WhatsApp order notifications with webhooks and the REST API

A Dhaka electronics shop sells through its own website and a Facebook Page. Website orders land in the shop's order system, and every morning someone copies the order numbers into WhatsApp one by one: "Apnar order #4512 confirm hoyeche." By the evening rush, the copying has fallen behind, and customers start asking where their confirmation is.

That copying job is exactly what webhooks and APIs are for. Your order system already knows when an order is placed, confirmed or shipped. It just needs a way to tell WhatsApp.

This guide shows how to do it with SaleMag's REST API, with request examples, the template you need, how to get signed events back, and what these messages cost after Meta's October 2026 pricing change.

Which route should you use for order notifications?

Every route ends in the same REST API call; what changes is who makes it. Call the API from your own code if you have developers, or from Zapier, Make or n8n if you do not. SaleMag has no order webhooks, so your system has to start each notification.

Stores on Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce can also connect to SaleMag. That syncs products, orders and stock, so the AI agent answers from your real catalogue, but it does not send order confirmations or shipping updates to customers. Use one of the routes above for those.

What do you need before you start?

You need four things in place before the first notification goes out:

1. An official WhatsApp number connected through Meta's WhatsApp Cloud API. QR-linked numbers cannot send templates.
2. An approved utility template for each notification type.
3. Customer phone numbers in international format, such as +8801712345678, not 01712345678.
4. An API token with the scopes you need, such as contacts:read, contacts:write and messages:write.

What should an order notification template say?

Keep it factual: the order number, the total and what happens next, with no promotion. Order confirmations and shipping updates are usually approved as utility messages; adding an offer can get them reclassified as marketing.

Template name: order_confirmation
Category: Utility
Language: English

Hi {{1}}, your order {{2}} is confirmed. Total: {{3}} (cash on delivery).
We will message you again when it ships.

Template name: order_shipped
Category: Utility
Language: English

Hi {{1}}, your order {{2}} has been handed to the courier.
Track it here: {{3}}

Meta also accepts Bangla templates with Bengali as the template language, but SaleMag's send endpoint sends templates in English only for now, as explained below. Our guide to order status templates that get approved has more wording that passes Meta's review.

How do you send an order notification with the REST API?

Find or create the contact, then call POST /api/v1/messages/send with the template name and variables. The developer API uses bearer tokens and returns JSON.

Step 1: Find or create the contact

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -H "Accept: application/json" \
  "https://YOUR-SALEMAG-URL/api/v1/contacts?search=8801712345678"

curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"phone_e164":"+8801712345678","first_name":"Rafi"}' \
  "https://YOUR-SALEMAG-URL/api/v1/contacts"

Keep the contact id; you need it to send.

Step 2: Send the template

curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "contact_id": 42,
    "channel": "whatsapp",
    "template_name": "order_confirmation",
    "template_vars": { "1": "Rafi", "2": "4512", "3": "৳3,250" }
  }' \
  "https://YOUR-SALEMAG-URL/api/v1/messages/send"

A success returns the WhatsApp message id and "status": "sent". Variables are keyed by position. Two details matter:

• Template language: the send endpoint currently sends templates with the English (en) language code, so submit your order notification templates in English. A Bangla template cannot be sent through the API yet; while the customer's 24-hour window is open, you can send Bangla as a plain text message with body instead of template_name.
• Rate limits: 60 requests per minute per user, plus 60 per minute on the send endpoint. On a 429, wait for the Retry-After header before retrying.

The same endpoint can send SMS through your default gateway with "channel": "sms" and a body.

How do you get SaleMag events back into your own system?

Register an HTTPS endpoint on the Webhooks page and choose events. You then receive signed JSON for contact.created, message.received and campaign.completed, and you can fire a test.ping from the dashboard. There are no order or cart events: order changes always travel from your system to SaleMag through the API. A common use is logging every incoming chat, or flagging a customer who replies "cancel" to an order message.

Verify each delivery before trusting it:

import crypto from "crypto"

function verify(rawBody, header, secret) {
  const parts = Object.fromEntries(header.split(",").map((p) => p.split("=")))
  const expected = crypto.createHmac("sha256", secret)
    .update(`${parts.t}.${rawBody}`)
    .digest("hex")
  if (!parts.v1 || parts.v1.length !== expected.length) return false
  return crypto.timingSafeEqual(Buffer.from(expected), Buffer.from(parts.v1))
}

The header is X-Webhook-Signature: t={timestamp},v1={signature}, signed with your whsec_ secret. Respond within 10 seconds; failed deliveries are retried up to five times, after 1 minute, 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day and 1 day.

What do WhatsApp order notifications cost now?

Each template message is charged by Meta per delivered message, by category and country, and since 1 October 2026 that includes utility templates sent inside an open customer service window. Normal replies are free up to 1,000 per business number each month, then charged. Bangladesh has its own rates on Meta's rate card, which is on Meta's pricing page. Software plans are on the pricing page.

So send the notifications that save a support chat, such as confirmation and shipped, and skip the ones nobody needs.

Why do order notifications fail?

Most failures come from the template, the phone number or the account.

Next steps

Get your order_confirmation and order_shipped templates approved first, since review is the slow part. Then wire the API call, send ten test orders to your own phone, and check that each message arrives. To get an API token and register a webhook endpoint, start free.