Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman share a region but not a weekend, a currency or a dialect. Nateq runs customer service across all six from one inbox, with an AI agent that answers in Gulf Arabic and English and hands over to your team with the full conversation.
In short
Nateq is an AI customer service platform for businesses across the GCC: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. It brings WhatsApp, live chat, calls, email, Instagram and Facebook into one inbox, answers customers in Gulf Arabic, English and mixed Arabic-English, and hands conversations to a human agent with their full history.
The UAE rests on Saturday and Sunday; the other five on Friday and Saturday. A regional team always has a market that is working while another is off. The AI agent answers on every day, and queues what needs a person for the right team.
Prices, refunds and invoices come up in riyals, dirhams and dinars. Answers come from your own content for each market, so the bot quotes the figure you wrote, not a conversion it made up.
Gulf customers write in Arabic, in English, and in both at once. The agent reads each message as it was written and answers in the same language and register.
Every channel from every country lands in the same inbox, and routing rules send each conversation to the team that covers that market.
WhatsApp is where many Gulf customers write first. Connect your WhatsApp Business Account once; Meta bills each message at the rate for the recipient's country.
Complaints, refunds and anything the agent is unsure of go to a person, with the conversation attached.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the two largest markets in the region, and each has its own page. In Saudi Arabia, support is WhatsApp-first and runs in Saudi dialects; see the Arabic chatbot for Saudi businesses. In the UAE, customers switch between English and Arabic in the same conversation; see the Arabic chatbot for UAE businesses. Both are linked at the end of this page, together with WhatsApp Business API pricing for each country.
Kuwait's weekend is Friday and Saturday, and prices are in Kuwaiti dinars. Customers write in Gulf Arabic and in English, often both, and reach businesses on WhatsApp as much as on the web. With Nateq, Kuwaiti conversations arrive in the same inbox as the rest of the region, the AI agent answers from content you write for the Kuwaiti market, and WhatsApp messages to Kuwaiti numbers are billed by Meta at Kuwait's rate. That rate is the highest in the Gulf for replies: from 1 October 2026 a service reply to a Kuwaiti number costs $0.044, about 4.1 times the $0.0107 it costs to a Saudi number, so the number of messages per conversation matters most here.
Qatar's weekend is Friday and Saturday, and prices are in Qatari riyals. Customers write in English as well as Arabic, so a bot that handles only one language leaves part of your customers behind. Nateq answers both from one knowledge base, routes Qatari conversations to the team that covers Qatar, and hands over to a person with the thread intact.
Bahrain's weekend is Friday and Saturday, and prices are in Bahraini dinars. If you also serve customers in Saudi Arabia, a single inbox that covers both markets, with routing by country, saves running two support setups. WhatsApp messages to Bahraini numbers are billed by Meta at Bahrain's rate.
Oman's weekend is Friday and Saturday, and prices are in Omani rials. Customers write in Arabic and English, and on WhatsApp many questions arrive as voice notes rather than text. Nateq transcribes and answers voice notes in the same thread, and hands anything it should not handle to your team.
The two differences that shape a support rota and a price list.
| Country | Weekend | Currency |
|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | Friday–Saturday | Saudi riyal (SAR) |
| United Arab Emirates | Saturday–Sunday | UAE dirham (AED) |
| Kuwait | Friday–Saturday | Kuwaiti dinar (KWD) |
| Qatar | Friday–Saturday | Qatari riyal (QAR) |
| Bahrain | Friday–Saturday | Bahraini dinar (BHD) |
| Oman | Friday–Saturday | Omani rial (OMR) |
Meta's per-message rates in US dollars from 1 October 2026, by recipient country. Replies to customers are service messages. Nateq adds no markup; Meta bills your own WhatsApp Business Account.
| Market | Marketing | Utility | Authentication | Service | Authentication (international) | 5,000 service replies a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | $0.0576 | $0.0107 | $0.0107 | $0.0107 | $0.0598 | $42.80 |
| United Arab Emirates | $0.0576 | $0.0157 | $0.0157 | $0.0157 | $0.051 | $62.80 |
| Kuwait | $0.0792 | $0.044 | $0.044 | $0.044 | $0.12 | $176.00 |
| Qatar | $0.0341 | $0.012 | $0.012 | $0.012 | — | $48.00 |
| Oman | $0.0341 | $0.0247 | $0.0247 | $0.0247 | $0.06 | $98.80 |
| Bahrain (Rest of Middle East) | $0.0392 | $0.0091 | $0.0091 | $0.0091 | — | $36.40 |
Effective October 1, 2026 — Meta official rate card — last checked 2026-09-24
The first 1,000 service messages each calendar month are free on each business phone number. The allowance covers service messages only, not utility, authentication or marketing messages, and there are no volume tiers beyond it. A business that uses several WhatsApp numbers gets the allowance on each number. The 5,000-reply column takes that allowance off one number.
One WhatsApp Business Account, one chat widget, one support inbox, whichever GCC countries you serve.
Add prices, delivery times and policies for each country, in Arabic, English or both, so answers match the market.
Send each market's conversations to the team that covers it, and set what always goes to a person.
Yes. Every channel from every country arrives in one inbox, and routing rules send each conversation to the team that covers that market.
Yes, along with English, Arabizi and messages that mix Arabic and English. Ask us for a test with messages from your own customers in each market.
Meta charges per message, at the rate for the recipient's country and the message category. A message to a Kuwaiti number costs Kuwait's rate even if your business is in Dubai. Meta bills your own WhatsApp Business Account directly, with no markup from Nateq.
They are the region's two largest markets and differ the most: Saudi support runs mostly in Saudi dialects, while UAE customers mix English and Arabic. Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman are covered on this page.
In the EU (Frankfurt) today. Further regions are available on request.
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