What happens when your callback is down
Terminal outcomes are pushed to a URL you control, with a small bounded retry. Your handler has to tolerate a repeat, and it should not expect a call for every message.
Read the guide →Messaging for marketplaces and platforms
A marketplace messages two audiences about the same event for opposite reasons: the buyer wants it to arrive, the seller wants proof that it did. That makes the receipt the part worth getting right.
Two audiences, one event
- Order placed, confirmed and shipped — to both sides
- Dispute, refund and chargeback status changes
- Payout and settlement notices to sellers
- Review and rating prompts after completion
- Account and verification notices
The receipt is the audit trail
When a seller disputes whether they were told something, the answer has to be a record rather than a recollection. The platform logs each send, normalizes provider delivery receipts into one status and can push those events to your own endpoint — so the record lives in your system too.
Where your platform ends and ours starts
Your platform decides who is notified and what the notification says. On the SMS channel the messaging layer decides how it leaves the building — which connected account carries it, at what pace, and what receipt comes back.
Questions this usually raises
- Can we tell whether a specific seller was notified?
- Sends and their statuses are logged, and receipts can be pushed to an endpoint you control. Note that a receipt means the destination network accepted the message, not that it was read.
- Is there a callback retry policy?
- Callback delivery is deliberately not treated as fire-and-forget; the reliability model and its limits are set out in the callback guide.
- Can different sellers use their own provider accounts?
- Connections are held per tenant. Whether each seller is a separate tenant, and therefore has their own connections and API keys, is a design decision on your side.
Keep reading
A timeout is not a failure
Sending is accepted asynchronously and there is no de-duplication key. Retrying a request you are unsure about sends a second message and bills for it.
Read the guide →E-commerce & retail
A storefront runs on the messages customers actually read: the confirmation, the dispatch note, the delivery window, the code after a failed payment. Send all of them over the SMS, email and WhatsApp accounts your store already pays for.
Open →Fintech & payments
In payments the message is often the product: a code that has to land before the session expires, an alert that proves a transaction happened, a reminder that keeps a subscription alive. Connect your own accounts, and the send path stops being the part you have to watch.
Open →Healthcare & clinics
Most clinic messaging is administrative, and a missed administrative message costs a wasted appointment slot. Send a confirmation at booking and a timed reminder before, on the number the patient gave you — and keep clinical detail out of it.
Open →Logistics & delivery
A delivery operation lives on contact attempts: the customer who is not home, the gate code nobody has, the parcel heading back to the depot. Each of those is a message that either saves a second trip or causes one.
Open →SaaS & online services
Your login codes, incident notices and renewal nudges sit on the critical path of someone else’s workday. Send them from your own service with a tenant API key, and read the outcome back through the same API.
Open →Education & training
Education messaging is about timing: a class that moved, a deadline that is close, an enrollment nobody confirmed. The failure mode is not a missing message — it is one that arrives after it mattered.
Open →Travel & hospitality
Travel messaging is shaped by the clock: a confirmation that has to arrive immediately, a reminder the evening before, a disruption notice that is worthless once the guest has left for the airport. Send each one from an account that is still accepting traffic.
Open →On-demand & field services
Field service messaging is measured in minutes: a technician twenty minutes away, a job that moved, a customer who will not be in. Send the ETA when the event happens and it saves a trip; send it late and it is worse than silence.
Open →Scope. Whaleal Platform sends over the CPaaS or BSP accounts you already hold. Your contracts, your rates and your sender identities stay yours, and nothing in the middle reprices them. Sector-specific rules — consent, records retention, industry obligations — stay with you and your provider.