WhatsApp template messages: how to write them, with examples

When a customer messages you, a 24-hour customer service window opens, and every new message from them restarts it. While it’s open you can reply with normal messages. In Meta’s words, “When the window closes, you can only send pre-approved template messages.”

So you need a template to start a conversation, and to follow up after a quiet day: a delivery date, a reminder the day before an appointment, an answer to a ticket that took longer than a day.

Every template is marketing, utility or authentication. Meta describes utility templates as ones that “follow up on user actions or requests”: an order confirmation, a delivery update, a payment due. Marketing covers everything from awareness to sales and win-backs. Authentication verifies who someone is, with a one-time code.

A template that mixes the two, such as an order update with a discount at the end, counts as marketing. Meta can move a template to marketing after approval, and marketing templates are priced differently, so keep promotions out of your utility templates.

The body is the only part a template must have, and it can hold up to 1,024 characters. Most good templates use a fraction of that: who you are, what happened, what the customer can do next.

Put the details that change in variables. When you submit, give a sample value for each one, so the reviewer can read the message as a customer would.

A header can be text, up to 60 characters, or an image, a video or a document such as a PDF invoice. A footer, up to 60 characters, is a good place for your business name or how to stop messages.

Buttons save typing. Quick replies let the customer answer in one tap (“Change the date”, “Talk to us”); a link button opens a page, and a phone number button rings your business number. Meta allows up to 10 buttons in total, with at most two link buttons and one phone number button.

Names use lowercase letters, numbers and underscores, so “delivery_update” rather than “Delivery Update”. Choose a name that says what it’s for; you’ll pick it from a list later.

Each template has one language, and Meta doesn’t translate it. If your customers write in English, Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese, submit three templates with the same name, one in each language.

Meta reviews every template when you create it and again when you edit it. Approved templates can be sent; ones in review can’t yet. A rejected template comes back with a reason you can fix. Meta can also pause an approved template when customers keep reporting it or rarely read it, which is a hint to rewrite it.

A template works best as part of a conversation the customer recognises: their order, their booking, their ticket. Fill every variable, check the preview, and make sure someone is ready for the reply, because a reply opens a new 24-hour window.

Let people say no. A footer such as “Reply STOP to stop these messages” and a team that honours it keep marketing templates from being reported.

Meta charges per delivered message, by category and by the customer’s country calling code, and messages customers send you are never charged. Since 1 October 2026 each business number gets 1,000 service messages a month before they’re charged, and utility templates sent inside an open window are charged again. Rates change, so check Meta’s pricing page before you plan a large send.