Reply with a menu of buttons

Instead of a written reply, an answer can send a short message with up to three tappable buttons underneath it. The customer taps one rather than typing, which is faster for them and far more predictable for you — a tap is one of three known things, where a typed sentence is anything at all.

This is the reply most businesses want for their greeting: someone says hi, and instead of a wall of text they get a menu.

Set the match first

The top half of the dialog is identical to a text answer — a name only you see, how the message should match, and the words to match on. A menu usually belongs on the greeting words, because the greeting is where a customer has not yet said what they want.

Build the menu

Message above the buttons. The question itself. Up to 1,024 characters — a quarter of what a plain text answer allows, because WhatsApp gives an interactive message less room.

Button label. Up to 20 characters, and that is a hard WhatsApp limit, not ours. Short and concrete beats clever: Prices, Book a visit, Talk to us.

When tapped. Two choices, and the difference matters:

• Nothing — sends the label back as a message. WhatsApp echoes the tap as if the customer had typed the button's label. So a button labelled Prices is caught by whichever answer has prices in its words. Use this when you already have the answers written.
• Show the answer "…" — the tap is addressed straight at that answer, by name. The wording of the two no longer has to agree, and no other answer can intercept it: an addressed tap jumps the queue regardless of where either answer sits in the list.

Footer. Optional, up to 60 characters. A small grey line under the message — opening hours, a phone number, Reply anytime.

Add button adds the next row, up to three. WhatsApp allows no more; if you need more than three options, the honest answer is fewer options, or an AI Assistant that can hold a real conversation.

Save, and the menu is live on the next message that matches.

Getting it right

• Three options, not three variations of one. If two buttons could plausibly answer the same need, one of them is noise.
• Make every button land somewhere. A tap that matches nothing gets the same treatment as any unmatched message — your assistant answers it, or nothing does. Check each label either has a matching answer or is addressed at one.
• Buttons can chain. An answer opened by a button can itself be a menu. Two levels is usually the limit of what anyone will tap through.
• A menu is not a form. For collecting several fields — a name, a date, an address — use a Flow instead.

What it costs

The same as any other instant reply: one automated reply, charged at the automated-reply rate. The buttons themselves cost nothing extra, and a tap that triggers another answer is another reply, charged again. See How pricing works.

If something goes wrong

• The buttons never appear. Check the answer is switched on, and that its words actually match what you sent — the preview shows the message, not the matching.
• The tap does nothing. The button was set to send its label back, and no answer has that label in its words. Either add the label as a word on the destination answer, or set When tapped to open that answer directly.
• The label is cut off. Twenty characters, including spaces. WhatsApp truncates on the customer's phone even when it fits in the editor.

Next

Order, pause and edit your answers — what happens once you have more than a couple.