India, WhatsApp from your own business number, one-time verification codes, and push. You can send one message from the console, thousands as a campaign, or let automation send them for you when something happens.

Everything you send is priced per message, logged with its full delivery timeline, and checked against the rules of each channel before it leaves, so a message that would bounce, be rejected, or break a regulation is stopped here, for free, instead of costing you money and reputation.

Getting started in ten minutes

1. 1Merdot Connect is invite-only. Request access at merdotconnect.com/contact; our team sets up your account and invites your email. Then sign in at merdotconnect.com/login with a 6-digit code; there is no password to remember.
2. 2Your account is created with your business name. The console home is a launcher: Send, Verification, Campaigns, Automation, Inbox and Contacts are the applications; the channels sit below them.
3. 3Open Send and send yourself a test email. On the Free plan it goes from our shared address, so you can see the delivery log working before you set anything up.
4. 4Add money to the Wallet, or pick a plan under Plan and billing. Every message you send is debited from the wallet at the rate card below.
5. 5Add your domain under Email, connect your WhatsApp under WhatsApp, or register your SMS header under SMS. Each channel has its own checklist inside the console.
6. 6Import your contacts, and you are ready for your first campaign.

Account, team and security

Accounts

One login can belong to several accounts, for example your own business and a client you manage. Switch between them from the account name at the top left of the console. Every account has its own wallet, contacts, senders, API keys and logs; nothing leaks between them.

Team

Invite people from Settings. Owners can do everything including billing and deleting the account. Members can send, build campaigns and answer the inbox but cannot change billing or remove the account.

Security

• Sessions are tied to the device that signed in. Sign a device out from Settings if a phone is lost.
• Turn on two-factor authentication in Settings to require an authenticator code as well as the email code.
• API keys are shown once at creation. If you lose one, revoke it and mint another; keys are never re-displayed.
• Your customers' phone numbers and emails are stored in India and never used for anything except the messages you send.

Wallet, plans and pricing

Connect charges two things: a plan, which unlocks sending from your own identity, and a per-message price, which is debited from a prepaid wallet as each message actually leaves. A message that is refused before sending is never charged.

Adding money

Open Wallet, choose an amount and pay by UPI, card or net banking through Razorpay. The balance appears within seconds. You can turn on auto-recharge so a campaign never stops halfway. Every debit and top-up is listed in the ledger with the message it paid for.

Email from your own domain

Sending as [email protected] instead of a shared address is what makes mail land in the inbox rather than spam. Connect signs every message with DKIM under your domain and aligns SPF and DMARC, the three things Gmail and Outlook check.

Add and verify a domain

1. 1Go to Email, Domains, and type your domain, for example yourbusiness.com. Do not include www or an email address.
2. 2Connect shows six DNS records: three CNAME records for DKIM, an MX and a TXT for the bounce address, and a TXT for DMARC. Copy them exactly.
3. 3Publish them wherever your domain's DNS is managed: GoDaddy, Hostinger, Cloudflare, BigRock or your IT person. The host names are shown in full; some DNS panels want only the part before your domain.
4. 4Press Verify. Most domains pass within an hour; some DNS providers take up to a day. The screen tells you which record is still missing.
5. 5Once the domain shows Active, any address at that domain works as the From address: noreply@, offers@, support@.

Sending

• Send lets you write one email to one person, with a subject, plain text and optional HTML.
• Campaigns send the same email to a list or a tag, with an unsubscribe link added automatically.
• Templates let you save a message with variables like {{name}} and reuse it from the console or the API.

Bounces, complaints and suppression

When an address bounces or someone marks you as spam, Connect adds it to your suppression list and will not send to it again, even if it is in a later upload. This protects your domain's reputation. You can see and manage the list under Email, Suppression.

SMS in India

Indian SMS is regulated by TRAI through DLT. Every business message needs a registered six-character sender header, such as MYSHOP, and every message text must match a template registered under that header. Connect enforces this before sending, because operators silently drop messages that do not comply.

1. 1Register your business on a DLT portal, for example Jio TrueConnect or Vodafone Idea. You need your company documents and a Letter of Authority; Connect provides a ready draft under SMS, Registration.
2. 2Register a header (your sender ID) and one template per message you want to send. Approval usually takes one to two working days.
3. 3Enter the header and each template with its DLT template ID under SMS in the console. Connect maps the template name you use in sends to the registered ID.
4. 4Send. If a message does not match a registered template, Connect refuses it with template-required or template-not-mapped and explains which template to add.

WhatsApp from your own number

Connect is a Meta Tech Provider. You connect your own WhatsApp Business Account in a few clicks and messages go out from your number, with your name and profile, while Connect handles templates, delivery reports, replies and billing.

Connect your number

1. 1Open WhatsApp and press Connect with Facebook. Sign in with the Facebook account that manages your business.
2. 2Pick or create your WhatsApp Business Account and choose a phone number. The number must not be active on the regular WhatsApp app; a new SIM or a landline works.
3. 3Verify the number with the code Meta sends. The console shows Connected and your display name.

Templates and the 24-hour window

WhatsApp has two kinds of messages. A template is a pre-approved message you can send to anyone at any time, for example an order update or a reminder with variables. A session message is free text or buttons, and it is only allowed within 24 hours of the customer writing to you. Connect tells you which one applies and refuses a free-text message outside the window rather than letting Meta reject it.

• Create templates under WhatsApp, Templates, or pick one from the library of pre-approved patterns. Meta approval usually takes minutes to a few hours.
• Marketing templates need the customer's opt-in and must include a way to stop. Utility and authentication templates do not.
• Each template has a language. Use the same language code when sending, for example en or en_US.

