Overview of the message types

Last updated: 11 September 2024

Chatbots are capable of sending messages in a variety of formats. Using these messages types will help you create an excellent and engaging chatbot experience.

Some message types are only compatible with specific chatbot channels. If a channel does not support a certain message type or button, the message will not send. Read the table below carefully to understand the implications of replying on specific message types for your chatbot experience.

All the available message types

There are 13 different message types. All are illustrated below using the Converse widget.

Standard message

A standard message is plain text (including emojis).

Quick Reply message

A quick reply message is plain text along with up to 10 small postback buttons.

Use the double-lines next to each button to re-order them.

Action message

An action message is plain text along with up to 5 big buttons. These buttons can:

Callto: Trigger a phone call. Accepts any phone number, with or without area code (e.g. +44).
Mailto: Trigger an email.
URL: Link to a web page. Must include http:// or https://.
File: Link to a file hosted on your chatbot platform.
Postback: Link to another chatbot action.
Content: Link to one of your knowledge base articles.

Use the double-lines next to each button to re-order them.

General message

A general message is a card that includes:

An image, with the option to display it in full size or fit to the card.
An optional image link, which users will be sent to if they click the image. Select a tracked link or type one from scratch.
An image description (to be read by accessibility screen readers, not visible inside the chatbot).
A title
A subtitle
Up to 5 buttons (Postback, URL, File, Content, and Mailto/Callto). See Action message for more info on buttons.

Carousel message

A carousel message is a group between 2 and 20 general messages put together in a swipe-able format.

Image message

An image message is an image, hosted on your chatbot platform. It can also include an optional bit of text.

Supported formats: GIF, PNG, JPEG.

Video message

A video message is a video, hosted on either YouTube or Vimeo. To create a video message, you will need:

To select its host (YouTube or Vimeo)
Its URL

It can also include an optional bit of text.

Content message

A content message is a bit of text and a link allowing the user to view additional, rich content. The additional content is hidden behind a button (View).

From your chatbot platform, you can create the additional content by giving it a title and structured text. Text can be structured with your typical word processing features:

Paragraphs
Bold, italic, underline
Bullet and numeric lists
Tables
Links
Images

You may also use markdown or HTML to format your content.

Content messages are great to provide users with a short answer to a quick and an option to read more.

When a user clicks the View button, your additional content appears in a slide-in panel.

Embed message

An embed message is a bit of text and a link allowing the user to view an embed widget. To create an embed message, you will need:

A bit of text
A title for your embed
An embed URL for your widget

Embed messages are great to display calendar booking tools (e.g. Calendly), survey tools (e.g. Survey Monkey), audio tools (e.g. Vocaroo), and more.

When a user clicks the View button, your embed tool appears in a slide-in panel.

Progress message

A progress message is a bit of text with a looped animation of three flashing dots.

Progress messages are excellent to make it obvious to the user that something will happen, they just have to wait. They are most used as a placeholder between a chatbot answer and a live chat agent takeover.

Payment message

A payment message is a card containing the various fields required to make a payment through your integrated payment provider. This can include:

Card holder’s name
Card number
Expiry dates
CCV

And more.

Event message

An event message is a small, grey plain text message. Contrary to any other message type, event messages don’t appear within a text bubble.

Event messages act as great notifications from the chatbot. For example, if your chatbot just performed an integration, you could use an event message to let the user know.

Dynamic message

Dynamic messages allow you to programatically create any message by looping over data.

Learn more about designing dynamic messages

Compatibility and fallback across messaging channels

Each messaging channel is slightly different and unique. As such, some message types that might work on Facebook Messenger may not have a corresponding message type available on a channel like Telegram.

Sometimes, a message type may not be available, but it is possible to create a close-second.

We are unfortunately at the mercy of the features made available (or not) by the messaging channels.

Below are 13 tables, one per message type, each representing their compatibility or potential fallback message type across channels.

