A broadcast lets you send one message to many customers at once — a new stock alert, a price change, a holiday opening time — and still have each person receive it as a normal, personal WhatsApp message. No groups, no copy-pasting the same text into twenty chats.
It lives on the Broadcast page in your sidebar. This guide walks through it end to end, then explains the one rule that decides whether your broadcast actually reaches anyone.
First: Why You Need an Approved Template
WhatsApp has a simple rule. If a customer messaged you in the last 24 hours, you can reply freely. If they did not — a cold message — you may only send a template that Meta has reviewed and approved in advance. Broadcasts are cold messages, so they must be built from an approved template. This is not a Whapick restriction; it is how WhatsApp protects people from spam, and it applies to every business.
So the very first step happens on the Templates page, not the Broadcast page. If you have not created a template yet, do that first — open the Templates page and click Create Template. A template is just your message with blanks in it (for example “Hi {{1}}, we have new stock in today!”), submitted once and reused forever.
A template shows APPROVED once Meta has cleared it, usually within minutes. Only APPROVED templates can be used for a broadcast — anything still PENDING or REJECTED will not appear in the dropdown.
Step 1: Choose Your Template
Open Broadcast from the sidebar. At the top of the form you will see 1. Template. Use the dropdown to pick one of your approved templates. That is all this step takes.
If you have no approved templates yet, the page will say so and point you to the Templates page. There is nothing else to do here until Meta approves one.
Step 2: Choose Your Recipients
The 2. Recipients panel is where you decide who gets the message. You can combine three ways of choosing, and the page shows a running total of what you have picked:
- All contacts — tick the box to send to every contact you have.
- Groups — tap one or more group pills (each shows how many members it has). This is the most useful option for most businesses: a group like “VIP customers” or “Lagos delivery” means you never re-pick names by hand.
- Individual contacts — search by name or phone, or filter the list by group, then tick the specific people you want.
You do not have to worry about someone receiving the message twice. If a person is in two groups, or you tick them individually as well, Whapick removes duplicate phone numbers before sending. One person, one message.
If you have no groups yet, you can create them on the Contacts page — groups are just named buckets of contacts, and they are what make broadcasts fast.
Step 3: Fill In the Blanks
If your chosen template contains variables — the {{1}}, {{2}} placeholders — the page now shows a fill-in box for each one. This is what turns one template into hundreds of personal messages.
Two of them fill themselves, which is the part people miss:
{{1}}automatically becomes each contact’s name, falling back to their WhatsApp name.{{2}}automatically becomes their WhatsApp name.- Any higher position (
{{3}}and up) uses whatever you type.
The boxes are fallbacks, not requirements. Leave them blank and the auto-fill does the work. Type something in and your text overrides the auto-fill for everyone. If you have selected individual contacts, the page also shows a live preview for the first one, so you can see exactly what they will receive before you send.
Step 4: Send Now, or Schedule for Later
Under 3. Schedule you choose Send now or Schedule for later. If you schedule, pick a date and time and the page holds the broadcast until then — useful for a Monday-morning promotion or a message timed to a customer’s usual shopping hour. The time must be in the future; the page will tell you if it is not.
Press Send Broadcast (or Schedule Broadcast) and you are done. Whapick works through the list on its own.
Watching It Go Out
You do not need to sit and refresh. Each broadcast is queued and sent in the background, and the same message is delivered individually to each recipient. A scheduled broadcast waits quietly until its time arrives, then sends.
The Recent Broadcasts section at the bottom of the page keeps a record of what you have sent, with the message, the recipient and the status — so you always have a history to look back on.
How Not to Get Reported
Broadcasts are powerful enough to get your number restricted if used carelessly. A few habits keep you safe:
- Only message people who expect to hear from you. Your own customers, people who gave you their number, people who asked to be kept updated. Buying a list and blasting it is the fastest way to get reported.
- Make it worth reading. A real reason — new stock, a restock, a genuine offer — gets replies. “Buy from us” with no reason gets reports.
- Always include a way to opt out on marketing messages, such as “Reply STOP to stop receiving these messages”. Meta expects it, and people trust a business that offers it.
- Keep the wording like you talk. No ALL CAPS, no excessive emojis, no “FREE!!!”. That style is what Meta’s reviewers reject and what customers report.
- Do not over-send. A message every few weeks lands well. Several a week starts to feel like noise.
Follow those and broadcasts become the cheapest, most direct channel you have: your customers are already on WhatsApp, and you are reaching all of them in one go.
Common Questions
Why can I not see my template in the dropdown?
It is almost always not approved yet. Only APPROVED templates appear. Check its status on the Templates page — if it is REJECTED, edit the wording (usually the spammy bits) and submit it again.
Can I send a broadcast to people who are not saved as contacts?
The Broadcast page sends to your contacts, groups or individually selected contacts. To reach someone new, add them to Contacts first — you can do that one at a time or by importing a list.
Can I cancel a broadcast?
A scheduled broadcast can be cancelled before it starts sending. Once a broadcast is already going out, the messages sent are sent — which is another reason to preview your wording and pick your recipients carefully.
Will this cost me AI credits?
No. A broadcast sends a template you already wrote and Meta already approved — there is no AI writing anything at send time, so it does not spend AI credits.
Conclusion
A broadcast is the simplest way to talk to all your customers at once: approve a template once, then choose recipients, fill in the blanks, and send or schedule. Set up a couple of good groups first and it becomes a two-minute job. Just keep it relevant and always offer an opt-out — that is what keeps your number healthy and your customers listening.