Inbox, auto-reply and the Assistant

Every reply lands in Inbox, where your team answers as a human. Auto-reply rules send a fixed answer to keywords like STOP or HOURS. The Assistant bot greets people, asks the questions you configure, collects documents, files a lead, and hands off to a person when asked. Opt-out words are honoured automatically on every channel.

Verification codes (OTP)

Verification sends a 6-digit code by email, SMS or WhatsApp, checks the answer, and can fall back to the next channel if the first does not deliver. Codes expire in ten minutes and are rate limited per destination, so a bot cannot burn your wallet.

• From the console: Verification, enter the destination, press Send, then Verify with the code.
• From your website or app: use the API or the drop-in widget under Verification, Widgets. The widget handles the form, the countdown and resend for you.
• SMS codes need your DLT OTP template; WhatsApp codes use an authentication template with a copy-code button; email codes work immediately.

Contacts and consent

Contacts are your audience. Each contact holds a name, phone, email, tags and a consent record: when they agreed to hear from you, on which channel, and from where. Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act that record is what lets you message them, so Connect asks for a source on every import.

1. 1Open Contacts, Import, press Choose CSV file (Excel: File, Save As, CSV; Google Sheets: File, Download, CSV) or paste the rows. Columns: name, email, phone, tags.
2. 2Enter the consent source, for example "Signed up at Navratri 2025 counter" or "Website newsletter form".
3. 3Use tags to build audiences: vip, 2025-attendee, ahmedabad. Campaigns and automation target tags.

Campaigns

A campaign sends one message to many people on one channel and reports on every one of them.

1. 1Open Campaigns, New. Choose the channel and the audience: a tag, a segment or everyone.
2. 2For email, use Design: brand name, headline, a picture (paste the link to an image on your website, Google Drive or Instagram), your message, a button with a link, and a footer line. The preview on the right is exactly what people receive. Or paste your own HTML, or send plain text.
3. 3Variables such as {{name}} are filled per contact. Every email campaign carries a one-click unsubscribe link and header, added for you.
4. 4Send a test to yourself. Check it on your phone.
5. 5Launch, or schedule for a time. Connect sends in batches to protect your reputation and shows sent, delivered, read, clicked, bounced and unsubscribed as they happen.

Large campaigns are paced automatically. The platform sends up to 50,000 emails a day across all customers, so a very large list is spread over more than one day; the console tells you the plan before you launch.

Automation (Flows)

A flow is a small journey that runs by itself. It starts from a trigger and walks a contact through steps: send a message, wait, branch on a condition, add a tag, or stop.

• Triggers: a contact is created, a contact gets a tag, or you start it by hand.
• Steps: Send (any channel, template or text), Wait (minutes, hours or days), Branch (for example, stop if tagged "paid"), Tag, Exit.
• Example: tag a customer "order-shipped", and a flow sends a WhatsApp update now, an email with tracking after an hour, and a feedback request three days later, unless they replied in between.

Every run is listed under Automation with the step it is on, so you can see exactly who received what and when.

Inbox, delivery log and reports

Inbox

Replies from WhatsApp, SMS and email arrive as conversations. Assign, reply, close. A reply inside the WhatsApp 24-hour window is free text; outside it, the inbox offers your approved templates.

Delivery log

Every message ever sent, with its timeline: accepted, sent, delivered, read, failed, and the exact reason when it failed. Search by phone, email or message ID. This is the page to open when a customer says "I never got it".

Reports

Deliverability and spend over time per channel, so you can see a campaign's real cost against what it achieved.

API keys, webhooks and integrations

Everything the console does, the API does with one key and one response shape. Developers should read the API documentation. For business owners, the important points:

• Mint keys under API keys. A live key sends real messages and spends real money; a test key exercises everything without sending. Revoke a key the moment it might have leaked.
• Webhooks tell your own systems about delivery, replies and opt-outs as they happen, signed so you can trust them.
• Integrations connect Shopify, Wix, Google Sheets and Zapier without code, and Merdot Sites stores send order and booking messages through Connect automatically.

Link shortener

Long URLs in an SMS or WhatsApp waste characters and look untrustworthy. Paste a link under Link shortener and you get a short branded link with click counts, unique visitors and the campaign it came from. Short links work in every channel and in your templates.

The rules Connect enforces for you

Connect refuses a message before sending when it would break a channel's rules. The refusal is free and carries a code you can read in the log. The common ones:

Beyond these, Connect never sends promotional SMS to DND numbers or outside 9 am to 9 pm, honours STOP and unsubscribe on every channel, and keeps your customers' data in India.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use my existing email address like [email protected]?

Yes. Verify the domain once, and any address at it works. Replies go to your normal mailbox; Connect only sends.

Do my customers need WhatsApp Business to receive messages?

No. They receive on regular WhatsApp. You need the business number; they need nothing.

How fast are messages delivered?

WhatsApp and SMS typically within seconds. Email within seconds to a minute. Large campaigns are batched and the console shows progress live.

What happens if I run out of money mid-campaign?

The campaign pauses at the last funded message; nothing is half sent. Add money and it resumes. Turn on auto-recharge to avoid it.

Can I get a refund for messages that failed?

A message that fails before leaving is never charged. A message accepted by the operator or Meta but not delivered, for example to a switched-off phone, is charged by them and therefore by us, the same as every platform.

Who can see my data?

Only your team members. Merdot staff access an account only to resolve a support request you raised, and every such access is logged.

Where do I get help?

Email [email protected] from your account email, or use the Ask button in the console. Include the message ID from the delivery log and we can trace it in minutes.