How to Send Bookly Booking Confirmations & Reminders to WhatsApp
Every time a customer books through Bookly, they get a confirmation email. Then they get a reminder before the appointment. And a large share of those emails never get opened — so the customer forgets, and your salon chair, clinic slot, or tutoring hour sits empty. Sending Bookly booking confirmations and reminders to WhatsApp fixes that, because WhatsApp messages get read. In 2026, the practical way to do it is The Tech Pad's Bookly connector plugin: it installs on WordPress, connects to the official WhatsApp Cloud API (Meta) with an API key and phone number ID from The Tech Pad dashboard, and turns Bookly booking events into WhatsApp messages automatically — with no monthly SaaS subscription, just Meta's per-message fees.
Why send Bookly booking notifications to WhatsApp
Email is where booking messages go to be ignored. WhatsApp is where they get read. The comparison is not subtle: WhatsApp messages have around a 98% open rate, against roughly 20% for email. The median response time on WhatsApp is under 90 seconds. For a service business that lives and dies by appointments, that gap decides whether a reminder works or a slot goes empty.
Bookly handles the booking flow well — but its notifications go out by email and SMS, and the customer's inbox is not where those messages get seen. WhatsApp changes three things for a booking business:
- Fewer no-shows. A reminder that lands on WhatsApp 24 hours before the appointment gets opened and acted on; the same reminder in email often doesn't. Reminders are the single biggest no-show reducer for salons, clinics and tutors.
- Faster confirmations and replies. The customer can reply to the confirmation — confirm, reschedule, or cancel — and within WhatsApp's 24-hour customer-service window, those replies are free-form, and your team answers them from a shared inbox instead of hunting through email threads.
- More follow-ups and reviews. A WhatsApp message after the visit gets replies and reviews — WhatsApp generates 3–5x more reviews than email.
One number to keep in mind: every no-show you prevent is revenue you were already writing off. If your clinic loses even three or four appointments a month to forgotten bookings, the reminder messages cost less than one rupee each — and one saved appointment pays for hundreds of them.
What you need before you start
- A WordPress site with Bookly installed and your booking calendar live.
- A WhatsApp Business API account — The Tech Pad provisions the WABA for you, so you never touch the Meta developer console.
- A WhatsApp Business number tied to that account, for sending.
- Approved message templates for anything sent outside the 24-hour window (UTILITY category — confirmation, reminder, cancellation).
- The Tech Pad Bookly connector plugin.
How to send Bookly booking notifications to WhatsApp
Step 1 — Install and activate the connector. In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New, upload the Tech Pad Bookly connector zip, and activate it. You'll see a new "Bookly WhatsApp" settings screen appear under the Bookly menu.
Step 2 — Get your API key and phone number ID. Log in to The Tech Pad dashboard (thetechpad.com) and open the Bookly connector page. Generate an API key and copy your phone number ID. This is the only credential pair you need — there are no long tokens to paste and no developer console setup.
Step 3 — Paste the credentials into WordPress. Open the connector's settings, paste the API key and phone number ID, and save. The connector verifies the pair against the api-send edge function and shows "Connected" when it's live.
Step 4 — Choose which Bookly events notify. Tick the events you want as WhatsApp messages: new booking, booking approved, reminder (scheduled), cancelled, and follow-up after the visit. You can turn each one on or off independently, so customers aren't spammed — most businesses run confirmation + reminder + follow-up, and skip nothing else.
Step 5 — Map Bookly placeholders to message variables. Bookly exposes placeholders like {client_name}, {service}, and {appointment_time}. In the connector, map each placeholder to the variable used inside your template, so the message arrives personalised with the customer's name, the service, and the time.
Step 6 — Submit your templates for approval. Messages sent outside the 24-hour window must use a Meta-approved template. Submit booking_confirmation, booking_reminder, and booking_cancelled under the UTILITY category from the dashboard. Approvals typically take minutes to a few hours — do this once, and every future booking reuses the approved templates.
Step 7 — Test with a real booking. Make a test booking on your site as a customer would. You should get the confirmation on WhatsApp immediately, and the reminder at the scheduled time. Check the delivery log in the connector if anything is missing — it records every message and its status.
Message templates that work
Keep booking templates short and transactional. The customer needs three things: what they booked, when, and what to do next. Here are the templates to start with:
| Trigger | Template name | Example message |
|---|---|---|
| New booking confirmed | booking_confirmation | "Hi {{1}}, thanks for your booking {{2}}. We've confirmed your appointment." |
| Scheduled reminder (24h before) | booking_reminder | "Hi {{1}}, this is a reminder that {{2}} is booked for tomorrow at 10:00 AM." |
| Booking cancelled | booking_cancelled | "Hi {{1}}, your booking {{2}} has been cancelled as requested." |
| Follow-up after visit | follow_up | "Hi {{1}}, hope you enjoyed {{2}}. We'd love your feedback." |
Copy these into your dashboard and adapt the wording — they follow the UTILITY guidelines and pass approval quickly:
"Hi {{1}}, thanks for your booking {{2}} at our studio. Your appointment is confirmed — we look forward to seeing you. Reply here if you need to change anything."
"Hi {{1}}, a quick reminder that {{2}} is booked for tomorrow at 10:00 AM. Reply YES to confirm your slot, or call us to reschedule."
"Hi {{1}}, your booking {{2}} has been cancelled as requested. Book a new slot anytime — we'd love to see you again."
FAQ
How do I send Bookly booking notifications to WhatsApp? Install a Bookly-to-WhatsApp connector, connect your WhatsApp Business API credentials, and map Bookly events (new booking, approved, cancelled) to message templates. Customers get confirmations and reminders on WhatsApp automatically.
Can Bookly send WhatsApp appointment reminders? Yes — the connector can send scheduled reminders (e.g. 24h before the appointment) the same way Bookly sends email/SMS reminders, but on WhatsApp where they're actually read. Reminders are the single biggest no-show reducer for salons, clinics and tutors.
Do Bookly WhatsApp messages need Meta template approval? Yes, for anything outside the 24-hour window. Submit UTILITY templates (booking confirmation, reminder, cancellation) from the dashboard — approvals usually take minutes to a few hours.
Which Bookly version supports WhatsApp? Bookly's own WhatsApp feature requires a paid Bookly Cloud subscription. The Tech Pad connector works with the free Bookly plugin and sends through the official WhatsApp Cloud API with no Bookly Cloud fees.
Send Bookly bookings to WhatsApp today
The Tech Pad gives you one connector plugin per platform — one for Bookly, and the same pattern for your forms, events and stores — all sending through the official WhatsApp Cloud API, with templates managed from a single dashboard and no monthly subscription. You pay only Meta's per-message fees (roughly ₹0.10–0.30 per utility message in India), so a salon sending a few hundred booking messages a month spends a few hundred rupees. Install the Bookly connector, paste in your API key and phone number ID, and start cutting no-shows this week.