Sending Message Templates

You can use the /messages endpoint to send message templates to your customers. A message template can be text-based, media-based, or interactive.

To learn more about message templates, see Messages, Business-Initiated Messages.

Before You Start

Make sure that you have completed the actions in the Messages — Prerequisites documentation.

Step 1: Create Template Using the WhatsApp Manager

Message templates are created in the WhatsApp Manager, which is part of your WhatsApp Account in the Facebook Business Manager. Your message templates will be reviewed to ensure they do not violate WhatsApp policies. Once approved, your business will have its own namespace where the message templates live.

When creating a message template, you must have the following:

1. Message template name — Can only contain lowercase alphanumeric characters and underscores ( _ ). No other characters or white space are allowed.
2. Components of the message template — Fill in the template with the text and/or media components, including parameter placeholders, as required. Make sure it contains no newlines, tabs, or more than 4 consecutive spaces and meets the length restrictions as called out in the Business Manager or WhatsApp Business Management API.
3. All other translations your business desires.

When creating a message template, you can add a sample template by clicking the Add Sample button. This helps us during the review and approval process, so we can understand what kind of message you plan to send. Make sure these are examples and do not include any confidential or personal information.

See Create Message Templates for your WhatsApp Business API Account for more detailed steps for creating message templates.

Examples

Creating a welcome message where the message template name is welcome and the message is

  "Welcome {{1}}. We look forward to serving you on WhatsApp." 

Creating an order confirmation message where the message template name is order_confirmation and the message is

  "Your order {{1}} for a total of {{2}} is confirmed. The expected delivery is {{3}}." 

Translations

WhatsApp does not do any translations for your business. All message template translations must be entered by you in same format described here. The element name is the same for all translations. For more information, see:

• Translations
• Supported languages

Step 2: Make POST Request to /messages

Once you have your template, you can send it to your customers via the template object:

POST /v1/messages
{
  "to": "recipient_wa_id",
  "type": "template",
  "template": {
        "namespace": "your-namespace",
        "name": "your-template-name",
        "language": {
            "code": "your-language-and-locale-code",
            "policy": "deterministic"
        },
        "components": [{
            "type": "body",
            "parameters": [
                {
                    "type": "text",
                    "text": "your-text-string"
                },
                {
                    "type": "currency",
                    "currency": {
                        "fallback_value": "$100.99",
                        "code": "USD",
                        "amount_1000": 100990
                    }
                },
                {
                    "type": "date_time",
                    "date_time" : {
                        "fallback_value": "February 25, 1977",
                        "day_of_week": 5,
                        "day_of_month": 25,
                        "year": 1977,
                        "month": 2,
                        "hour": 15,
                        "minute": 33
                    }
                },
                {
                "type": "date_time",
                    "date_time" : {
                    "fallback_value": "February 25, 1977",
                    "timestamp": 1485470276
                    }
                }
            ]
        }]
    }
}

Parameters

• Parameters common to all message requests
• Parameters for message templates: template object, components object, parameters object, and the language object.
• Language: Language policy options, language object, Localizable parameters.

Step 3: Check Your API Response

A successful response includes a messages object with an id.

{
  "messages": [{
    "id": "gBEGkYiEB1VXAglK1ZEqA1YKPrU"
  }]
}  

An unsuccessful response contains an error object with an error string, error code and other information. See Error and Status Codes for more information.

User preferences for marketing messages

WhatsApp provides a setting (Offers and announcements) that allows users to stop or resume delivery of marketing template messages from your business, or indicate their interest level in these types of messages.

Stop/Resume controls

WhatsApp users can use the setting to stop or resume delivery of marketing template messages from your business using the Stop and Resume buttons in the Offers and announcements overlay.

If you attempt to send a marketing template to a WhatsApp user who has stopped marketing template messages from your business, the API will process the request but not send the message. Instead, the API will trigger a message webhook with (error) code set to 498:

{
  "statuses": [
    {
      "errors": [
        {
          "code": 498,
          "href": "https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/api/errors/",
          "title": "Unable to deliver the message. This recipient has chosen to stop receiving marketing messages on WhatsApp from your business"
        }
      ],
      "id": "<WHATSAPP_MESSAGE_ID>",
      "message": {
        "recipient_id": "<WHATSAPP_USER_PHONE_NUMBER>"
      },
      "status": "failed",
      "timestamp": <WEBHOOK_SENT_TIMESTAMP>,
      "type": "message"
    }
  ]
}

To be notified whenever a WhatsApp user stops or resumes delivery of marketing template messages from your business, subscribe to the user_preferences webhook.

Interested/Not Interested feedback

WhatsApp users can use the setting to indicate how interested they are in receiving marketing template messages from your business.

If a user chooses Not interested, it can affect per-user marketing template messaging limits between you and the user.

Per-User Marketing Template Message Limits

We are rolling out new approaches, starting with consumers in India, that create high-quality user experiences and maximize marketing template message engagement. This may include limiting the number of marketing template messages a person receives from any business in a given period of time, starting with a small number of conversations that are less likely to be read. Note that the limit is determined based on the number of marketing template messages that person has already received from any business, and is not related to your business specifically.

The limit only applies to marketing template messages that would normally open a new marketing conversation. If a marketing conversation is already open between you and a WhatsApp user, marketing template messages sent to the user will not be affected.

If a marketing template message is not delivered to a given user due to the limit, On-Premises API will return error code 1026. Note, however, that this error code covers a wide range of issues that can result in non-delivery of a message, and for privacy reasons, we will not disclose if in fact the message was not delivered due to the limit. Refer to the "Why is my delivery rate not 100%?" FAQ for more information.

If you do receive one of these error codes and suspect it is due to the limit, avoid immediately resending the template message, as it will only result in another error response. Instead, retry in increasing larger time increments until the message is delivered, since the limit may be in effect for differing periods of time.

We'll continue refining our approach and appreciate your partnership as we invest in making WhatsApp the best possible experience for your business and your customers.