Product messages turn a chat into a small shop window: instead of pasting a link and hoping the customer taps it, you send the item itself, with its photo, name and price, and the customer can open it, add it to a cart and send the cart back as an order. This guide explains the formats Meta offers, the rules for sending them and how to keep them accurate. It belongs to the WACRM guides for every business that sells online; the product page is WACRM for online shops, and the WhatsApp CRM playbook for online shops walks through the whole setup around it, from your number to order updates.
What is a WhatsApp catalog?
A WhatsApp catalog is the list of products or services you upload to Meta and connect to your WhatsApp Business Account. Every product message reads from it. Each catalog item carries a name, description, price, images and availability, and an ID you choose for it, the retailer ID, which ties it back to the product in your own store.
Meta describes catalog commerce on WhatsApp in four stages (catalogs overview, checked 13 November 2026):
- Upload the inventory, either in Meta Commerce Manager or through the Commerce API.
- Set the commerce settings for each business phone number: whether the cart is on and whether the storefront icon shows in the chat.
- Share products with one of the product message formats.
- Receive responses: questions about a product and orders arrive at your system as webhook notifications.
Two defaults are worth knowing before you start. Per Meta’s commerce settings page, the cart is switched on and the storefront icon is hidden for every business phone number until you change it. And Meta reviews every item added to a connected catalog against its Commerce Policies; an item that breaks them is flagged, and you appeal in Commerce Manager.
The catalog is not only for retail. A florist lists bouquets, a bakery lists cakes for pickup, a beauty brand lists shades of the same lipstick as separate items, and a repair shop can list fixed-price services. Anything you would put on a price list can be a catalog item.
Which product message should you send?
Send one product when the customer asked about one product, and a short curated list when they need to choose. Meta’s share products page (checked 13 November 2026) lists the formats:
| Format | What the shopper sees | Limit | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-product message | One item: image, title, price and a button to view it | 1 product | “Do you have this in blue?” |
| Multi-product message | A header, body text and a list of items in titled sections | Up to 30 products | “What do you have for a birthday?” |
| Product carousel | Cards that scroll sideways, one per product | Up to 10 cards | Comparing a few similar items |
| Catalog message | A thumbnail, your text and a View catalog button | Whole catalog | “Show me everything” |
| Catalog link | A wa.me link to the catalog inside a text message | Whole catalog | Sharing the catalog anywhere |
A checkout button format also exists, but Meta limits it to businesses in India selling to WhatsApp users with Indian numbers.
Single-product messages
A single-product message is the reply to a precise question. The customer sees the product card in the chat, opens the product detail page and can add it to the cart. Because the card is drawn from the catalog when it is shown, a price or photo you change later is updated in messages you already sent.
Multi-product messages
A multi-product message needs a text header, a body and at least one section; each section has a title and a list of product IDs, up to 30 products in total (multi-product messages, checked 13 November 2026). Sections do the work of a shop’s aisles: “Running shoes” and “Socks”, or “Cakes” and “Candles”. Meta’s own examples include re-ordering a regular take-out order and sending back a shortlist after a customer types a shopping list.
Catalog messages and carousels
A catalog message invites browsing rather than choosing. Use it when the customer asks what you sell. A carousel sits between the two: a few cards side by side, useful when three phone cases or four sofa colours need a quick visual comparison.
What does the shopper see and do?
The shopper sees products in the chat, opens one for details, adds what they want to a cart and sends the cart to you. Each time they open an item or add it to the cart, WhatsApp fetches the latest details, and if anything changed the cart shows that one or more items have been updated.
Customer
Hi! Any ideas for a birthday gift for my sister?
Multi-product message · Birthday picks
Here are a few favourites. Tap one to see details and add it to your cart.
Candles
Fig candle · Cedar candle
Gift sets
Bath set · Tea set · Notebook set
Customer
Cart sent · 2 items: Fig candle ×1, Bath set ×1
The shopper can also tap Message business while viewing a product. That arrives as an ordinary text message with the product attached as context, so whoever answers knows exactly which item the question is about.
When can you send product messages?
Inside an open conversation, at any time and without a template; to start a conversation, only with an approved marketing template. Meta states that single- and multi-product messages cannot be sent as notifications: they go only into an existing chat thread.
Inside an open chat
When a customer writes to you, the 24-hour customer-service window opens and you can reply with any product message. These are interactive messages, built in real time from the catalog, and Meta does not ask for a template or a pre-approval. This is the everyday case: the customer asks, you show.
Outside the window
To open a conversation with products, for example a new collection or a reminder about items left in a cart, you use a product template. Meta’s multi-product template page (checked 13 November 2026) sets the category to marketing and allows up to 30 products in up to 10 sections, with a header and footer of up to 60 characters and a body of up to 1,024. Like any template, it goes through Meta’s review; the template approval guide covers what gets approved.
| Situation | What you can send | Template | How Meta bills it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer wrote in the last 24 hours | Any product message | No | Service message |
| No open window, customer opted in | Product template | Yes, marketing | Marketing rate of the customer’s market |
| No open window, no opt-in | Nothing promotional | — | — |
Note
Cost, in one line: per Meta’s pricing page, from 1 October 2026 the first 1,000 service messages per business phone number per month are free (checked 9 November 2026); beyond that, and for marketing templates, the per-market rates apply. The message pricing guide lists them, and the opt-in and consent guide explains who may receive promotional messages.
