WhatsApp broadcasts & message templates
Send one offer to thousands of customers — write a Meta-approved message, pick your audience, schedule it, and watch delivery live.
8 min readUpdated 21 Oct 2026
In this guide
Why broadcasts need an approved message
WhatsApp has one golden rule: when a customer messages you first, you can reply freely for 24 hours — but when you start the conversation, Meta only delivers wording it has approved in advance. That's what a message template is: your broadcast text, submitted once, approved by Meta, then reusable forever. It keeps WhatsApp spam-free — which is exactly why customers still open it.
Replies — free, no approval
Inside the 24-hour window after a customer messages you, type anything. These replies cost nothing.
Broadcasts — approved templates only
You message first, so Meta must approve the wording. Each template message is billed by Meta at their per-message rate.
Everything here lives in WhatsApp in your dashboard — you'll need your WhatsApp API account connected first (see WhatsApp hub setup).
Create a message template
A template is written once in the Templates tab and submitted to Meta from right there — you never have to open Meta's own website for this. The composer shows a live WhatsApp-style preview and checks Meta's rules as you type.
Start from a ready-made template (easiest)
Below your own layouts in the Templates tab, Start from a ready template opens a library of ready messages written for Indian businesses (it is already open while you have no layouts of your own) — order updates, offers, festival greetings, and layouts native to your kind of business (a restaurant's “ready to collect”, an auction's “you've been outbid”, a rental's pickup reminder, a gym's membership renewal) — all worded to pass Meta review. The For my … chip (for example For my shop or For my restaurant) shows the ones that fit your business first; All shows everything. Layouts marked Automation-ready already have their blanks in the order an automatic update fills them. Tap one and it fills the composer with sensible sample values; tweak the text if you like.
Or write your own
Tap + New template. Give it a short name in small letters and underscores (like diwali_offer), pick a language from the list (English — plain, US or UK — and Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Punjabi or Urdu), choose a category — Utility for order/service updates, Marketing for offers — and write the body. Optional: a header (a line of text, or an image / video / PDF you upload — uploads need your App ID and App secret in Settings), a footer, and buttons: up to 3 quick replies, up to 2 website links (a changing link ending is allowed), 1 call button and 1 tap-to-copy coupon code.
Add variables — and a sample for each
Write {{1}} where a changing value should go (or tap Insert variable): “Hi {{1}}, our Diwali sale starts today!”. A sample box appears for every variable — type what it might say (“Priya”, “ORD-1041”), because Meta reviews the message with those samples. You'll fill the real values when you actually send.
Submit for approval
Errors (a gap in numbering, a missing sample, a button too long) block the button and say exactly what to fix; warnings (a message that starts or ends with a variable) explain what Meta tends to reject. Then Submit for approval — Meta usually decides within minutes to a few hours, and almost always within 24 hours. You get a notification the moment it decides.
Handled for you behind the scenes: if Meta thinks your message fits a different category than the one you picked, it quietly re-files it instead of rejecting. If a template carries an image, video or PDF header, the approved header file is attached to every send automatically — picture offers just work, in broadcasts, drips and automatic order updates alike. Templates you created in Meta's own WhatsApp Manager appear here too after Sync.
Every layout in your list shows Preview (the bubble as customers see it) and Use in a broadcast; the ⋯ button beside them holds Send test to me, Edit (approved, rejected or paused layouts can be changed in place — the wording, buttons or footer; Meta reviews it again for a few minutes and allows 10 edits a month; name and language stay fixed), Duplicate (a fresh copy under a new name) and Delete — which asks you first, and is refused while an automation or drip still uses the layout.
What the approval statuses mean — and what to do
Each template in your list carries a status, a line saying what it means and what to do next, and a History fold (when it was sent to Meta, every decision Meta made, and Meta's own words). You never have to guess or keep checking: you get a notification when Meta approves, rejects, pauses or re-files a template.
