> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.thinnest.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Broadcasts

> One approved template, to everybody who agreed to hear from you.

**Broadcasts** in the sidebar sends an approved
[template](/whatsapp/templates) to an audience computed **at send time from
consent** — never from a list somebody exported last week.

<Note>
  The WhatsApp Business App calls this a broadcast too, and caps it at 256
  contacts, reaches only people who saved your number, and gives you no
  scheduling, no personalisation and no delivery reports. This is the same job
  without any of that: no cap beyond [Meta's own messaging
  tier](/meta/overview), no requirement that anybody saved you, and you can see
  what arrived.
</Note>

## It belongs to the workspace, not to an agent

A broadcast is sent from your WhatsApp number, using a template that belongs to
your WhatsApp Business Account, to your workspace's contacts. None of those is
one agent's, so neither is the list: **every broadcast appears here**, whichever
agent answers it.

<Note>
  **Looking for calling campaigns?** They are **Voice Campaigns** in the main
  sidebar, listed the same way this page lists broadcasts. The difference is
  what you choose when you build one: a call goes out from a particular agent's
  number and is opened in its own words, so the builder asks which agent does
  the calling. See [Calling campaigns](/channels/voice-campaigns).
</Note>

## Before you can send

In this order: WhatsApp connected, an approved template, and contacts who have
consented. Each screen in the chain says what the next one needs, and the
**Send broadcast** button says which one is missing before you start rather than
after you have filled the form in.

## Writing one

**New broadcast** opens a page, not a dialog — five decisions with a live
preview of what arrives between them:

<Steps>
  <Step title="Name it">
    For you, not the customer. Nobody receiving it sees this.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Choose who it goes to">
    See below — the lists overlap, and the page says which one it settles on.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Pick an approved template">
    Only approved ones appear. Meta refuses anything else at the moment of
    sending, so an unapproved template is not an option you can pick and regret.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Fill the blanks">
    Each one takes a contact field or a fixed value. The preview updates as you
    type, so you read the message a real recipient gets rather than a row of
    braces.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Say when">
    Now, or a time. Scheduling needs nothing left open — see **Sending** below.
  </Step>
</Steps>

The page does not scroll. The two side columns do, and the preview between them
stays put, because it is the thing you are checking the other two against.

<Tip>
  **From a template you just got approved**, press **Send broadcast** on its card
  on the [Templates](/whatsapp/templates) page. It opens this page with that
  template already chosen.
</Tip>

## Who answers the replies

A broadcast produces conversations — people reply to it. **Who answers the
replies** on the send form picks the agent that handles them, and defaults to
the one your number already answers on.

It is a real choice rather than a formality: you may want a different agent on a
sale than on a delivery notice. Replies land in your [inbox](/workspace/inbox)
whichever you pick, so nothing is lost if you change your mind afterwards — only
who drafts the first answer.

## Choosing an audience

Four lists, each showing its count **before** you commit:

| Audience               | Who                                          |
| ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------- |
| Imported contacts      | Contacts from a spreadsheet you uploaded     |
| Opted in on WhatsApp   | Consented, and reached you via WhatsApp      |
| Everyone who opted in  | Everyone with `granted` consent and a number |
| Everyone with a number | Everyone with a number who has not withdrawn |

You can tick more than one, and this is where it gets counter-intuitive, so the
page says it out loud rather than leaving you to work it out:

<Note>
  **The four overlap.** Everybody who opted in on WhatsApp also opted in, and
  everybody in any of them has a number. So ticking two does not add two groups
  together — it sends to whichever single list is wide enough to hold both, and
  the page names that list and its count as soon as you pick a second one.

  Ticking *Everyone who opted in* and *Imported contacts* is the one combination
  that widens further than either: it reaches everyone with a number. That is a
  real difference and the reason the sentence is there.
</Note>

Consent is enforced in the database. There is exactly one way an audience gets
built, and it is not the interface — so a bug in a screen cannot message
somebody who opted out.

### The do-not-contact list

Separate from consent, and it applies to broadcasts as well as calls.

