The Twilio API for WhatsApp | Hacker News Reader

The Twilio API for WhatsApp

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184 pointscoloneltcb86 comments

Back when I was a WhatsApp user, I for one enjoyed the refreshing total absence of notification spam. If I got a ping, it was because a real person I know had something to say. Just a cold, focused person-person messaging app. Even Facebook could not top that

Opening the floodgates to cron jobs dilutes the value of the service for me, and forces WhatsApp down my list of priorities along with SMS - which I haven't had notifications enabled for in many years, because in almost every case the messages are effectively an abuse of time and attention.

Greg from Twilio here.

Totally understand your concern -- no one wants more spam. WhatsApp currently requires that brands using this API collect explicit opt-in from users prior to messaging them, and also that they also use pre-approved message templates to reach out to customers. Free-form messages can only be sent if the user replies back, and then only for 24 hours.

Curious, why'd you stop using WhatsApp?

> Curious, why'd you stop using WhatsApp?

I assume Facebook. I'm trying to get everyone I know off of it for that reason. Have you considered Signal or Telegram as additional integrations?

Telegram has security issues [0]. WhatsApp and Signal both use the Signal protocol [1].

[0] https://gizmodo.com/why-you-should-stop-using-telegram-right... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Protocol

Both of those are great channels (I personally use Signal), but we have nothing to announce.

I use twilio to send myself SMS notifications programmatically, such as when a multi-hour compilation completes, when DNS for a particular domain has propagated, or when my crawler detects that a new job had been posted to a local company's website. These notifications make my life easier, but my privacy isn't protected with SMS.

I would much prefer to have these messages delivered over signal than over SMS. I hope twilio will also consider signal messenger integration in the future.

I use Telegram for this. They have an easy API and my servers can send me unlimited messages for free.

I share _wmd's concerns here. The _last_ thing I want is to be "contacted by brands" on Signal. And while I know I can manage _my_ experience with Signal, I don't want Signal to become a place where my friends avoid because it turns into a cesspit of "brand engagement" like so many other services...

(Which sucks a bit for WhisperSystems since I'm not paying them, and I don't want them to take money off Pepsi/TMobile/McDonalds in return for "access to me" either...)

Very good point. I haven't actually used WeChat, but so far as I know you have to explicitly opt-in by adding the brand as a contact. There are valid non-spam use-cases (e.g. Amazon order updates) and it would be an unobtrusive monetization strategy.

I think you maybe missed the idea in my original comment -- opening up the platform to business and marketing in any of its guises whatsoever causes the dilution.. as is so often repeated, tech can't solve social problems, and I really have no interest in allowing marketing to invade my social space.

Any rules can/will be gamed, reinterpreted and twisted such that the end result is the always same -- I'm notified by a human-contact medium of a supposed human-contact that was actually a sales or marketing ping. I don't want that, nobody does.

Re: leaving WhatsApp, I just decided I didn't need it. People can voice call if it's urgent, for everything else I'll see it eventually. There was no gap in my life needing filled by an instant-response chat app with instant-online-status and instant-typing-notifications, I just came to find it all generally annoying

For some of my clients (Medical Practices & Plumbers) being able to send appointment reminders via text has been a huge improvement in their workflow. Their customers get timely information without interrupting their day, about the only thing missing is a secure delivery medium. We've explored Signal & Whatsapp integration, but I think we're still a few years off from anything taking off.

> collect explicit opt-in

Isn't this the biggest lie in the bulk messaging industry?

Maybe for bad actors. I work for an U.S. company and we were explicitly required to get opt-in by the compliance officer. And it's messages users actually want to get (we have over 99.9% opt-in).

That sounds extremely similar to wechat appart from the opt-in being managed in wechat itself. A lot of other limitations exist on wechat to limit brand creeps, limit number of push messages a day, pack brand accounts under a dedicated simili user fold and more.

If you guys are curious about a platform with good private / branding integration as to brands creeping in your private circles .

