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OTP & Transactional

Using WhatsApp as a fallback for SMS OTP

If SMS is slow or fails, the same OTP is automatically delivered over WhatsApp — usually in under a second. You pay only for the channel that successfully delivers the code.

3 min readUpdated 15 Mar 2026

Most Indian smartphone users have WhatsApp, and WhatsApp OTPs arrive faster than SMS on an average day. Using WhatsApp as a first or fallback channel is the single biggest OTP-latency win for most apps.

How it works

  • You send one /v2/otp/send request. We try your preferred channel first.
  • If the primary channel doesn't deliver in your configured window (default 7s), we automatically send the same code over the fallback channel.
  • The user sees whichever arrives first. The other is silently cancelled when the code verifies.
  • You're only billed for the channel that actually delivered.

WhatsApp OTP is billed at the Authentication rate (₹0.1150 per conversation), usually cheaper than SMS in bulk.

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