Broadcasts & WhatsApp Templates

Overview

Both features live on the ChatGenius portal under their own sections, and they always work together:

• WhatsApp Templates are pre‑written messages that Meta reviews and approves. Once approved, you can send them to any WhatsApp contact, including people who haven’t messaged you in the last 24 hours.
• Broadcasts are campaigns that send one approved template to a list of contacts you pick by tag. You choose the template, pick the tags, preview the audience, and either send now or schedule it.

Meta bills your WhatsApp Business Account directly per message based on the template’s category and the recipient’s country. ChatGenius does not mark this up; you pay Meta the same as you would using their console.

Plan Requirements

Templates and broadcasts are bundled with WhatsApp access:

• Free and Creator plans: WhatsApp is not included, so neither feature is available.
• Professional ($99/mo): 500 broadcast recipients per month.
• Business ($297/mo): 5,000 broadcast recipients per month.
• Trial (Creator 7‑day free trial): broadcasts are disabled during the trial; you can build templates only after upgrading to a paid plan with WhatsApp.

One recipient counts as one against your monthly cap regardless of how many messages they replied with. The wizard blocks campaigns that would exceed your remaining cap before you can send.

Beyond your ChatGenius plan, both features require WhatsApp to be connected and a payment method to be on file in WhatsApp Manager. See Connect WhatsApp › The Payment Method Step for the one‑time setup.

How Templates and Broadcasts Fit Together

Every WhatsApp broadcast is just a template send, repeated for many recipients. That means the order of operations is fixed:

1. You write a template in ChatGenius and submit it to Meta for review.
2. Meta approves it. This usually takes a few minutes to 24 hours. The template now sits in your library with status Approved.
3. You build a broadcast that uses that approved template, pick the audience by tag, fill in any dynamic values, and send.

Templates outside of broadcasts: any approved template can also be sent to a single contact from the conversation view when you need to reach someone outside the 24‑hour service window. The template list and the broadcast wizard both pull from the same approved‑templates pool.

Creating a Template

Open the Templates section in the ChatGenius portal and click New Template. The slide‑in panel has four parts: details, content, buttons, and a live preview that updates as you type.

Details:

• Template Name. Lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores, starting with a letter (e.g. appointment_reminder). This is what Meta indexes the template by. Up to 512 characters.
• Category. See Template Categories.
• Language. Pick the language Meta should review the template in. English (US), Spanish, French, German, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, Dutch, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Russian, Hindi, and Arabic are in the dropdown. A template approved in one language only sends to recipients you broadcast to in that language; create separate templates for each language you support.

Content:

• Header (optional). Text up to 60 characters, or an image. The image you upload is the one Meta reviews, so use a representative sample (an actual offer image, not a placeholder).
• Body (required). Up to 1,024 characters. Use {{param_name}} for any dynamic values you’ll fill in per recipient (customer name, order number, date).
• Footer (optional). Up to 60 characters. Common use: opt‑out wording like Reply STOP to opt out.

The preview bubble on the right matches what the message will look like on WhatsApp, including the header, body with parameters substituted, footer, and buttons.

Template Categories

Meta requires every template to fit one of three categories, which affects both the review process and per‑message pricing:

• Utility. Account updates, transaction confirmations, appointment reminders, delivery updates, password resets done as a message. This is the default in the form and the easiest to get approved. Best for: order confirmations, reminders, status updates.
• Marketing. Promotional offers, announcements, newsletters, re‑engagement campaigns. Reviewed more strictly and priced higher per message. Currently paused by Meta for US‑based phone numbers, so the dropdown shows it as disabled if your number is in the US. You can still create marketing templates on non‑US numbers.
• Authentication. One‑time passwords and verification codes. Locked to a specific format Meta dictates.

If you submit a template under the wrong category, Meta will either reject it or move it to the correct one before approving. Picking the most accurate category up front avoids delays.

Parameters

Any value that changes per recipient goes in as a parameter. Type {{customer_name}} (or any name you choose) anywhere in the body, and the form detects it automatically and adds a Parameter Examples section to the panel. You have to fill in an example for each parameter; Meta uses these examples during review to understand what the template is for.

Naming tips:

• Use descriptive names: {{customer_name}}, {{order_number}}, {{appointment_time}}. {{1}} or {{x}} works but is harder to read when the broadcast wizard asks you to map values.
• Reuse the same name in multiple places to substitute the same value: Hi {{customer_name}}, your order is ready. We’ll text you when it ships, {{customer_name}}.