Small comfort. The bar for explicit opt in is very easy to dupe someone into. I know, it happened to me, and I’m a power user.

> Users increasingly want to talk to businesses the same way they talk with their friends and family.

Citation needed, IMO. I hardly speak for most users, but if I had to guess, it's far more that businesses want to speak to users the same way that users talk to their friends and family, rather than the other way around.

Not that this doesn't sound pretty neat, but I'm super curious where the demand from users to connect with businesses via WhatsApp is.

If I want to get a problem sorted with my home ISP I need to call them and spend ages on hold, or use their poor online chat service and have much less disruption to my time.

Using WhatsApp rather than a browser based system for the chat would be a much slicker client experience.

That's actually a good use case. User initiated chat with business certainly has its uses. Business instigated conversations with users however...

Appointment reminders can be useful though!

> I'm super curious where the demand from users to connect with businesses via WhatsApp is.

Simple -> WeChat and the Chinese market is the only citation you need. Your argument is probably then "but that's China" and I think that's basically the point of offering this...to test it in WhatsApp's markets where WeChat doesn't have dominance.

Whatsapp is massive outside the US and China, the rest of the world communicates with it. No other competitor comes nearly close.

It's amazing how true that is. The last time I received an SMS from a person rather than a business was over a month ago.

I used to do a lot of work in Asia, and it was pretty common there to see businesses have the option to use whatsapp to contact them. It was very common place to be able to contact customer care via whatsapp, or to do things like book a haircut, or restaurant etc... It also drove a lot of B2B communication.

That's inbound communication. This is outbound, with the risk it's only spam.

It was both really. I’d have customer care reps reach out to me via whatsapp in some situations.

Do they use their own number or a company account common to every rep?

In the first case it's not different from you and me messaging about business. It doesn't require anything more than the standard WhatsApp app.

If they were using a common account then yes, WhatsApp would have done something new for businesses as they did with the APIs they let Twilio use.

I honestly don’t remember. My point was more that it was a pretty good customer experience that’s used quite extensively in some markets.

> This is outbound, with the risk it's only spam

No, the WhatsApp Business API is both in and outbound.

I want to be able to talk to a real person when dealing with some business, in case of a problem with the service, or in case a have a doubt or question. WhatsApp comes in handy in that situation for me. But on the other hand, I dont want that business to talk to me when unsolicited.

> but I'm super curious where the demand from users to connect with businesses via WhatsApp is.

Almost everywhere in the world.

In the German elections, you can message local candidates directly via WhatsApp. In Brazil, you book your doctor, dentist, plumber, restaurant, get a pizza delivered, etc. over WhatsApp. In Spain you get customer support from your airline over WhatsApp.

And all of this was before WhatsApp launched its business service.

So this isn't just demand. This is how business is done, today, in a large number of countries around the world.

Greg from Twilio here.

Living in America and not being a regular WhatsApp user, I had a similar reaction when I first heard about this. It wasn’t until I started talking to developers outside America -- especially in Brazil and India, areas where SMS is unreliable and expensive, and where WhatsApp is ubiquitous -- that I realized how powerful this product could actually be.

Thanks for explaining that.

If you are a large enterprise organization, and your customers are other companies, not everybody will have a company e-mail (especially for smaller independent shops), but everybody will have a cell phone.

My dentist texts me appointment confirmations these days. I like that.

Also, I've been seeing more and more people texting/messaging in a professional role as that is what they are used to (as opposed to calling, or checking e-mail).

> If you are a large enterprise organization, and your customers are other companies, not everybody will have a company e-mail (especially for smaller independent shops), but everybody will have a cell phone.

Conversely, email is cheaper than cell phones. Few of my staff have company provided phones, but they all have company provided email addresses.

I think it depends on the business. I can see myself wanting to talk to my local pub and gyro shop down the street from it similarly to how I might talk to family and friends.

Do I want to talk to GEICO the same way? No.

