Plans, quotas and billing
What each tier includes, how a "channel" is counted, and why your SMS fees never appear on our invoice.
Read this article →Getting started
Connect a provider, issue a key, send your first message — and meet the two defaults that quietly cost money if you miss them.
What you get
Whaleal Platform sits in front of the provider accounts you already own. You keep your CPaaS contracts, your sender numbers and your delivery reputation; the console adds a message log for the connections you make, with the send API documented per channel.
- HTTPS endpoints to send over the connected accounts, documented per channel.
- Weighted routing and automatic failover across providers and sender numbers.
- Delivery receipts and terminal status pushed back to a callback URL you control.
- Opt-out suppression that blocks marketing sends to a number that replied STOP.
- A metadata-only message log, retained per your plan.
Scope. Everything described in these articles is the SMS channel. Email and WhatsApp connect on the same model — link your own provider account and send from the console.
Set up in three steps
All three live in the console, and all three are required. Miss one and a send is rejected rather than silently dropped — which is the behavior you want.
Connect a provider
Channels → Add connection, pick a channel, then paste the credentials of a CPaaS account you already hold. On SMS the connectable set is Twilio, Vonage, Infobip, MessageBird, Plivo and AWS End User Messaging; email and WhatsApp work on the same model with their own providers. The console shows the current list for every channel — that list is the authority, not this page.
Issue an API key
Developer → Create key. The full key is shown once, shaped sk_…. Copy it immediately; it cannot be displayed in full again.
Bind the key to a channel
On the same page, select the channels this key may send over. A key with no binding is rejected with a 400-class error — there is no "all channels" fallback.
Send your first message
With a key in hand, a single call is enough:
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Method and path | POST /open/v1/sms/send |
| Base URL | https://api.whaleal.com/open/v1 |
| Auth header | Authorization: Bearer sk_… (or X-API-Key) |
| Body | {"to":"+14155550123","content":"Your code is 4481","messageType":"TRANSACTIONAL"} |
Note. A success response means the platform accepted the message, not that a handset received it. To learn the real outcome, either poll GET /open/v1/sms/{messageId} or configure a callback URL.
Two defaults that cost money
Both are easy to make once and hard to notice, because neither produces an error.
- Omitting messageType on verification codes and order confirmations. The default is MARKETING, so a recipient who has opted out will have their verification code suppressed. Declare TRANSACTIONAL or INFORMATIONAL on anything that is not a promotion.
- Retrying after a client-side timeout. The platform does not de-duplicate: a retry is a second message, sent and billed. See "Messages are accepted but not arriving".
Keep reading
Connect your own provider account
Bring-your-own-account keeps the agreement, the sender reputation and the invoice with your CPaaS provider. Here is how to connect one, and what changes once you do.
Read this article →Sender numbers and how they are chosen
Most senders never specify a from address, and that is usually correct. Here is when to override it.
Read this article →