Messages

/v1/messages

Use the messages node to send text, media, contacts, locations, and interactive messages, as well as message templates to your customers.

See the following guides for information regarding the specific types of messages you can send: Text Messages, Media Messages, Contacts and Location Messages, Interactive Messages, Message Templates, Media Message Templates, and Interactive Message Templates.

Before You Start

You need:

• Authenticate yourself and receive an authentication token that enables you to access the service. See the Login and Authentication documentation for more information on how to do this.
• To verify the WhatsApp account you wish to message and get its WhatsApp user ID, See the Contacts documentation for more information on how to do this.
• Meet the cut-off control service requirements for messages.

Constraints

• The following types of message are supported: text, message templates, images, documents and audio.
• A text message can be a max of 4096 characters long.

Creating

You send messages by making a POST call to the /messages node regardless of message type. The content of the JSON message body differs for each type of message (text, image, etc.).

Parameters

These are the main parameters used in /messages POST requests:

Text Object

Media Object

For the On-Premises API, the media object id is returned when the media is successfully uploaded to the WhatsApp Business on-premises/reference client via the media endpoint.

Contacts Object

Inside contacts, you can nest the following objects: addresses, emails, name, org, phone, and urls. Pluralized objects are to be wrapped in an array as shown in the example below.

Example of a contacts object with pluralized objects nested inside:

"contacts": [
    {
        "addresses": [
            {
                "city": "city name",
                "country": "country name",
                "country_code": "code",
                "state": "Contact's State",
                "street": "Contact's Street",
                "type": "Contact's Address Type",
                "zip": "Contact's Zip Code"
            }
        ],
        "birthday": "birthday",
        "emails": [
            {
                "email": "email",
                "type": "HOME"
            },
            {
                "email": "email",
                "type": "WORK"
            }
        ],
        "name": {
            "first_name": "first name value",
            "formatted_name": "formatted name value",
            "last_name": "last name value",
            "suffix": "suffix value"
        },
        "org": {
            "company": "company name",
            "department": "dep name",
            "title": "title"
        },
        "phones": [
            {
                "phone": "Phone number",
                "wa-id": "WA-ID value",
                "type": "MAIN"
            },
            {
                "phone": "Phone number",
                "type": "HOME"
            },
            {
                "phone": "Phone number",
                "type": "WORK"
            }
        ],
        "urls": [{
            "url": "some url",
            "type": "WORK"
        }]
    }
]

Location Object

Template Object

Inside template, you can nest the components and the language objects.

Components Object

Inside components, you can nest the parameters object. Additionally, you can set type to button.

 "components": [{
   "type": "body",
   "parameters": [{
                "type": "text",
                "text": "name"
            },
            {
            "type": "text",
            "text": "Hi there"
            }]
      }] 

Parameter Object

{
    "type": "text",
    "text": "Customer"
}

{
    "type": "document",
    "document":{
        "id": "doc_id",
        "filename": "doc_name"
    }
}

Button Type

Inside the components object, you can set type to button. These are the button parameters:

Example of button type with sub_type quick_reply:

 {
    "type": "button",
    "sub_type": "quick_reply",
    "index": 0,
    "parameters": 
     [{
    	"type": "payload",
    	"payload": "Yes-Button-Payload"
     }]
 } 

Example of button type with sub_type copy_code

    
 { 
    "type": "button", 
    "sub_type": "copy_code", 
    "index": 0, 
    "parameters": 
    [{ 
     "type": "coupon_code", 
     "coupon_code": "DISCOUNT20" 
    }] 
 }

Hsm Object

Interactive Object

Action Object

Examples

Audio messages:

POST /v1/messages
{
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "whatsapp-id",
  "type": "audio",
  "audio": {
      "id": "your-media-id",
  }
}

Document messages, using filename:

POST /v1/messages
{
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "whatsapp-id",
  "type": "document",
  "document": {
      "id": "your-media-id",
      "filename": "your-document-filename"
  }
}

Document messages, using link:

POST /v1/messages
{
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "whatsapp-id",
  "type": "document",
  "document": {
      "link": "http(s)://the-url"
      "provider": {
          "name" : "provider-name"
      }     
    }
}

Video messages, using link:

POST /v1/messages
{
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "whatsapp-id",
  "type": "video",  
  "video": {
      "link": "http(s)://the-url"
      "provider": {
          "name" : "provider-name"
      }
    }
  }
}

Text messages:

POST /v1/messages
{
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "whatsapp-id",
  "type": "text",
  "text": {
      "body": "your-message-content"
  }
}

Interactive messages (lists):

POST /v1/messages
{
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "whatsapp-id",
  "type": "interactive",
  "interactive":{
    "type": "list",
    "header": {
      "type": "text",
      "text": "your-header-content-here"
    },
    "body": {
      "text": "your-text-message-content-here"
    },
    "footer": {
      "text": "your-footer-content-here"
    },
    "action": {
      "button": "cta-button-content-here",
      "sections":[
        {
          "title":"your-section-title-content-here",
          "rows": [
            {
              "id":"unique-row-identifier-here",
              "title": "row-title-content-here",
              "description": "row-description-content-here",           
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "title":"your-section-title-content-here",
          "rows": [
            {
              "id":"unique-row-identifier-here",
              "title": "row-title-content-here",
              "description": "row-description-content-here",           
            }
          ]
        },
        ...
      ]
    }
  }