"demand from users to connect with businesses via WhatsApp"

In South America it's HUGE. The insurance company I used to work for even started underwriting over WhatsApp, and it was all user-driven. In countries like Brazil or my own Uruguay, there's no SMS, only WhatsApp (carrier's faults that were greedy and wanted to keep charging per SMS).

I kinda see this happen around me - it's pretty well known that one of the best ways of getting customer service these days is to have a million twitter followers then at-message your complaint to a brand account.

The rise of that, in my opinion, is exactly mapped onto my growing disenchantment with Twitter and while not the only driver, is a big part of why I left.

It seems to me, businesses have made intentional changes to ensure all other forms of contact with them are so poor and ineffectual, that you'll move those discussions into your family/friends public chat spaces because none of the private alternatives work at all.

</end grumpy old man rant>

Interesting business model indeed if this article https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/01/whatsapp-business-api/ is to be believed. Though the part of a business only being able to respond to customer initiated messages doesn't seem right - I, even now, get WhatsApp messages from bookmyshow and makemytrip (movie and travel booking portals in India) for bookings done, without me ever sending them a WhatsApp message. They were a part of the early adopter program. And the Twilio API also offers to send unsolicited messages for a fee ($0.0075 it looks like).

Pranav from Twilio here. You're right — businesses can contact users first, provided they only use message templates pre-approved by WhatsApp.The article gets that wrong. The messages MMT or BMS have sent you so far should be according to these templates. Also, businesses can not send unsolicited messages though - users have to opt-in to receiving messages from them. You probably did that when you gave them your WhatsApp number after buying a ticket or a flight.

How is the opt-in requirement enforced in the API? Some sort of ticket or per-user authorization hash?

Is this against Facebook/WhatsApp's policy to use this as a business?

From: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/overview

"Please note that if you use anything other than the official WhatsApp Business API or other official WhatsApp tools, we reserve the right to limit or remove your access to WhatsApp as this violates our policies. Please do not use any non-WhatsApp authorized third-party tools to communicate on WhatsApp."

This changed 24 hours ago.

They just added that language 24 hours ago?

As a digital nomad that swaps sim cards for cheap data, this is good news. I hope most business adopt a WhatsApp option. IME most developing nations have 10+Mbps LTE for $3 GB and useless wifi. International roaming is crap because you need to be on the right network depending on the town.

Why not just get a VOIP OTT app so you have a stable phone number to be reached at?

still would need to swap sim cards for different providers as you nomad around.

Hopefully this becomes unnecessary in a few years as the eSIM standard moves along, and your SIM is virtual (and multiple operator "SIMs" can be provisioned on a device).

https://www.gsma.com/esim/

I am really looking forward to prepaid providers offering this. Recently when I was in Canada for a few days, and was stuck on a slow international data plan through TMobile, I would have paid $10 or $20 for an eSIM if it was as easy as downloading an app.

I make zero calls, people know to reach me by whatsapp, except say Citibank which sends a fraud check by SMS which I cant respond to and my credit card gets shutdown. I don't want a stupid Google voice like app, and it all goes to hell when porting a number.

WhatsApp is so reliable. iMessage goes to hell unless you put +XX country codes for all of your contacts.

WhatsApp has a public API? Or is this a partnership?

Whatsapp is currently opening API to few partners

https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000648/Growing-our-Tools-for-Bus...

WhatsApp has a business plan[0] that includes API access.

[0] https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/general/26000067

Your pricing is fu*ked. >9c to Germany, >7c to Ireland, > 8c to France, nearly 10c to Netherlands. More expensive than SMS.

I can't take my eyes off the rotating 3d code gif and am wondering how something like that was made.

Greg from Twilio here.

We are fortunate to have a guy on our Brand team, Aaron, who is very good with video.

I'm really hoping that WhatsApp would open their (chatbot) API to devs soon, following Facebook Messenger, Telegram, LINE, Kik, etc.

This Twilio API for WhatsApp is more suitable for s/spammers/marketers, because it will be prohibitively expensive for casual chat.

