Receive Payments on WhatsApp

Your business can enable customers to pay for their orders through our payment partner Stripe without leaving WhatsApp. Businesses can send customers order_details messages, then get notified about payment status updates via webhook notifications.

Overview

Currently, customers browse business catalogs, add products to cart, and send orders with our set of commerce messaging solutions, which includes Single Product Message, Multi Product Message, and Product Detail Page. Now, with the Payments API, businesses can send customers a bill, so the customer can complete their order by paying the business without having to leave WhatsApp.

How It Works

First, the business composes and sends an order_details message. An order_details message is a new type of interactive message, which always contains the same 4 main components: header, body, footer, and action. Inside the action component, the business includes all the information needed for the customer to complete their payment.

Each order_details message contains a unique reference_id provided by the business, and that unique ID is used throughout the flow to track the order.

Once the message is sent, the business waits for a payment status update via webhooks. Businesses get notified when the payment status changes, but they must not solely rely on these webhooks notifications due to security reasons. WhatsApp also provides a payment lookup API that can be used to retrieve the payment statuses directly anytime.

Purchase Flow in App

In the WhatsApp customer app, the purchase flow has the following steps:

1. Customers send an order with selected products to the business either through simple text messages or using other interactive messages such as Single Product Message, Multi Product Message, and Product Detail.
2. Once the business receives the order, they send an order_details message to the user. When the user taps on Review and Pay, they will see details about the order and total amount to be paid.
3. When the user taps the Secure Checkout button, a secure in-app webview will appear for the user to pay for the order.
4. Once the payment has been confirmed, the business will be notified of the latest payment status using a webhook notification as shown in section 2 below.
5. Businesses can then send an order_status message to the consumer informing them about the status of the order. Each message will result in a message bubble (as shown below) that refers to the original order details message and also updates the status displayed on the order details page.

Link Your Payment Account

To receive payments on WhatsApp, you must add a payment configuration to your WhatsApp Business Account. You can create a payment configuration for your WhatsApp Business Account using the 'Direct pay methods' page under 'Singapore' in your WhatsApp Business Manager as shown below.

A payment configuration allows you to link your Stripe account to WhatsApp. Each payment configuration is associated with a unique name. As part of the order_details message, you can specify the payment configuration to use for a specific checkout. WhatsApp will then generate a payment link using the associated Stripe account. This link opens up in an in-app webview so consumers can pay for their order.

After linking your Stripe account, you must integrate with the Payments APIs below. This will allow you to send an order_details message to customers with the payment configuration to receive payments.

Integration Steps

The steps outlined below assume that the business already knows what the user is interested in through earlier conversations. The Payments API is a standalone API and hence can work with various messages such as List Messages, Reply Buttons, Single or Multi-Product Messages.

Sequence Diagram

The following sequence diagram demonstrates the typical integration flow for Payments API:

Step 1: Send Order Details Interactive Message

To send an order_details message, businesses must assemble an interactive object of type order_details with the following components:

Parameters Object

Order Object

By the end, the interactive object should look something like this:

{
  "type": "order_details",
  "header": {
    "type": "image",
    "image": {
      "link": "http(s)://the-url",
      "provider": {
        "name": "provider-name"
      }
    }
  },
  "body": {
    "text": "your-text-body-content"
  },
  "footer": {
    "text": "your-text-footer-content"
  },
  "action": {
    "name": "review_and_pay",
    "parameters": {
      "reference_id": "reference-id-value",
      "type": "digital-goods",
      "payment_type": "p2m-lite:stripe",
      "payment_configuration": "unique-payment-config-id",
      "currency": "SGD",
      "total_amount": {
        "value": 21000,
        "offset": 100
      },
      "order": {
        "status": "pending",
        "catalog_id": "the-catalog_id",
        "expiration": {
          "timestamp": "utc_timestamp_in_seconds",
          "description": "expiration-explanation"
        },
        "items": [{
          "retailer_id": "1234567",
          "name": "Product name, for example bread",
          "amount": {
            "value": 10000,
            "offset": 100
          },
          "quantity": 5,
          "sale_amount": {
            "value": 10000,
            "offset": 100
          }
        }],
        "subtotal": {
          "value": 10000,
          "offset": 100
        },
        "shipping": {
          "value": 10000,
          "offset": 100,
          "description": "optional_text"
        },
        "discount": {
          "value": 10000,
          "offset": 100,
          "description": "optional_text",
          "discount_program_name": "optional_text"
        },
        "tax": {
          "value": 10000,
          "offset": 100,
          "description": "optional_text"
        },
      }
    }
  }
}

Add Common Message Parameters

Once the interactive object is complete, append the other parameters that make a message: recipient_type, to, and type. Remember to set the type to interactive.

{
   "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
   "recipient_type": "individual",
   "to": "PHONE_NUMBER",
   "type": "interactive",
   "interactive": {
     // interactive object here     
   }
}

These are parameters common to all message types.

Make a POST Call to /messages

Make a POST call to the /[PHONE_NUMBER_ID]/messages endpoint with the JSON object you have assembled in steps 1 and 2. If your message is sent successfully, you get the following response.

{
  "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
  "contacts": [ {
      "input": "[PHONE_NUMBER_ID]",
      "wa_id": "[PHONE-NUMBER_ID]"
  } ],
  "messages": [ {
      "id": "wamid.HBgLMTY1MDUwNzY1MjAVAgARGBI5QTNDQTVCM0Q0Q0Q2RTY3RTcA"
  } ]
}

For all errors that can be returned and guidance on how to handle them, see WhatsApp Cloud API, Error Codes.