Consent is about a customer you already have: they replied STOP, or they never
opted in. The **do-not-contact list** is a list of *numbers* — the file you get
from a regulator, a complaint, a lawyer's letter, or the CRM you used before.
Most of those numbers are not in your contacts at all, so there is nothing to
set a consent flag on.

Add them on the **Contacts** page, under *Do not contact* — paste them or upload
a file. Nothing on that list is ever messaged or called again, on any channel.

<Note>
  It is checked **at the moment each message is sent**, not when the audience was
  built. So a list you upload at eleven stops a broadcast that is already part
  way through. It also survives an import: bringing in a spreadsheet that happens
  to contain one of those numbers updates the contact, but it does not take the
  number off the list. Only removing it does that, and that needs an admin.
</Note>

### Narrowing by tag

Tags filter *within* the list you chose — they never reach past it. Picking two
tags means **either**, not both.

The exact number after tagging is worked out when the broadcast sends, against
consent as it stands then, so the summary shows the list's own size and says the
tags will narrow it. That is deliberate: somebody who withdraws consent between
your writing it and its going out is not messaged.

## Variables

Each blank binds to a contact field or one fixed string. A template with a
placeholder cannot go out with it empty.

<Note>
  **You cannot edit the message here**, and that is not an omission. Meta
  approved a specific wording; changing it means submitting a new template and
  waiting for review. What is yours per-send is what goes in the blanks, which
  is what this asks for.
</Note>

## Retargeting and split tests

Both optional, both at the foot of the form.

<ParamField path="Only people from an earlier broadcast" type="broadcast + outcome">
  Sends only to people who did something — or nothing — with a broadcast that
  has already gone out. *Did not reply* is the usual one and usually the one
  worth sending.

  Both halves or neither: an earlier broadcast **and** what those people did.
  Half-filled, it would quietly mean everybody, so the page refuses it.
</ParamField>

<ParamField path="Test a second template against it" type="template">
  Splits the audience in half by a hash of the contact, so the two sides never
  overlap and nobody gets both. It makes **two broadcasts**, named (A) and (B),
  which you compare on the list.

  Press **Send broadcast** and both go out. Press **Save as draft** and you get
  two drafts to start when you are ready.
</ParamField>

## Sending

<Warning>
  **A send started from the console runs from your browser, so that tab must stay
  open to finish.** It is the same client-driven loop the site crawl uses.

  A **scheduled** send has no tab and does not need one — it runs on our side.
  It also picks up any broadcast a closed tab left half-sent.
</Warning>

Sends are resumable. Each recipient is its own row, so a crash or a closed tab
**pauses** rather than loses, and nobody is messaged twice.

## Watching it

The broadcast's own page shows the message as sent, every recipient with their
state, the refusal reasons grouped, and a timeline.

**Sent, delivered, read and refused are four different facts**, each carrying
Meta's own reason where one applies. "Sent" means WhatsApp accepted it — not
that it arrived.

## Cost

The summary beside the form shows the per-message rate and what the audience
would cost at it, **before** you send. It is an estimate and it lands high
rather than low: Meta charges per *delivered* message, so anything that does not
deliver is not charged.

See [Windows and what gets charged](/meta/windows-and-pricing).
Marketing templates are charged by Meta on **every** send, unlike replies inside
the 24-hour window.

A **utility** broadcast is different: any recipient who is still inside their
own 24-hour window receives it free. So the same broadcast can cost less than
its estimate, and the [usage](/workspace/usage) breakdown is what tells you
which sends were actually charged.

Calling campaigns are priced separately — see [Calling
campaigns](/channels/voice-campaigns).

Both appear line by line in [Usage](/workspace/usage), where you can also open
any call from a calling campaign and read what was said.

## What is not built

<Warning>
  * **Broadcasting on any other channel.** A broadcast is WhatsApp. Instagram and
    Messenger cannot carry marketing outside the 24-hour window at all — Meta
    forbids promotional content there explicitly — Telegram does not send one yet,
    and website chat never will: a broadcast reaches somebody who is not there.
  * **Sending to people who never opted in.** Not a missing feature — buying a
    list and messaging it is the fastest way to lose a WhatsApp number.
</Warning>