How to manage WhatsApp Payment
Once you configure your Payment Gateway and create at least one Order Message, a new message becomes available inside Flows called “WhatsApp Pay”.
Before your payment configuration is complete, this WhatsApp Pay message appears disabled inside Flows. However, as soon as your payment setup is completed and you have created an Order Message, the WhatsApp Pay action becomes active and ready to use.
From this point forward, you can place the WhatsApp Pay message anywhere inside your Flow, depending on how you want customers to receive order messages and payment links.
WhatsApp Pay works with three different Order Message Types:
Each of these types determines how the order is created, how products appear to the customer, and how payment links behave.
When using WhatsApp Pay message with the WhatsApp Cart Order message type, the order creation process begins directly inside the customer’s WhatsApp application.
The customer selects products from your Meta Catalog, adds them to the WhatsApp Cart, and places an order.
As soon as this happens, the Order Received trigger fires inside your Flow. This trigger is specifically designed to capture WhatsApp Cart orders and start automation based on them.
To begin, open the Flow Builder and set Order Received as the Trigger event in flow start. From there, drag the WhatsApp Pay message into the Flow and connect it.
Inside the WhatsApp Pay Message, the first step is to choose WhatsApp Cart as the Order Message Type. Once this is selected, the system automatically filters the Order Message dropdown so that it only displays Order Messages created as WhatsApp Cart. This ensures you can only select compatible Order Messages.
You will also notice that your Payment Configuration ID is preselected automatically. This is because your default payment gateway is always used unless you manually select another payment gateway.
Next, select the Order Message. This is the template that decides what text the customer receives and how the products and payment link will appear. Once selected, you can also choose a Contact Custom Field to store extra customer information, such as the shipping address or customer notes.
If you intend to sell physical goods through WhatsApp, it is extremely important that you first collect the customer’s shipping address. For this reason, it is recommended to add the Ask Address action just before the WhatsApp Pay action inside your Flow.
This ensures the address is safely stored and attached to the order before the payment link is created.
Once the Flow is saved, the payment process begins automatically whenever a customer places an order through your WhatsApp Catalog.
When an order is submitted from the WhatsApp app, the Order Received trigger activates and the WhatsApp Pay action sends your configured Order Message to the customer.
This Order Message contains:
If the Order Message was created with a 300-second (5-minute) expiry, then the payment link will expire automatically after five minutes. Once expired, the customer cannot complete the payment using that link.
When using the Custom Product type, you are not limited to the Order Received trigger. You can use any other supported trigger in Pabbly Chatflow except the Order Received trigger, such as Keyword, Regex etc.
For example, you may want to create a Flow that starts when the customer types a specific keyword. After selecting the trigger, you can place an Ask Address action (recommended for physical goods) and then add the WhatsApp Pay message.
IInside the WhatsApp Pay message, select Custom Product as the Order Message Type. In the next step, choose the required Order Message. Once selected, the system opens a dialog displaying all products included in that Order Message.
Each product is displayed with the following details:
By default, the quantity for every product is set to 1. You can adjust the quantities as per the requirement however, the system enforces a strict rule:
After selecting the products and setting their quantities, click the Save button as shown in the image above.
Once saved, return to the Flow and save it as well.
To test the setup, open WhatsApp and use the keyword or action that triggers the Flow. The customer will then receive an Order Message containing:
The final order message and payment link are generated using all the settings you applied during the creation of the Order Message, including:
The complete amount shown in the order message is calculated as:
Product Total + Tax + Shipping – Discount = Final Payable Amount
For example, if the expiration time is 300 seconds, the link will stay valid for 5 minutes from the moment the order is created.
If the customer does not complete the payment within this time:
The Catalog Product type works similarly to Custom Product but uses products synced from your Meta Catalog.
To use this type effectively, ensure that your catalog is already synced inside the Catalog section of Chatflow.
Choose a trigger event of your choice (Keyword, Regex, etc.), then add the WhatsApp Pay message and you are selling physical goods then it is recommended to use Ask Address Action.
Now in the WhatsApp Pay message, set the Order Message Type to Catalog Product. The Order Message dropdown will now automatically filter and show only Order Messages created with the Catalog Product type.
When selecting the Order Message, the system may display a preview of the catalog products, showing product names, images, and pricing, sourced directly from your Meta Catalog.
Once the Flow is saved and triggered from WhatsApp, the customer receives a Catalog Product Order Message with the correct pricing, tax, shipping fees, and payment link. The behavior of payment link expiry and order tracking is the same as the previous two types.
In addition with WhatsApp Pay, Pabbly Chatflow also provides a dedicated Payment Captured trigger event.
This trigger activates automatically whenever a payment is successfully completed by a customer. If you configured any flow with this trigger events.
This is helpful if you want to send a follow-up message, share onboarding instructions, send a PDF, or give next-step guidance as soon as payment is confirmed.
Once the payment is received, the customer will automatically receive a follow-up template message.
The example shown here is only for reference. If you want to use a different follow-up message or set up another flow, you can customize it as per your needs.
