Events · 6 min read · Savina Bansal
How Events tells guests on WhatsApp, and what it costs
When a guest is in a new photo, Events sends one WhatsApp message, not twenty. The batching, the daily cap, which messages are templates, and the per-message cost.
Building the platform this article is about
A photographer at a wedding can take hundreds of frames in an hour, and a guest can be in dozens of them. A message per photo would be spam, and the guest would turn it off. Ohanvi’s Events module sends far fewer messages than that, on purpose. Here is how it decides, and what each message costs the studio.
When a message goes
The first one goes straight away: right after a guest’s selfie finds photos, they get “We found N photos of you from [event]” with a link back to their gallery.
After that, new matches are gathered into one message. The studio sets how long to gather in the event’s WhatsApp window setting: 30 seconds (guests hear quickly, in more, smaller messages), 90 seconds (the default, one message for each burst) or 5 minutes (fewer messages, each with more photos).
If the guest has the gallery open, no message goes at all. They are already looking at the photos, and the page marks them as seen.
And there is a ceiling: after 6 messages to a guest in a day, live messages stop and one summary goes at 11 pm with whatever is still unsent. So a guest hears at most seven times a day, however busy the photographer is.
Free-form or template
Verifying with WhatsApp means the guest sends a short message to your number. That opens WhatsApp’s 24-hour customer service window, so alerts inside it go as an ordinary message: the best photo as an image, with the count and the link as its caption.
Outside the window, WhatsApp only allows an approved template. Events uses two utility templates, one for the first “we found your photos” message and one for every later “new photos” message, each with the photo as its header and a “View my photos” button. They are approved on your own WhatsApp number, because the messages come from your studio, not from Ohanvi.
If the templates are not approved yet, nothing is sent outside the window. The matches wait on the guest’s gallery page instead of failing silently.
What each message costs
| Message | WhatsApp category | Per message to India (Pro – Pay as you go) |
|---|---|---|
| Alert inside the 24-hour window | Service | Free for the first 1,000 service messages a month on the number, then ₹0.12 – ₹0.14 |
| Alert outside the window | Utility template | ₹0.12 – ₹0.14 |
| 6-digit code, if a guest chooses it over the WhatsApp tap | Authentication template | ₹0.12 – ₹0.14 |
| The guest’s own verify message to you | Incoming | Free |
Meta’s India card effective October 1, 2026, plus your plan’s percentage (5% on Pro up to 20% on Pay as you go). Prices exclude GST. The 1,000 free service messages are shared with every other reply from the same number that month.
Keeping the count down
Ask guests to verify at the event, not days later: the window opens then, and the evening’s alerts go inside it. Use the 5-minute window for a fast-moving reception. And set the event to Review first if you would rather release photos in a few large batches, since each release is one burst and one message per guest.
Keep reading
Questions this answers
- How many WhatsApp messages does a guest get from an event gallery?
- In Ohanvi’s Events module: one when their selfie first finds photos, then one per burst of new photos (gathered for 30 seconds to 5 minutes), none while their gallery is open, and at most 6 live messages a day plus one 11 pm summary.
- What does a WhatsApp photo alert cost?
- Inside the guest’s 24-hour window it is a service message: free for the first 1,000 a month on the number, then ₹0.12 – ₹0.14 to India. Outside the window it is a utility template at ₹0.12 – ₹0.14. Prices exclude GST.