Standard messages

Channels	Compatibility	Fallback
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Facebook Messenger	Compatible	N/A
WhatsApp	Compatible	N/A
Telegram	Compatible	N/A
Microsoft Teams	Compatible	N/A
Instagram	Compatible	N/A
Amazon Alexa (voice)	Compatible	N/A
Amazon Alexa (screen)	Compatible	Alexa will display your standard message.
VOIP	Compatible	N/A
SMS	Compatible	N/A

Quick Reply messages

Channels	Compatibility	Notes
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Facebook Messenger	Compatible	N/A
WhatsApp	Adapted	Max 3 buttons. Max 20 characters per button label.
Telegram	Compatible	N/A
Microsoft Teams	Compatible	N/A
Instagram	Compatible	N/A
Amazon Alexa (voice)	Adapted	Alexa will read out your message but not its buttons.
Amazon Alexa (screen)	Compatible	Alexa will display your message and up to 9 buttons.
VOIP	Adapted	VOIP will read out your message but not its buttons.
SMS	Incompatible	Quick reply messages will not send via SMS.

Action messages

Channels	Compatibility	Notes
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Adapted	Postbacks won’t trigger behind a link or file click.
Facebook Messenger	Adapted	Postbacks won’t trigger behind a link or file click. Facebook only support up to 3 buttons. Facebook do not support `mailto` and `callto`. Those buttons will be ignored.
WhatsApp	Adapted	Max 3 postback buttons. Max 20 characters per button label.
Telegram	Adapted	Postbacks won’t trigger behind a link or file click. Messages containing a file won’t send. Messages containing a `mailto` or `callto` will only send the message.
Microsoft Teams	Adapted	Up to 10 buttons. Postbacks associated with a `link` or `file` button will not trigger. `mailto` , `callto`, and `content` buttons are not compatible. Only the body of the message will be sent (see Standard message).
Instagram	Incompatible	Action messages will not send via Instagram.
Amazon Alexa (voice)	Adapted	Alexa will read out your message but not its buttons.
Amazon Alexa (screen)	Compatible	Alexa will display your message and up to 5 buttons. Clicking a postback will move the conversation along. PDFs and callto are not compatible on Alexa Links and mailto will open a browser and end the conversation.
VOIP	Adapted	VOIP will read out your message but not its buttons.
SMS	Incompatible	Action messages will not send via SMS.

General messages

Channels	Compatibility	Notes
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Adapted	Postbacks won’t trigger behind a link or file click.
Facebook Messenger	Adapted	Postbacks won’t trigger behind a link or file click. Facebook only support up to 3 buttons. Facebook do not support `mailto` and `callto`. Those buttons will be ignored.
WhatsApp	Adapted	Max 3 postback buttons. Up to 10 non-postback buttons. Image and content will be sent in separate messages.
Telegram	Adapted	Postbacks won’t trigger behind a link or file click. Messages containing a file won’t send. Messages containing a `mailto` or `callto` will only send the message.
Microsoft Teams	Adapted	Up to 10 buttons. Postbacks associated with a `link` or `file` button will not trigger. `mailto` , `callto`, and `content` buttons are not compatible. The message will send without these buttons.
Instagram	Adapted	Postbacks won’t trigger behind a link or file click. Instagram only support up to 3 buttons.
Amazon Alexa (voice)	Adapted	Alexa will read out the title of your message but not its subtitle, buttons, image.
Amazon Alexa (screen)	Compatible	Alexa will display your title, subtitle, image, and up to 5 buttons. Clicking a postback will move the conversation along. PDFs and callto are not compatible on Alexa Links and mailto will open a browser and end the conversation.
VOIP	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a content message through this channel. Callers trying to reach a General message will get a ‘busy line’ tonality.
SMS	Incompatible	General messages will not send via SMS.