How does the cart become an order?
The customer sends the cart, and you receive it as an order message that you then confirm, charge and fulfil. Meta’s catalogs overview sets out how the cart behaves (checked 13 November 2026):
- One cart per chat, per device. A customer who switches from phone to computer starts a new cart.
- No expiry. The cart waits in the chat until the customer sends it; then it is cleared.
- Up to 99 units of each item, with no limit on the number of different items.
- No edits after sending. To change the order, the customer sends a new cart.
- Only the customer sends carts. A business cannot build a cart and send it to a customer.
The order arrives through the messages webhook, as described on Meta’s responses page: the catalog ID and, for each line, the retailer ID, quantity, unit price and currency. That is enough to rebuild the order, but it is not a payment. The next steps are yours: confirm stock, agree delivery, send a payment link or arrange cash on delivery.
In practice a teammate replies in the same chat, then creates the order in your store or in Orders in WACRM Workspace. From there order automation can send the confirmation and delivery updates from approved templates, so the customer follows the order in the conversation where they placed it.
One limitation to know: Meta notes that product messages sent through the Cloud API do not show the cart icon in the chat header, unlike those sent from the WhatsApp Business app. The cart button inside the product views still works.
How do you keep the catalog in step with your store?
Let one system own each price, and sync from it. A catalog that drifts from your store causes the worst kind of support chat: a customer who added an item at one price and is told at checkout it costs another.
Which system owns the price
For most online shops the store is the source of truth. WooCommerce exposes the price and stock of every product
through its REST API (for example sku, regular_price
and stock_quantity), and Shopify keeps a price and SKU for each
variant. WACRM reads products from a connected
WooCommerce or Shopify store and, when you sync, writes
those same prices into the WhatsApp catalog. A product you add by hand in WACRM keeps the price and currency you
entered. WACRM does not let anyone edit the price of a store product, so the chat and the checkout cannot disagree
because of an edit in the middle.
1 · Source
Store products and manual products in WACRM.
2 · Sync
Active products go to your linked Meta catalog.
3 · Status
Each product: pending, synced, or failed with a reason.
4 · Chat
Product message when synced, a plain product card otherwise.
Sync status
After a sync, the catalog items endpoint of the WACRM API reports where each product stands. Pending means it is queued. Synced means Meta’s catalog API accepted the item for processing; Meta can still flag it later, which you see in Commerce Manager. Failed comes with a reason: a missing price, currency, link or image (checked before anything is sent), a rejection message from Meta, or an error on the whole request such as a wrong catalog ID. Unchanged products are skipped, and every update replaces the same catalog item instead of creating a duplicate.
A few habits keep the catalog clean:
- Run the sync again through the API after a price change or a new collection.
- Give every product an image and a public product link; those are required catalog fields.
- Remove items you no longer sell in Commerce Manager, so old messages do not invite orders for them.
- Use customer-facing product names. The same names help the WACRM AI agent match a shopper’s question to the right item.
How does WACRM send product messages?
Through the WACRM API: you pick up to 30 products and the conversation, and WACRM chooses the right message for you. The steps, which the developer documentation describes in full:
- Link your catalog. An owner or admin of the workspace enters the ID of the Meta catalog that is already connected to your WhatsApp Business Account in Commerce Manager. WACRM never creates a catalog on Meta, and unlinking deletes nothing there.
- Sync your products. Active products, from your store and added by hand, become catalog items, with the WACRM product ID as the retailer ID.
- Send to a conversation. Choose one product for a single-product message, or several with a header (up to 60 characters) and body text (up to 1,024 characters) for a multi-product message. Any teammate who can send messages can do this; linking and syncing stay with owners and admins.
WACRM applies three checks before anything goes out:
- The window must be open. Outside the 24-hour window the request is refused, and no template is sent in its place.
- The contact must have opted in. Product messages are promotional, so a recorded WhatsApp opt-in is required.
- Every product must be synced. If the catalog is not linked, or any chosen product is not synced to it, WACRM sends one plain card per product instead: an image with the name, price, currency and link, or the same lines as text when there is no image. A missing price is left out, never guessed.
That fallback means you can start sending products before the catalog is ready: the customer still gets a clear, correct card, and the full product message takes over once every item reports Synced.
Send your products in the chat
Product messages work best as answers: the customer asks, you show the item, they send a cart. Keep the store as the owner of every price, sync it into the catalog, and use marketing templates only for people who opted in. See how WACRM for online shops brings the inbox, products and order updates together, or let our team connect your store and catalog with Setup Commerce.
