WhatsApp alerts from n8n, Make or Zapier

An HTTP Request node and a header. No WhatsApp Business account, no Meta approval, and no community node holding your personal number open as a linked device.

n8n, Make and Zapier all ship an official WhatsApp integration, and all three want the same things behind it: your own WhatsApp Business Account, a registered number, and a message template approved by Meta before the first send. Zapier's own help page says so plainly.

So the community answer became a node that holds your personal number open as a linked device — which works until the number is restricted, and that is the one risk worth not taking with a number you use yourself.

This is the third option: a plain HTTP Request node to an endpoint that already has a number and an approved template. It reaches your own people, not your customers, which is the trade that makes it possible.

1. Make a key

In the Jabee dashboard, go to Management then Approvals and create an API key. It starts jak_. Copy it now; it is not shown again.

Whoever is going to be messaged needs a verified phone, which they get by tapping a link in the dashboard and sending one message. Until somebody has done that there is nobody to deliver to.

2. Make a header auth credential

In n8n: Credentials → New → Header Auth.

Name    Authorization
Value   Bearer jak_your_key_here

Worth doing even though you could type the header into the node: a workflow gets exported, pasted into an issue, or shared with somebody, and a credential does not travel with it.

3. Add the HTTP Request node

Method            POST
URL               https://api.jabee.ai/api/v1/alerts
Authentication    Generic Credential Type → Header Auth → (your credential)
Send Body         on
Body Content Type JSON

Then the fields. title is the only required one:

Execute the node. The message arrives in about a second.

The two limits that will bite you

120 characters on the title. Longer is a 400, not a trim. If the title is built from data you do not control, cut it: {{ $json.subject.slice(0, 120) }}.

One message per execution, not per item. An HTTP Request node runs once for every input item, so a node fed 40 rows sends 40 WhatsApp messages and spends 40 of your monthly allowance. Put a Limit node, an Aggregate, or a Code node that summarises in front of it. "14 payments failed overnight" is a better message than fourteen messages anyway.

Making retries free

Set external_id to something stable from the data, as in the table above. A repeat of an id that has already been sent answers 200 with existing: true and delivers nothing — so a workflow that reruns, or an error branch that retries, cannot message somebody twice about the same thing. Leave it out and every execution is a new message.

Make, Zapier and Power Automate

The same call, in each tool's generic HTTP step. Nothing here is n8n-specific:

Asking rather than telling

The interesting version of this in a workflow tool is not the notice, it is the question: pause the workflow until a person approves on WhatsApp. One extra field (options) turns this call into an approval with buttons, and the answer comes back on a signed webhook. In n8n that is this node plus a Wait node resuming on a webhook call — the approvals API has the contract.

What it costs

$29 a month for 500 alerts and approvals together, then 3 cents each. The first three are free, so you can wire this up and watch a message arrive before paying for anything. No per-seat charge.

One per execution, so the fan-out warning above is the thing to watch. 500 a month goes nowhere if a node is fed a list.

Questions