When you build a broadcast, the wizard reads the template’s parameters and asks how to fill them. Some parameters can be auto‑filled from contact data (name, phone). Anything else, you set a single value that applies to every recipient in the campaign.

Buttons

Templates can optionally include buttons. Pick one button type per template:

• Quick Reply (up to 3). Tappable buttons that send a preset reply back into the conversation. Great for “Confirm”, “Reschedule”, “Cancel” replies. The reply text counts as a customer‑initiated message and reopens the 24‑hour service window.
• Call to Action (up to 2). Each CTA can be a URL (opens a link in the customer’s browser) or a phone number (one‑tap call). Best for booking pages, order tracking links, support phone numbers.

You cannot mix button types within a single template. The Buttons section in the form shows the per‑type maximum next to each option.

Submission & Approval

Clicking Submit for Review sends the template to Meta. From that moment, the template lives in one of four statuses:

• Pending. Meta is reviewing. Most utility templates clear in minutes; the published cap is 24 hours, occasionally 72 in busy periods.
• Approved. Ready to use in broadcasts and one‑off sends.
• Rejected. Meta flagged a problem. The rejection reason appears on the template card. Common reasons: unclear purpose, missing or generic parameter examples, language mismatch (writing English content under a Spanish locale), or Marketing‑style content submitted as Utility. Fix the issue and submit a new template under a slightly different name; you can’t re‑edit a rejected one.
• Disabled. Meta de‑activated an approved template, usually for repeated complaints or low quality scores from recipients. Disabled templates can’t be sent until you build a new version.

The status filter pills at the top of the Templates section let you see counts for each state at a glance.

Sync, Quality Scores, and Delete

The Sync button at the top of the Templates section pulls the latest status from Meta. ChatGenius doesn’t poll continuously; click Sync if you submitted a template a while ago and want to confirm it’s approved. Sync also pulls in any quality score Meta has assigned. Quality scores show as Green, Yellow, or Red based on recipient feedback (low block‑rate vs high). Templates with a Red score are at risk of being disabled by Meta; rewrite them with clearer purpose or a stronger opt‑out before that happens.

Delete on a template card removes it both from your local library and from your WhatsApp Business Account at Meta. Deleting an approved template you’re still using in scheduled broadcasts will cause those broadcasts to fail, so cancel or reschedule any pending campaigns first.

The Broadcast Wizard

Open Broadcasts in the portal and click New Broadcast. The wizard has five steps; each one has to pass validation before Next activates.

1. Name. A label so you can find this campaign later in the list and analytics (e.g. April Promo, Appointment Reminder Batch 3). Up to 255 characters.
2. Template. Pick one approved template. If you haven’t built one yet, this step shows an empty grid with a link back to Templates. If the template has parameters, the wizard asks you to fill in a value for each one to use for this campaign.
3. Audience. See Audience by Tags.
4. Preview Recipients. A table of who would receive this broadcast (names and masked phone numbers). Use it to spot‑check that the audience is what you expected before paying Meta to send anything.
5. Send or Schedule. See Scheduling.

The Back button returns to earlier steps without losing data. You can close the wizard mid‑way and the campaign saves as a draft if you’ve at least named it.

Audience by Tags

Broadcasts target contacts by tags applied to WhatsApp conversations. Tags are created and applied in the Conversations section (see Team Inbox); the wizard lists every tag your account has.

Select one or more tags, then pick a match mode:

• Match any selected tag (default). Recipient is included if they have at least one of the tags. Use for broader audiences: spring‑promo OR vip.
• Match all selected tags. Recipient is included only if they have every tag. Use for narrow segments: vip AND local‑customers AND active‑30d.

As soon as you change tags or the match mode, the wizard recounts how many WhatsApp contacts would match and shows the number under the tag list. Only contacts with a real WhatsApp phone number get counted; tagged Instagram or Facebook conversations are excluded automatically because templates can’t be sent there.

If no tags are showing yet, the wizard surfaces a link straight to Conversations so you can tag a few people first.

Scheduling

The final step is when to send:

• Send Now. The campaign moves to Sending immediately and the first batch goes out within a minute.
• Schedule. Pick a date and time using the datetime picker. The picker uses your account’s timezone (shown next to the field) which is set on the portal’s Connect page. Scheduled campaigns sit in Scheduled status and start automatically when their send time arrives.

