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Guide · Message types · For the owner who asks whether the PDF, the voice note or the map pin can go

What a business can send on WhatsApp besides text: files, photos, voice notes, locations, contacts, reactions and a real button

A business number on the WhatsApp Business Platform can send almost everything a personal phone can: photos, videos, voice notes, PDFs, a pin on the map, a contact card, a sticker, an emoji reaction, and one thing a phone cannot, a message with a proper button instead of a bare link. Each type has a size or length limit on Meta's pages, and a few have rules that catch people out. Here they all are, with the numbers.

Published 1 October 2026 · Updated 9 October 2026

Inside the window, anything below; outside it, templates only

The one rule that applies to all of these

Every message type on this page is a free-form message. A business may send them only inside the 24-hour window that a customer's own message opens. Outside that window only an approved template goes, and templates have their own rules for pictures, documents and buttons.

Text, and the link preview

Text
Up to 4,096 characters. Any web address in the text is turned into a tappable link by the customer's app automatically.
Link preview
Your system can ask WhatsApp to show a preview card for the first web address in the message, and only the first. The address must carry the http or https prefix. If the preview cannot be fetched, the customer sees a plain link instead.
A button instead of a bare link
Meta's call-to-action URL message puts the address behind a button with up to 20 characters of label, above a body of up to 1,024 characters, with an optional header (text of up to 60 characters, or an image, video or document) and a footer of up to 60 characters. Meta's own reason for it: people hesitate to tap long, strange-looking links.

Pictures, video and sound

Image
JPEG or PNG, up to 5 MB, 8-bit colour. One image per message, with an optional caption of up to 1,024 characters.
Video
MP4 or 3GP, up to 16 MB, with an optional caption of up to 1,024 characters. Meta's page is specific about encoding: H.264 video with AAC audio, a single audio track or none, and a warning that the H.264 High profile with B-frames does not play on Android. Meta recommends the Main or Baseline profile.
Voice note
An OGG file in the Opus codec, which is what makes WhatsApp show it as a voice message: it downloads automatically, shows your profile picture with a microphone icon, and can be transcribed on the customer's phone if they have transcripts switched on. Meta's page says the play button appears only if the file is 512 KB or smaller; above that the customer sees a download arrow. Voice notes get a played status back to your system the first time the customer plays them. WhatsApp's Help Center adds that voice messages are for open chats in the service use case, and are not currently available for marketing or utility messages.
Audio file
AAC, AMR, MP3, M4A or OGG, up to 16 MB. Shown with a music icon and a download arrow; the customer downloads it before it plays, unless their auto-download settings cover it.
Sticker
WebP only: a static sticker up to 100 KB, an animated one up to 500 KB. Meta's media table says WebP files can be sent only as stickers, not as images.

Documents, places, people and reactions

Document
PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint or plain text, up to 100 MB. The customer sees a file icon with a file name you choose and an optional caption of up to 1,024 characters, and taps to download. This is how an invoice, a quotation or a menu travels.
Location
A pin from a latitude and longitude, with an optional place name and address shown under it. The customer taps it to open their maps app. Sending your shop's location this way beats typing directions.
Contact card
A contact with names, phone numbers, addresses, emails, organisation and birthday. Meta's page allows up to 257 contacts in one message and recommends far fewer, for usability and because recipients report overloaded messages. It also warns that some details may not show on every phone.
Reaction
An emoji applied to a message the customer sent, exactly as a person would long-press and react. Meta's page lists when it fails: the message is more than 30 days old, was deleted, is not in that chat, or is itself a reaction. A reaction reports only a sent status back to you, never delivered or read.

How media moves, and how long it lives

  1. Upload once, send many times. A file is uploaded to Meta and given an identifier; Meta's page says uploaded files are encrypted and kept for 30 days unless deleted earlier, and the identifier works for the same 30 days. A price list sent to a hundred customers is uploaded once.
  2. Or point at a public address. Most types also accept a link to a file hosted on your own site, which Meta fetches when the message is sent.
  3. Incoming files expire sooner. When a customer sends you a photo or a document, the identifier your system receives is valid for 7 days, and each download address Meta hands out lasts 5 minutes. A system that does not save the file promptly loses it.
  4. Incoming files are capped at 100 MB. Above that, Meta's page says your system receives an error notice instead of the file and should tell the customer to send something smaller.
  5. The file type must match its name. Meta names a mismatched file type as one of the commonest errors. A PDF renamed to end in .jpg is refused.

Questions

Can we send a voice note as part of a promotion?

Not at present. WhatsApp's Help Center says businesses on the Platform can send voice messages in open chats for the service use case, and that the feature is not currently available for marketing or utility messages.

Can we send a customer our catalogue as a PDF?

Yes, as a document message of up to 100 MB, with a file name and a caption, inside the 24-hour window. For a browsable catalogue inside the chat, Meta's catalog feature is the alternative; the catalog guide covers it.

Why does our voice note show a download arrow instead of a play button?

Meta's page says the play button appears only when the file is 512 KB or smaller, and only for OGG files in the Opus codec. A larger file, or an MP3, is treated as a plain audio file.

Can we send a message with a button that opens our booking page?

Yes. Meta's call-to-action URL message puts the address behind a button labelled with up to 20 characters, so the customer never sees the raw link. Inside the window it is a free-form message; outside it, the same thing is done with a template button.

Our video plays on iPhone but not on Android. Why?

Meta's page names the cause: H.264 video encoded with the High profile and B-frames does not play on Android WhatsApp. Re-encode with the Main or Baseline profile. Meta also suggests placing the file's index at the start so it begins playing before it has fully downloaded.

Sources

More plain-language notes like this one are on the guides page.

Want invoices, voice notes and map pins to go out from the chat, not a phone?

We set up a business's WhatsApp number on a proper system where an agent attaches a PDF, records a voice note or drops the shop's location from the same screen, incoming files are saved before they expire, and anything outside the window is routed to a template. A short call is the easiest way to see whether it fits your business.

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