}

Interactive messages (reply buttons):

POST /v1/messages
{
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "whatsapp-id",
  "type": "interactive",
  "interactive": {
    "type": "button",
    "header": { # optional
      "type": "text" | "image" | "video" | "document",
      "text": "your text"
      # OR
      "document": {
        "id": "your-media-id",
        "filename": "some-file-name"
      }
      # OR
      "document": {
        "link": "the-provider-name/protocol://the-url",
        "provider": {
          "name": "provider-name",
        },
        "filename": "some-file-name"
      },
      # OR
      "video": {
        "id": "your-media-id"
      }
      # OR
      "video": {
        "link": "the-provider-name/protocol://the-url",
        "provider": {
          "name": "provider-name"
        }
      }
      # OR
      "image": {
        "id": "your-media-id"
      }
      # OR
      "image": {
        "link": "http(s)://the-url",
        "provider": {
          "name": "provider-name"
        }
      }
    }, # end header
    "body": {
      "text": "your-text-body-content"
    },
    "footer": { # optional
      "text": "your-text-footer-content"
    },
    "action": {
      "buttons": [
        {
          "type": "reply",
          "reply": {
            "id": "unique-postback-id",
            "title": "First Button’s Title" 
          }
        },
        {
          "type": "reply",
          "reply": {
            "id": "unique-postback-id",
            "title": "Second Button’s Title" 
          }
        }
      ] 
    } # end action   
  } # end interactive

}

Interactive messages (Multi and Single-Product Messages):

{ 
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to" : "{{Recipient-WA-ID}}",
  "type": "interactive",
  "interactive": {
    "type": "product",
    "body": {
      "text": "body text"
    },
    "footer": {
      "text": "footer text"
    },
    "action": {
      "
      
      _id": "catalog-ID",
      "product_retailer_id": "product-ID"
    }
  }
}

Interactive messages (Multi-Product Messages):

{ 
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to" : "whatsapp-id",
  "type": "interactive",
  "interactive": 
    {
    "type": "product_list",
    "Header":{
       "type": "text",
        "text": "text-header-content"
     },
     "body":{
        "text": "text-body-content"
      },
     "footer":{
        "text":"text-footer-content"
     },
     "action":{
        "catalog_id":"catalog-id",
        "sections": [
             {
             "title": "section-title",             
             "product_items": [
                  { "product_retailer_id": "product-SKU-in-catalog" },
                  { "product_retailer_id": "product-SKU-in-catalog" },
                            ...
              ]},
              {
              "title": "the-section-title",
              "product_items": [
                 { "product_retailer_id": "product-SKU-in-catalog" }
                           ...
              ]},
               ...
       ]
     },  
    }
}

Interactive messages (Catalog Messages):

{ 
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to" : "whatsapp-id",
  "type": "interactive",
  "interactive": 
    {
    "type": "catalog_message",
     "body":{
        "text": "text-body-content"
      },
     "footer":{
        "text":"text-footer-content"
     },
     "action":{
        "name": "catalog_message",
      	"parameters":{ 
      	  "thumbnail_product_retailer_id": "product-SKU-in-catalog"
      	}
     },  
    }
}

Interactive messages (Flows):

{
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "{{Recipient-WA-ID}}",
  "type": "interactive",
  "interactive": {
    "type": "flow",
    "header": {
      "type": "text",
      "text": "Flow message header"
    },
    "body": {
      "text": "Flow message body"
    },
    "footer": {
      "text": "Flow message footer"
    },
    "action": {
      "name": "flow",
      "parameters": {
        "flow_message_version": "3",
        "flow_token": "AQAAAAACS5FpgQ_cAAAAAD0QI3s",
        "flow_id": "<FLOW_ID>",
        "flow_cta": "Book!",
        "flow_action": "navigate",
        "flow_action_payload": {
          "screen": "<SCREEN_ID>",
          "data": { # optional
            "user_name": "name",
            "user_age": 25
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The following shows an example of payload in a response; the meta and error objects are omitted for brevity.

{
  "messages": [{ 
    "id": "message-id" 
  }]    
}

If the request is successful, you receive a response with a message ID. If the request returns an errors section, check the originating message and correct the errors before resending the request. For more information about errors, see WhatsApp Business on-premises/reference Client Error Codes and HTTP Status Codes.

If the request is held for quality assessment, the response will contain a message_status property with a message indicating that the message was not sent immediately and will be sent or dropped after quality has been validated. This property will only exist if the message is held.

    {
      "messages": [{ 
        "id": "message-id",
        "message_status": "Message has been held because quality assessment is pending",
      }]    
    }
    

Formatting in Text Messages

WhatsApp allows some formatting in messages. To format all or part of a message, use these formatting symbols:

Performance

In this context, performance represents the number of messages that can be sent in any given second using the WhatsApp Business on-premises/reference client. The maximum achievable performance depends on a variety of factors, the most important factor being your client setup choice and whether a message is being sent to a new user or an existing user —encryption sessions setup take a little longer when messaging a new user.

FAQ

Learn more

• Login and Authentication documentation
• Contacts documentation
• WhatsApp Business on-premises/reference Client Error Codes
• HTTP Status Codes