WhatsApp Business messages

This document provides an overview of how messages work on the WhatsApp Business Platform.

Messages

You can send the following message types using the BulkGate platform:

• Text messages
• Template messages

Forthcoming:

• Media messages: image, video, audio, document, and sticker messages.
• Contact messages
• Location messages
• Interactive messages: List messages, Reply button messages, and Single and Multi Product Messages.

The following endpoints allow you to send a message from a phone number to a customer:

• On-Premises API /messages endpoint

• Cloud API /messages endpoint

Conversations

Conversations are 24-hour message threads between you and your customers and are the basis for pricing. Conversations can be opened by sending either free-form messages or template messages. See Pricing to see how conversations are opened and closed, and how they factor into our pricing model.

Scaling Conversations

You can open up to 250 marketing, utility, and authentication conversations in total in a rolling 24-hour period, but must complete business verification and display name approval in order to be able to open more than 250.

Messaging limits

Messaging limits determine the maximum number of business-initiated conversations you can initiate using each of your phone numbers in a rolling 24-hour period. A business-initiated conversation begins when the first template message is delivered to a customer and ends 24 hours later.

Business phone numbers without a connected status and an approved display name are limited to 250 business-initiated conversations in a rolling 24-hour period. This includes all business phone numbers of an unverified business since these numbers cannot receive display name approval until the business is verified.

Business phone numbers with a connected status and approved display name can initiate conversations with the following number of unique customers in a rolling 24-hour period:

• 1K unique customer

• 10K unique customers

• 100K unique customers

• An unlimited number of unique customers

This amount starts at 1K unique customers and scales automatically based on phone number status, phone number quality rating, and how often you initiate conversations with unique customers.

Read Receipts

You can set up read receipts and customers can elect to send read receipts back. If your customers opt out of sending read receipts, you will only be able to see that the message was delivered. For more information, see:

• On-Premises API: Marking Messages as Read

• Cloud API: Marking Messages as Read

Message Status

For each message you send, a notification about the status of the message will be sent to your webhook callback. In the table below, click the arrow in the left column for the WhatsApp app equivalent to each status, if available.

Name	Description
deleted	A message sent by the customer was deleted by the customer. Upon receiving this notification, you should ensure that the message is deleted from your system if it was downloaded from the server.
delivered	A message sent by you was delivered to the customer's device.
failed	A message sent by you failed to send. A reason for the failure will be included in the callback. Check the error message documentation for help debugging: - On-Premises API Errors - Cloud API Error Codes and Troubleshooting
read	A message sent by you was read by the customer. read notifications are only available for customers that have read receipts enabled. For customers that do not have it enabled, you only receive the delivered notification.
sent	A message sent by you is in transit within our systems. For On-Premises API users: To receive notifications for sent messages, set the sent_status setting to true in the application settings. The sent status notification is disabled by default.
warning	A message you sent contains an item in a catalog that is not available or does not exist.

The order of these notifications in your app may not reflect the actual timing of the message status. View the timestamp to determine the timing, if necessary.