You can change a scheduled time later by cancelling and rebuilding, but you cannot edit a scheduled campaign in place. For recurring broadcasts (e.g. weekly newsletter), copy a previous campaign as a starting point each time.

The minimum schedule increment is one minute; the maximum is unrestricted but Meta’s template approval window can change before a far‑future broadcast fires. If the template gets disabled between scheduling and sending, the broadcast will fail and pause.

Pausing, Cancelling, and Retrying

From a campaign’s detail view, you have three controls depending on its state:

• Pause (on a sending campaign). Stops sending immediately. Whatever was sent stays sent; the remaining recipients move to a paused queue you can resume later. Pausing is also done automatically in some cases (see Auto‑Pause).
• Resume (on a paused campaign). Returns to sending from where it left off.
• Cancel (on a draft, scheduled, or paused campaign). Cancels permanently. Pending recipients become cancelled and won’t be sent. Cancelled campaigns still show in your history for reporting.
• Retry Failed (on a completed campaign with failures). Re‑queues just the failed recipients for another attempt. Useful when the failures were transient (a brief Meta outage) rather than structural (bad phone numbers).

Throttling and Auto‑Pause

Broadcasts process in batches of 50 recipients per cron tick. The send rate is adaptive based on how Meta is responding: if Meta starts returning rate‑limit errors, the system slows down or pauses the batch for the next tick instead of pushing through and getting your account flagged.

A campaign auto‑pauses in three situations:

• Meta rate limit hit. Any rate‑limit error code from Meta pauses the campaign with a clear reason on the campaign card. Resume after a few minutes when the rate limit clears.
• High failure rate. If more than 5% of a batch fails for non‑transient reasons, the campaign pauses so you can investigate before burning through more recipients (and paying Meta for failed sends).
• Payment method removed. If Meta returns a payment error mid‑send (your WhatsApp Manager card was declined or removed), the campaign pauses with that reason. Add a working payment method back in WhatsApp Manager and resume.

Resuming a paused campaign starts from where it left off. Sent recipients are not re‑sent to.

Delivery and Reply Stats

Each campaign tracks five counters that update live as Meta reports back:

• Sent. Templates handed off to Meta successfully.
• Delivered. Meta confirmed the message reached the recipient’s device.
• Read. Recipient opened the message. Only counted if the recipient has read receipts enabled; some users disable them, so this number reads low even on healthy campaigns.
• Replied. Recipient sent any message back within 72 hours of getting the broadcast. Attribution is best‑effort: if the recipient already replied to a more recent broadcast, that one gets credit instead.
• Failed. Sends Meta rejected. Each failure has an error code and a plain‑language explanation. Common reasons: recipient not on WhatsApp, payment method missing, parameter count mismatch, header media unreachable.

Open a campaign to see the full recipient list with per‑recipient status. The list is exportable in case you want to follow up with failures by hand or feed delivered/read into a CRM.

Limits & Tier Access

What each plan gets:

Recipient counts reset on the first of each month. The wizard checks remaining cap before allowing send; a campaign that would push you over is blocked with a message showing exactly how many recipients are left.

There is no per‑account limit on how many templates you can keep in your library, but Meta caps every WhatsApp Business Account at a few hundred approved templates total. You won’t hit this in normal use.

Meta Billing for Template Messages

Outside of ChatGenius’ subscription, Meta charges your WhatsApp Business Account directly for template sends. Pricing varies by category and recipient country:

• Utility templates are the cheapest, often a few cents per message in the US.
• Marketing templates are roughly twice the cost of utility.
• Authentication templates sit in between.
• Pricing differs by country; international sends cost more than domestic.

The exact rates live in Meta’s WhatsApp pricing documentation and are updated periodically. ChatGenius doesn’t add a markup; whatever Meta charges, that’s the cost. Your monthly Meta invoice arrives in WhatsApp Manager.

FAQ

Next Steps

You have the broadcast piece down. Other places to go from here:

• Connect WhatsApp, if WhatsApp isn’t connected yet or you haven’t confirmed your payment method.
• Team Inbox & Tags, for how to apply the tags that drive broadcast audiences during everyday conversations.
• Flow Builder, to build conversational flows that can react to broadcast replies (confirmations, reschedules, opt‑outs).
• Leads, to see how broadcast replies feed into lead scoring and notifications.

Stuck on a template that won’t approve or a broadcast that won’t send? Email info@sumgenius.ai with the template name or campaign ID and we’ll pull the Meta‑side response and tell you exactly what to fix.