> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.senderz.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# WhatsApp

> Approved WhatsApp templates sent from an automation, billed from your SMS credit balance, with its own separate opt-in.

WhatsApp gets opened. It suits order updates, back-in-stock alerts, cart recovery and VIP offers, sent from the automations you already run.

WhatsApp in Senderz is **provider-managed**. Messages go out through SmartSend, a WhatsApp Business provider, using WhatsApp templates that provider has already had approved. You do not create a Meta Business account, you do not log in with Facebook, and you never touch the WhatsApp Business API yourself.

<Info>
  WhatsApp is **automation only**. There is no WhatsApp campaign. You reach
  contacts by adding a WhatsApp step to an [automation](/en/messaging/flows).
</Info>

## What you need before you can send

Three things have to be in place. Two of them are not self-serve.

<Steps>
  <Step title="The WhatsApp channel switched on for your workspace">
    WhatsApp runs on a shared business number that the Senderz team enables
    for you. Until it is on, the WhatsApp step in the automation builder is
    locked and says **WhatsApp is not switched on**. There is no screen where
    you can turn it on yourself. Contact support and they will enable it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="SmartSend connected">
    Go to **Integrations** and connect **SmartSend**. It sits in the SMS
    category and in the Israeli integrations group. You paste the API key from
    your SmartSend account. Senderz verifies the key by loading your WhatsApp
    templates, so a wrong key is rejected straight away.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Contacts who opted in to WhatsApp">
    WhatsApp has its own consent record, separate from SMS. A contact with a
    phone number and SMS consent is **not** subscribed to WhatsApp. See
    [Collecting WhatsApp consent](#collecting-whatsapp-consent) below.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## What it costs

Each WhatsApp conversation costs a **flat 3 SMS credits**, taken from the same credit balance as SMS and voice.

<Note>
  The cost is flat. It does not change with the length of the message or the
  number of parameters. This is different from SMS, which counts characters.
  There is no separate WhatsApp plan and no separate balance to top up.
</Note>

A send is authorised against the balance before the provider is called, and the credits are only committed once the provider accepts the message. If the balance is too low, that recipient is skipped and reported as **Not enough SMS credits**. Buy credits from **Plans and Billing**, the same place you buy them for SMS.

## Building a WhatsApp step

Open an automation, add a **WhatsApp** step, and select it to open its panel.

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="SmartSend template" icon="file-lines">
    Pick from the approved templates on your connected SmartSend account. Only
    templates with approved status are listed. If the list cannot load, the
    panel offers a **Connect SmartSend** link and a retry. You cannot type a
    free-form message. WhatsApp only allows a pre-approved template for a
    business-initiated conversation.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Language code" icon="language">
    The language variant of the template. It defaults to `he`. Choosing a
    template from the list fills this in for you.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Template parameters" icon="code">
    One value for each placeholder in the template, **in order**. Add a
    parameter per placeholder. Each value accepts merge tags, so
    `{{firstName|there}}` fills in the contact's first name and falls back to
    "there" when it is missing.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Respect SMS quiet hours" icon="moon">
    On by default, with a nested **Respect Shabbat** switch. Leave both on
    unless you have a specific reason. See
    [Quiet hours and Shabbat](#quiet-hours-and-shabbat).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Live or Draft" icon="toggle-on">
    Every message step carries this switch. A step set to **Draft** is skipped
    when a contact reaches it. They move on to the next step. This is how you
    stop a WhatsApp step sending without deleting it or pausing the whole
    automation.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

An automation cannot be published while a **live** WhatsApp step has no template selected. You will see **A live WhatsApp step needs a template name before publishing**.

## Collecting WhatsApp consent

WhatsApp consent is its own record on the contact, alongside email, SMS and push. You can see it on the contact profile under **Consent**.

There are four places consent can be recorded.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Storefront popup" icon="window-maximize">
    Add a consent checkbox to a popup and set its **Channel** to WhatsApp. The
    visitor ticks it themselves.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Unsubscribe and preference page" icon="sliders">
    Existing subscribers can add WhatsApp from your preference page, if they
    have a phone number on file.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Contacts screen and API" icon="user-plus">
    The new contact dialog has a **WhatsApp opt-in** switch. The contacts bulk
    bar has **Subscribed to WhatsApp**. The contacts API accepts WhatsApp
    consent directly.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Contact import" icon="file-import">
    Map a WhatsApp consent column from your file, or tick **Subscribed to
    WhatsApp** on the final step of the import wizard.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

<Warning>
  The popup consent box is **always explicit and never ticked in advance**, and
  that is not configurable. It never rides along with the SMS opt-in. A visitor
  who gives you their phone number for SMS has not agreed to WhatsApp. Israeli
  law needs a separate, deliberate opt-in for each channel.
</Warning>

The popup and the preference page only offer WhatsApp when your workspace has WhatsApp turned on and that particular source is enabled for it. The contacts screen, the contacts API and the import wizard are always available, because there you are recording consent you gathered yourself.

