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There are three different deletions people ask about: closing the whole organisation, removing a teammate, and erasing one customer. Each is handled in a different place and has different consequences. This guide covers all three, and what happens to your WhatsApp number, your subscription and your data afterwards.
Before you start
- Export anything you want to keep first: see export your data.
- Cancel the paid subscription first if you have one, so no renewal is charged; see upgrade, downgrade or cancel.
- Only the Owner can deactivate the organisation.
Close the organisation
- Go to Settings and scroll to the Danger Zone.
- Under Deactivate Organization, read the notice: access is revoked immediately for all members; data is retained and can be reviewed only by platform administrators; the action cannot be reversed from inside the app.
- Click Deactivate Organization and confirm.
- All members are signed out; the WhatsApp channel stops receiving webhooks. Your WABA and number remain in Meta Business Manager, where you can revoke VGraple CRM's access under integrations.
- To have the data erased rather than retained, write to support from the Owner's email address asking for permanent deletion. Deletion completes within the retention period in the DPA; encrypted backups expire on their rotation schedule.
What deactivation does and does not do
| Item | After deactivation |
|---|---|
| Member access | Revoked immediately; all sessions deleted |
| Subscription | Cancel it first; a paid period is not refunded |
| Contacts, conversations, leads, media | Retained, encrypted, invisible to members, until deletion is requested or the retention period ends |
| Audit log | Retained with the rest |
| WhatsApp number and WABA | Unaffected; they belong to your Meta Business Portfolio |
| Templates | Remain in Meta's WhatsApp Manager under your WABA |
| Webhooks, API keys, Zapier | Stop working; keys are invalidated |
| Reactivation | By support request from the Owner's email |
Before you press the button
Export contacts, leads and broadcast reports, copy template texts you want to reuse, note the Phone Number ID and WABA ID from the channel page for your next provider, cancel the subscription from Billing, and tell the team the date. If another business or person should take over the account instead, use Transfer Ownership rather than deactivating.
If you are migrating to another provider
The order that avoids downtime: export contacts and leads, submit the templates you need on the new provider's side (they belong to the WABA, so they are already there if the new provider connects to the same WABA), connect the number through the new provider (Meta moves the webhook to whichever app subscribed last), verify messages arrive there, and only then deactivate the VGraple CRM organisation. Coexistence numbers keep working on the phone throughout. Keep the exports until the new system has been running for a month.
Transfer instead of delete
If someone else should run the account, use Transfer Ownership in the same Danger Zone: pick an Admin or another member as the new Owner. The old Owner becomes an Admin. This is the right move when a founder leaves or an agency hands the account to the client.
Remove a teammate
- Go to Settings, then Team.
- Deactivate the member. Their sessions end, their seat is freed, their open conversations return to the team queue, and their actions stay in the audit log.
Erase one customer
- Open the contact and choose Delete.
- The contact's personal fields, conversations, media and notes are removed from your workspace. The contact's phone number is not blocked; if they message again a fresh record is created. Use Block as well if you want no further messages.
This is how to honour an erasure request under GDPR or India's DPDP Act; the audit log records the deletion.
Settings and options
| Action | Who | Reversible | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deactivate Organization | Owner | Only by support | Settings, Danger Zone |
| Transfer Ownership | Owner | By the new Owner | Settings, Danger Zone |
| Deactivate member | Owner, Admin | Yes (reactivate) | Settings, Team |
| Delete contact | Roles with contacts delete | No | Contact record |
| Permanent data deletion | Owner, by request | No | Support desk |
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Deactivate button is disabled | You are not the Owner | Ask the Owner or transfer ownership |
| Still being charged after deactivation | The subscription was not cancelled first | Contact support; the subscription is cancelled and any period already paid is not refunded |
| WhatsApp number still shows connected in Meta | Access was not revoked on Meta's side | Remove VGraple CRM under Business Manager integrations |
| Need the data back after deactivation | Data is retained until deletion is requested | Contact support to reactivate |
Support hours are Monday to Friday, 10 AM to 7 PM IST.
One more distinction worth keeping in mind: deactivating your VGraple CRM organisation and deleting your WhatsApp Business Account at Meta are unrelated actions. Closing the CRM account leaves the number, the WABA, the templates and the quality history in your Business Portfolio, ready for another tool; deleting the WABA at Meta destroys those and is never required to leave VGraple CRM. Do the CRM side here and leave the Meta side alone unless you are retiring the number entirely.