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How to send WhatsApp messages via APIs

  • May 9, 2024
  • 8 replies
  • 734 views
devin888

I need some help to send customer notifications via API. I am receiving a notification from an external service everytime our customers get paid. I would like to send customers a WhatsApp notification about payments they received, incl. the amount. 

I have done this succesfully with https://api.manychat.com/fb/sending/sendContent for Instagram notifications, but I can’t seem to make it work for WhatsApp notifications. I also tried to solve this with templates, but I can’t trigger templates from external APIs.

Does anyone know how to send a custom message to a WhatsApp contact via API?

 

Best answer by Gustavo Boregio

You cannot do ‘sendContent’ with business-initiated Whatsapp Messages.

The alternative is do use ‘sendFlow’ and trigger a specific flow, which has the template message setup.

If you need to add dynamic information to it, add custom fields to the template, and do a ‘setCustomFields’ before, so they have the correct values before sending the template message.

I’ve done this multiple times, so if you need help setting this up feel free to book a call at gusboregio.com and I can help you ;)

    charlesararuna
    A

    8 replies

    Marcin Baćko
    Forum|alt.badge.img+2
    • Marcin Baćko
    • Message Musketeer
    • June 11, 2024

    i need more details about that 

    Gustavo Boregio
    Forum|alt.badge.img+6
    • Gustavo Boregio
    • Manychat Community Moderator
    • Answer
    • June 12, 2024

    You cannot do ‘sendContent’ with business-initiated Whatsapp Messages.

    The alternative is do use ‘sendFlow’ and trigger a specific flow, which has the template message setup.

    If you need to add dynamic information to it, add custom fields to the template, and do a ‘setCustomFields’ before, so they have the correct values before sending the template message.

    I’ve done this multiple times, so if you need help setting this up feel free to book a call at gusboregio.com and I can help you ;)

    🇪🇸 https://superarmeonline.com | 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 https://gusboregio.com
    Vadim Ciobanu
    tomaz309
    • tomaz309
    • Up-and-Comer
    • September 7, 2024

    Jumping into the conversation here if you don’t mind. 

     

    If I want to send an audio file, would that require a flow with a custom field? 

    I really need to send the audio file as an audio file, rather than a link. 

    Gustavo Boregio
    Forum|alt.badge.img+6
    • Gustavo Boregio
    • Manychat Community Moderator
    • September 9, 2024

    @tomaz309 in what channel?

    If I'm not mistaken, only Messenger and Telegram will allow to send dynamic audio files through a custom field or the sendContent API.

    If the 'audio' bubble in the flow builder accepts a custom field, then yes you can set a custom field with the audio URL and use that to send it.

    🇪🇸 https://superarmeonline.com | 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 https://gusboregio.com
    sarinme94
    • sarinme94
    • Up-and-Comer
    • June 19, 2025

    How to send pdf using API 
    this is not working

    {

      "subscriber_id": 1212,

      "data": {

        "version": "v2",

        "content": {

          "type": "whatsapp",

          "messages": [

            {

             "type": "file",

            "url": "https://s.com/letter_154697.pdf"

            }

          ],

          "actions": [],

          "quick_replies": []

        }

      },

      "message_tag": "POST_PURCHASE_UPDATE"

    }

     

    Gustavo Boregio
    Forum|alt.badge.img+6
    • Gustavo Boregio
    • Manychat Community Moderator
    • June 20, 2025

    ​@sarinme94 sending files through the API is not supported for Whatsapp.

    https://manychat.github.io/dynamic_block_docs/channels/

     

    🇪🇸 https://superarmeonline.com | 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 https://gusboregio.com
    masteromar
    • masteromar
    • Up-and-Comer
    • November 9, 2025

    ​@Gustavo Boregio 
    inside manychat automations, can I send channel messages to a custom contact id? like giving the step the id of the contact I want the message to be sent to and it gets sent.

    this will be perfect when reminding one fixed contact several times when an action happens

    Gustavo Boregio
    Forum|alt.badge.img+6
    • Gustavo Boregio
    • Manychat Community Moderator
    • November 9, 2025

    ​@masteromar you could, but most likely using another Telegram bot (not connected to Manychat) and the Telegram API.

    I’ve done automations similar to these, they require a bit of custom development outside of Manychat, but since Telegram is open and well documented, it’s totally doable!

    🇪🇸 https://superarmeonline.com | 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 https://gusboregio.com
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