Can I access whatsapp messaging from a twiml bin, or do I have to host a script on a third party somewhere ?

I really, really like using twiml bins because no third party or hosting is required - the code resides on, and runs on, twilio ...

You can use TwiML Bins! Also, have you tried Functions? It's like TwiML Bins, but with more JavaScript.

https://www.twilio.com/console/runtime/functions/

(aws lambdas with twilio sdk baked in)

I guess AWS will be next. Would be great to have as an SNS destination.

Smart. I'm amazed that there isn't one for iMessage as well. Most of the world has replaced SMS with either iMessage or Whatsapp, would be great to have both.

Well, you can yell at Apple to get that to exist. Good luck.

I wouldn't be surprised if Twilio gets into this soon as well, since Apple is opening up the iMessage platform.

https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/

Damn that's actually pretty interesting.

Apple is making a lot of promises like access to a person which makes me think they’ll be curating this, at least for a while.

Can business accounts on WhatsApp be part of groups?

Greg from Twilio here.

The API doesn't currently support groups. It's a big feature request though.

Why is this priced the same as SMS? How does WhatsApp allow it? Why does it only allow Twilio? Is there an API I can connect to directly?

https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000648/Growing-our-Tools-for-Bus...

Does Twilio handle the end-to-end encryption on behalf of its users? If so, they can still be intercepted or modified at the API level.

Greg from Twilio here.

This is a great question, and we can do a better job describing what’s happening here.

Messages are encrypted between your users and Twilio using WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption. Your requests to Twilio are secure with our HTTPS REST API. You can also redact your messages on Twilio for even greater privacy.

Appreciate you highlighting this. We’re working on getting the copy updated on our website to be more clear.

Is this for businesses only, or can individuals with a Twilio account also make use of this API?

Greg from Twilio here.

Right now it's for businesses only. Any developer can use Twilio's sandbox, but to ship to production you'll need a verified WhatsApp Business account.

How much will it cost? It needs to be much cheaper than SMS. SMS adds up fast.

https://www.twilio.com/whatsapp/pricing/us

Looks like it'll also add up fast.

$0.0135 per message. That's almost like SMS, to be honest.

But extremely cheap compared to the markets they're targeting. SMS is expensive in countries outside of the US, and that's why WhatsApp is so widely used.

Is it cheaper than the same functionality in WhatsApp's business API?

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/api/messages

Unknown, it's not currently public pricing afaict. Probably behind an NDA or variable,

$0.0135 per message is for messages to US numbers only. E.g. price to Belgium is a whooping $0.1010 per message.

Almost like Twilio's SMS price, but in the real world SMS in the US is ~$0.0015 (outbound) and free for inbound and that's without trying very hard, can get even lower. Granted it doesn't come with all the ready-made tooling and bells and whistles, which evidently has a high price tag attached if doing via Twilio.

Any word on pricing?

Whatsapp is so ugly and stupid messenger:

1. Desktop client is a proxy for mobile app. If phone goes offline, desktop client is disconnect.

2. You can't add contact from desktop client. So if you use whatsapp for business, you need a phone right right next to desktop PC and every time switching between phone and desktop.

3. Only local contact list and only one device. If we have few managers that uses WhatsApp for sales or tech support, we can't share one account for few PC's.

4. Impossible to logout from mobile app. To logout on iOS you need to delete WhatsApp and then install it again.

5. No chat logs on the server. You need to backup your chat's INTO THE FILE and then move it to another device.

6. Only one device! You can't simultaneously use whatsapp on phone and tablet.

I can continue this list very long. So I do not understand why this crap is so popular?

Popularity, if all your family and friends have it, it's hard to move all that to a new platform.

[Removed]

Hey there - I lead Twilio's documentation team. There's nothing worse than frustrating docs, I'm sorry ours are coming up short for you.

I'd love to talk more about it and hear how we can serve you better. And it looks like you work with Django a lot? So do I - maybe I can help if you've got a specific project in mind.

My email is abaker@twilio.com - would love to talk more about all of this.

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