WhatsApp and SMS reminders

Bookings created through the Partner API get the same three business-initiated texts as any other booking — confirmation, 24-hour reminder, on-my-way / ready-for-pickup — sent by the platform, not by your integration, under the same rule on who pays for them (below). This page explains what your integration can and cannot influence.

The channel is the client’s choice

• Every phone number starts on SMS.
• A number moves to WhatsApp only through its own act: the client messaged the United Pet Club WhatsApp Business number (a reply, or the “message us on WhatsApp” link with its pre-filled START), or set the preference for their own number in their account.
• The Partner API does not expose or accept a channel preference. Sending a client’s phone number on a booking never opts it in to WhatsApp, and there is no field to request one channel over the other. This is deliberate: business-initiated WhatsApp requires the recipient’s opt-in, and the platform never flips numbers on a partner’s behalf.

What happens on the platform side

1. The platform sends from one WhatsApp Business number (“United Pet Club”); the shop is named in the message body.
2. Inside 24 hours of the client’s last WhatsApp message the text goes as a plain chat message; outside it, as a pre-approved template.
3. If the number turns out not to be on WhatsApp, or no template applies, the same message is re-issued once by SMS and the number drops back to SMS until it messages the platform again. The message is never silently dropped.
4. The per-booking allowance (three texts) is counted by the platform regardless of channel.

Included texts or text credits

Since 2026-09-30 the three texts are included only when the booking has an online payment through United Pet Club (a deposit paid online is enough), or the business is on Pro, or the business is a Partner in good standing. On any other booking (paid in cash, by the business’s own terminal, or not paid yet) every text uses one of the business’s text credits. With no credits left, the text is not sent, and the appointment’s timeline in the business’s Dashboard records Not sent — limit reached. One credit is one text, SMS or WhatsApp. E-mail and push reminders are unaffected and free.

The platform decides this for each text when it is sent, so a client who pays online after booking gets included texts from then on. Nothing on the Partner API sets or reads it. A booking you create without an online payment is a cash booking for this rule, and a deposit recorded as paid without a platform capture never counts as an online payment.

What the client receives, and what that needs from you

Besides the three texts, the client gets e-mails from United Pet Club on the business’s behalf: the booking confirmation, reminders at the business’s reminder times, a new-time e-mail when the booking moves and a cancellation e-mail. They are free and do not count. Each message is read from the booking when it is sent, so a reminder for a booking you moved or cancelled through the API is not sent.

• Send the guest’s e-mail address (client.email on the booking call) for the e-mails to reach them.
• Send the guest’s mobile number with its country code (client.phone, +16045550100). A number without it is never guessed into a country: the text is not sent, and it is given back to the business (the included text or the credit).
• Send the guest’s language (client.languageCode, fr or fr-CA): the messages are in that language, else in English.

The confirmation, reminder and new-time e-mails carry a Confirm I’ll be there button (2026-10-03). The business sees the client’s confirmation, and how far each e-mail and text got, on the appointment in its United Pet Club Dashboard.

What you see

Delivery outcomes are not surfaced on the Partner API today. If a client reports missing reminders, ask them to check the number on their booking and, for WhatsApp, to message the United Pet Club number once.