## An SMS STOP does not stop WhatsApp

This is the trap worth reading twice.

A contact replying STOP to an SMS unsubscribes them from **SMS only**. Their WhatsApp consent on the very same phone number is untouched, and WhatsApp messages keep going.

<Warning>
  SMS and WhatsApp are separate channels that happen to share a phone number.
  Nothing about an SMS opt-out is inherited by WhatsApp, in either direction.
  If someone tells you they want to stop hearing from you on their phone, check
  both records on their contact profile.
</Warning>

The same applies to your unsubscribe page. Unsubscribing from email does not touch WhatsApp. Only the workspace-wide unsubscribe, the one that removes a contact from all marketing, clears every channel at once.

## Opting out of WhatsApp

A recipient turns WhatsApp off from your preference page. Senderz then does two things.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Records the opt-out on the contact">
    WhatsApp consent moves to unsubscribed, with a timestamp and the source, in
    the contact's consent history.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Adds the number to the provider blocklist">
    Senderz tells SmartSend to block that number as well. That is a second
    layer, independent of the consent record, so an accidental send cannot get
    through.
  </Step>
</Steps>

If the same recipient later opts back in from your preference page, the number is removed from the provider blocklist automatically.

## Turning WhatsApp on and off

Activation is handled by the Senderz team, not by you. There is no WhatsApp setup screen in the app today.

Once WhatsApp is active for your workspace, what it controls is where **Senderz itself asks for WhatsApp consent**: the checkbox on your storefront popups and the WhatsApp option on your preference page. Turning it off removes those asks.

<Warning>
  Turning WhatsApp off does not by itself stop an automation that is already
  running. To stop WhatsApp messages going out, set the WhatsApp step to
  **Draft**, or pause the automation. Both take effect immediately for
  everyone who has not reached that step yet.
</Warning>

## Rules a WhatsApp message follows

Every WhatsApp message runs through the same checks as the other channels.

| Check                   | Behaviour                                                                                       |
| ----------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Suppression             | The number is skipped if it is on your suppression list. Checked first, before everything else. |
| Consent                 | The contact's WhatsApp consent must be **subscribed**. Nothing else counts.                     |
| Marketing pause         | A recipient who chose Pause on your unsubscribe page is skipped until the pause expires.        |
| Frequency cap           | 3 WhatsApp messages per contact per day, 10 per week, counted in Israel local time.             |
| Quiet hours and Shabbat | Deferred, not dropped. See below.                                                               |
| Credit balance          | 3 credits are held before the provider is called.                                               |

### Quiet hours and Shabbat

Marketing WhatsApp to Israeli recipients is held during quiet hours (20:00 to 08:00 local) and during Shabbat, the same as SMS.

<Note>
  A held message is **deferred**, not dropped. It waits and goes out when the
  window opens. Senderz retries in steps of at least 15 minutes, up to 16
  attempts across 4 days. Only if no window opens in that time does it finally
  fail, reported as **Send window expired**. Read
  [Quiet hours](/en/compliance/quiet-hours) for the detail.
</Note>

If the automation is marked as transactional at its trigger, its WhatsApp step skips consent, frequency caps and quiet hours, because the message is an operational one the customer is expecting. Suppression still applies.

## Current limits

Be aware of these before you plan around WhatsApp.

* **Automation only.** No WhatsApp campaign, and no WhatsApp option in the transactional API.
* **No test send.** There is no Send test for WhatsApp, unlike email, SMS and push. The only way to check a step is to trigger the live automation with a contact you control, which costs 3 credits.
* **Approved templates only.** You cannot compose free text. New template wording has to be approved on your provider account first, which takes time.
* **No self-serve activation.** Both switching the channel on and switching it off go through Senderz support.
* **Up to 20 parameters** per template, each up to 1,024 characters.
* **Voice and SMS share a switch, WhatsApp does not.** WhatsApp has its own channel switch, so turning SMS off does not turn WhatsApp off.

## Related

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Channels overview" icon="signal-stream" href="/en/channels/overview">
    How the five channels compare on cost, consent and timing rules.
  </Card>

  <Card title="SMS" icon="comment-sms" href="/en/channels/sms">
    The other phone channel, and the credit balance WhatsApp shares with it.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Consent and unsubscribes" icon="user-check" href="/en/audience/consent">
    How per-channel consent is recorded and withdrawn.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Automations" icon="diagram-project" href="/en/messaging/flows">
    Where a WhatsApp step lives and how it is triggered.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>