- Waiting for Meta — Meta is still reviewing. The card says when it was sent (“Sent to Meta 3 hours ago”). Under 24 hours is normal — nothing to do. After 24 hours the card turns amber and lists what can help: finishing your business verification at Meta, and asking Meta about it from WhatsApp Manager or Meta Business Support. A layout made before the history existed, or in Meta's own WhatsApp Manager, says “waiting since at least …”.
- Approved — ready. Only approved templates appear in the broadcast form's picker.
- Rejected — Meta didn't allow that wording. The card shows why in plain words (a format rule, a promotion sent as Utility, the wrong category, a scam-like pattern), what Meta wrote, and the exact fixes. Tap the ••• button, then Edit, to fix it under the same name, or ask Meta to look again from the link on the card if you think Meta got it wrong. The ready-made library is a safe starting point.
- Paused by Meta — customers blocked or reported it; Meta stops it for a few hours and sends using it are skipped. Send it only to people who expect it, keep it short, and offer an easy way to say STOP. Switched off by Meta means it was paused again and again — make a new layout with different wording. At risk is Meta's early warning before a pause.
- Meta moved it from Utility to Marketing — shown on the card when Meta re-filed a Utility layout because it reads like an offer; it is then charged as Marketing. Make a new layout without offer words (discount, % off, apply now) to get Utility pricing back.
- Meta is looking again — you asked Meta to review its decision; Over Meta's limit — your WhatsApp account has as many layouts as Meta allows: delete ones you no longer use, then send this one again.
A submission Meta refuses before review (a duplicate name, a missing sample, a character Meta doesn't allow) never reaches your list — so it is kept at the top of the Templates tab for two weeks with Meta's reason, until you fix it and create it again. Your business verification status is shown there and on Settings → Number health.
Send a broadcast
A broadcast takes one approved template and sends it to a group of your contacts — use it whenever you have one message the whole group should see, like a sale or new arrivals.
Three things the form tells you before you press Send: the audience size (“312 contacts will receive this · 8 skipped (replied STOP or opted out)”, a plain warning to narrow the audience if it is over the 5,000 per-broadcast cap, and a warning when the audience is larger than the number of new people WhatsApp lets your number message in a day — your daily limit, shown under Settings → Number health), the language of the layout when you have the same layout in more than one language (each variant is its own choice in the list), and — for a marketing layout — the sentence “These people agreed to receive offers from you on WhatsApp” right above the button, which then reads Agree and send (or Agree and schedule): tapping it is your confirmation. Meta restricts numbers that message people who never asked, so the confirmation is recorded on the broadcast.
Open Broadcasts and pick your template
In the Broadcasts tab, tap + New broadcast, give the campaign a name (“Diwali offer”), and choose an approved template from the list.
Fill in the variables
Every {{N}} slot in the template needs a value — sends with a blank slot are rejected by Meta, so the form won't let you continue. The first slot is pre-filled with {name}, which becomes each customer's first name automatically (a title and an initial are skipped — “Dr. K. Ramesh” becomes “Ramesh”) — personal greetings without any typing. (Pasted numbers and contacts saved without a name get a friendly “there” instead — “Hi there”.) Templates made in Meta's newer editor with named variables like {{first_name}} work the same way — the boxes are labelled with each variable's name. If the template's header carries a variable, or a button needs a value (a changing link ending or a tap-to-copy coupon code), extra boxes appear for those too.
Choose who gets it
Pick an audience: All contacts, Leads, Customers, By tag (any tag from your contact book, like “wholesale” or “diwali-2026”), or Paste numbers — copy phone numbers straight from Excel in any messy format and the valid 10-digit ones are picked out for you. Pasted numbers are used for that one broadcast only; to keep them — with their names and a tag — for the next one, tap Add many numbers at once under the box: they are saved as your customers, and later you pick By tag.
Send now — or schedule it
Leave the schedule box empty and tap Send broadcast to go now, or pick a date and time (up to 30 days ahead) and tap Schedule broadcast (a marketing layout's button says Agree and send / Agree and schedule) — say 6pm, when people actually check their phones. A scheduled broadcast shows a Cancel button until the moment it fires.