Product Experience

The customer receives an order_details message similar to the one below (left). When they click on "Review and Pay", it opens up the order details screen as shown below (middle). Customer can then pay for their order using "Secure Checkout" button that opens up an in-app webview powered by Stripe (right).

Step 2: Receive Webhook about Transaction Status

Businesses receive updates via WhatsApp webhooks when the status of the user-initiated transaction changes in a status of type "payment". It contains the following fields:

Here is an example status webhook of type payment:

POST /
{
  "object": "whatsapp_business_account",
  "entry": [{
    "id": "WHATSAPP-BUSINESS-ACCOUNT-ID",
    "changes": [{
      "value": {
         "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
         "metadata": {
           "display_phone_number": "[PHONE_NUMBER]",
           "phone_number_id": "[PHONE_NUMBER_ID]"
         },
         "contacts": [{...}],
         "errors": [{...}],
         "messages": [{...}],
         "statuses": [{
            "id": "gBGGFlB5YjhvAgnhuF1qIUvCo7A",
            "recipient_id": "[PHONE_NUMBER]",
            "type": "payment",
            "status": "new-transaction-status",
            "payment": {
               "reference_id": "reference-id-value"
            },
            "timestamp": "notification_timestamp"
         }]
      },
      "field": "messages"
    }]
  }]
}

For more information about other statuses, see Components, Statuses Object..

Step 3: Confirm Payment

After receiving the payment status webhook, or at any time, the business can look up the status of the payment for the order. To do that, businesses must make a GET call to the payments endpoint as shown here:

  GET /[PHONE_NUMBER_ID]/payments/{payment_configuration}/{reference_id}

where payment_configuration and reference_id are same as that sent in the order_details message.

Businesses should expect a response in the same HTTP session (not in a webhook notification) that contains the following fields:

Payment Status

An example successful response looks like this:

{
  "payments": [{
    "reference_id": "BM4321",
    "status": "success",
    "currency": "SGD",
    "total_amount": {
      "value": 21000,
      "offset": 100
    },
    "transactions": [{
        "id": "1243A432",
        "type": "p2m-lite",
        "status": "failed",
        "created_timestamp": 1663021545,
        "updated_timestamp": 1664024213
      },
      {
        "id": "1243A434",
        "type": "p2m-lite",
        "status": "success",
        "created_timestamp": 1664030516,
        "updated_timestamp": 1664040212
      }
    ]
  }]
}

In the case of any errors, response is similar to an error response for /[PHONE_NUMBER_ID]/messages endpoint. For all errors that can be returned and guidance on how to handle them, see WhatsApp Cloud API, Error Codes.

Step 4: Update Order Status

To notify the customer with updates to an order, you can send an interactive message of type order_status as shown below.

{
  "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "[PHONE_NUMBER]",
  "type": "interactive",
  "interactive": {
    "type": "order_status",
    "body": {
      "text": "your-text-body-content"
    },
    "action": {
      "name": "review_order",
      "parameters": {
        "reference_id": "reference-id-value",
        "order": {
          "status": "processing",
          "description": "optional-text"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The following table describes the fields in the order_status interactive message:

The parameters object contains the following fields:

order_status message introduces two new errors that are summarized below.

For all other errors that can be returned and guidance on how to handle them, see WhatsApp Cloud API, Error Codes.

Product Experience

Customers receive each order_status update as a separate message in their chat thread, that references their original order_details message as shown below (left). The order details page always displays the latest valid status communicated to the customer using the order_status message as shown below (right).

Supported Order Status and Transitions

Currently we support the following order status values:

Order status transitions are restricted for consistency of consumer experience. Allowed status transitions are summarized below:

• Initial status of an order is always pending, which is sent in order_details message.
• canceled and completed are terminal status and cannot be updated to any other status.
• pending can transition to any of the other statuses including processing, shipped, partially-shipped.
• processing, shipped and partially-shipped are equivalent statuses and can transition between one another or to one of the terminal statuses.

Upon sending an order_status message with an invalid transition, you will receive an error webhook with the error code 2046 and message "The order status cannot be updated from the existing value to the new one."

Canceling an Order

An order can be canceled by sending an order_status message with the status canceled. The customer cannot pay for an order that is canceled. The customer receives an order_status message (left) and order details page is updated to show that the order is canceled and the "Secure Checkout" button removed (right). The optional text shown below "Order canceled" on the order details page can be specified using the description field in the order_status message.

An order can be canceled only if the user has not already paid for the order. If the user has paid and you send an order_status message with canceled status, you will receive an error webhook with error code 2047 and message "The order could not be cancelled."

Step 5: Reconcile Payments

Businesses should use their Stripe account to reconcile the payments using the reference_id provided in the order_details messages and the transaction_id of the transactions returned as part of the webhooks or the payment status query.

Security Considerations

WhatsApp does not support payment reconciliations. Businesses should comply with local security and regulatory requirements in Singapore. They should not rely solely on the status of the transaction provided in the webhook and must use payment lookup API to retrieve the statuses directly from WhatsApp. Businesses must always sanitize/validate the data in the API responses or webhooks to protect against SSRF attacks.