Arabic & Saudi specifics

The details that matter for a Saudi business, collected in one place.

Phone numbers#

Every phone field accepts what your systems already hold: +966501234567, 00966501234567, 966501234567, or the local 0501234567 (read as a Saudi number). The API always answers in E.164 (+966501234567); store that form and compare on it.

Arabic text#

• Send Arabic as UTF-8, as-is: no escaping, no reshaping. WhatsApp shows it right-to-left on the customer's phone.
• Length limits count characters, not bytes: a 1,024-character body holds 1,024 Arabic letters.
• Emoji, diacritics and mixed Arabic and English text are fine. A mixed line reads most naturally when it starts in the language it is mostly written in.
• Template names are Latin (lowercase, digits, _), but the template's text, buttons and examples can be Arabic.

Opting out by message#

When the workspace's STOP-keyword protection is on, a customer who sends one of these words on its own is opted out, and one of the second list opts them back in:

Spelling variants (أ / ا, capital letters) are matched too. A keyword inside a longer sentence is not an opt-out: it is flagged for your team instead, because a wrong opt-out silently loses a real customer. Either way you get contact.opted_out / contact.opted_in.

Times and scheduling#

The API speaks UTC (…Z) everywhere. When you schedule a campaign, send a local time with "timezone": "Asia/Riyadh", and it is sent at that local time.

Prices#

WhatsApp charges per template message, by category and by the recipient's country. A campaign's estimated_cost gives that price in SAR at today's rates, before you start it. The estimate covers template messages, which is what campaigns send; your plan's allowances are in GET /usage.

Data you send us#

• Request and response bodies are kept in Developers → Logs for 30 days so you can debug, then deleted.
• Deleting a contact through the API removes their contact record, tags and custom fields; their conversation history stays in the inbox.
• Files you upload to the media library get a public, unguessable link, because WhatsApp downloads them from it. Do not upload anything that must stay private.