The audience list is locked in the moment you create the broadcast. Adding contacts later never adds them to a broadcast that's already created — send a fresh one for them. One broadcast can reach up to 5,000 people; anyone who texted STOP is automatically left out, whichever way you built the audience — even pasted numbers.
Watch delivery — and see exactly why a message failed
Once a broadcast starts, its card becomes a delivery report — so you know what landed, what was read, and what needs fixing, without guessing. The numbers do not tick by themselves — open the Broadcasts tab again (or reload the page) to see the latest.
- Counters — targeted, sent, delivered, read (with read % — the share of delivered messages that were read), failed — on a progress bar that fills as the send completes.
- Details — opens How it went (targeted → sent → delivered → read, the read rate and how long the send took), Why N failed with a fix for each reason, and a person-by-person list showing each recipient's status (a long list opens in pages — Load more people).
- Failure reasons in plain words — “Number is not on WhatsApp”, “Outside 24h window — needs a template”, and so on, with a count for each reason.
- Retry failed — once a broadcast has finished, one tap sends again only to the people it failed for. A message whose answer from WhatsApp never came back is left alone (that person may already have it), and the button tells you how many were left.
- Pause, Resume, Cancel — Pause a running send, then Resume it later, or Cancel it for good if the offer has passed (the unsent messages are discarded; whatever already went out stays in the report).
A broadcast stops itself when your number cannot send. If WhatsApp refuses a message for a reason that would refuse everyone — a payment problem on your Meta account, an expired token, a number that is not registered, or a layout Meta has paused — or cannot be reached three times in a row, the broadcast pauses by itself right there instead of failing for everyone. Its card then says why it paused and what fixes it, and the people not yet messaged stay waiting. Fix the cause, then tap Resume.
Resuming a broadcast made 7 or more days ago asks you first, with the number of people who would get it now — an old offer never goes out by one accidental tap. Choose Not now to leave it paused.
What broadcasts cost
Broadcasts run on your own Meta WhatsApp account, so the per-message charge is billed by Meta to you directly — LentloSites adds no per-message fee on top. Marketing templates cost more per message than utility ones (Meta's rates), replies inside the 24-hour window are free, and failed messages are not billed. The hub's Overview tab shows a running estimate of your Meta bill for the last 30 days — including which template is costing what — so nothing surprises you.
Save money by replying fast. When a customer replies to your broadcast, you have a 24-hour free window — answer their questions there at no cost instead of sending another paid template later.
Resellers: broadcast to your Client CRM too
If you're a reseller, the same broadcast engine works on your Client CRM book — pick Everyone, Clients, Prospects or By tag, and the send goes out from the WhatsApp number you connected here (one connection, one inbox). Same rules: approved layouts only, STOP replies always skipped, pause/resume/retry, delivery tracking per person.
Quick questions
Short answers to the doubts shop owners hit most often with their first few broadcasts.
Can I change the audience after creating a broadcast? No — the list is fixed at creation. If it's still Scheduled, cancel it and create a fresh one with the right audience.
Why won't my broadcast form let me pick my template? Only approved templates appear. If yours is still PENDING, wait for Meta; if REJECTED, reword and resubmit.
Do I write the template in English? Any language in the list works — pick it in the Language box when you create the layout (it cannot be changed later; make a copy in the other language instead). Write the way your customers talk. When you have the same layout in two languages, the broadcast form lists each one separately so you pick which customers get.
What about people who opted out? Anyone who texted STOP is skipped automatically in every broadcast until they text START — this protects your number's quality rating with Meta.
Who on my team can send broadcasts? You and your team admins. Other team members need the Export / download data permission switched on for them in team settings — broadcasts and template submissions message many people at once, so they sit behind that switch.
Can broadcasts run on their own? For repeating day-by-day follow-ups, use drip sequences — see WhatsApp automations. For smart replies to whatever customers ask back, see WhatsApp AI replies.
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