Carousel messages

Channels	Compatibility	Notes
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Adapted	Postbacks won’t trigger behind a link or file click.
Facebook Messenger	Adapted	Postbacks won’t trigger behind a link or file click. Facebook only support up to 3 buttons. Facebook do not support `mailto` and `callto`. Those buttons will be ignored.
WhatsApp	Incompatible	N/A
Telegram	Adapted	Only the carousel’s images will be sent.
Microsoft Teams	Adapted	Up to 10 cards Up to 10 buttons per card. Postbacks associated with a `link` or `file` button will not trigger. `mailto` , `callto`, and `content` buttons are not compatible. These cards will send without these buttons.
Instagram	Adapted	Postbacks won’t trigger behind a link or file click. Facebook only support up to 3 buttons.
Amazon Alexa (voice)	Adapted	Alexa will only read out the title of the first card of the carousel but not its subtitle, image, or buttons nor any element from following cards.
Amazon Alexa (screen)	Compatible	Alexa will display up to 20 cards. Alexa will display your title, subtitle, image, and up to 5 buttons. Clicking a postback will move the conversation along. PDFs and callto are not compatible on Alexa Links and mailto will open a browser and end the conversation.
VOIP	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a carousel message through this channel. Callers trying to reach a carousel message will get a ‘busy line’ tonality.
SMS	Incompatible	Carousel messages will not send via SMS.

Image messages

Channels	Compatibility	Notes
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Facebook Messenger	Adapted	Images with text will only send text.
WhatsApp	Compatible	Image and text will be sent in separate messages. Image description will not be sent.
Telegram	Compatible	N/A
Microsoft Teams	Compatible	N/A
Instagram	Adapted	Images with text will only send the image. QR codes created within your platform are SVG files, which are not compatible with Instagram.
Amazon Alexa (voice)	Adapted	Alexa will read out the optional message copy.
Amazon Alexa (screen)	Compatible	N/A
VOIP	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an image message through this channel. Callers trying to reach an image message will get a ‘busy line’ tonality.
SMS	Incompatible	Image messages will not send via SMS.

Video messages

Channels	Compatibility	Notes
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Facebook Messenger	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a video message through this channel.
WhatsApp	Adapted	A link to the video will be sent. The video link and the message will be sent in two different messages.
Telegram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a video message through this channel.
Microsoft Teams	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a video message through this channel.
Instagram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a video message through this channel.
Amazon Alexa	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a video message through this channel.
VOIP	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a video message through this channel. Callers trying to reach a video message will get a ‘busy line’ tonality.
SMS	Incompatible	Video messages will not send via SMS.

Content messages

Channels	Compatibility	Notes
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Facebook Messenger	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a content message through this channel.
WhatsApp	Incompatible	N/A
Telegram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a content message through this channel.
Microsoft Teams	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a content message through this channel.
Instagram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a content message through this channel.
Amazon Alexa	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a content message through this channel.
VOIP	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a content message through this channel. Callers trying to reach a content message will get a ‘busy line’ tonality.
SMS	Incompatible	Content messages will not send via SMS.

Embed messages

Channels	Compatibility	Notes
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Facebook Messenger	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an embed message through this channel.
WhatsApp	Incompatible	N/A
Telegram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an embed message through this channel.
Microsoft Teams	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an embed message through this channel.
Instagram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an embed message through this channel.
Amazon Alexa	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an embed message through this channel.
VOIP	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an embed message through this channel. Callers trying to reach an embed message will get a ‘busy line’ tonality.
SMS	Incompatible	Embed messages will not send via SMS.

Progress messages

Channels	Compatibility	Notes
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Facebook Messenger	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a progress message through this channel.
WhatsApp	Compatible	N/A
Telegram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a progress message through this channel.
Microsoft Teams	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a progress message through this channel.
Instagram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a progress message through this channel.
Amazon Alexa (voice)	Compatible	N/A
Amazon Alexa (screen)	Compatible	Alexa will display the text.
VOIP	Compatible	N/A
SMS	Compatible	N/A

Payment messages

Channels	Compatibility	Notes
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Facebook Messenger	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a payment message through this channel.
WhatsApp	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a payment message through this channel.
Telegram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a payment message through this channel.
Microsoft Teams	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a payment message through this channel.
Instagram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a payment message through this channel.
Amazon Alexa	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a payment message through this channel.
VOIP	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send a payment message through this channel. Callers trying to reach a payment message will get a ‘busy line’ tonality.
SMS	Incompatible	Payment messages will not send via SMS.

Event messages

Channels	Compatibility	Fallback
Chatbot widget	Compatible	N/A
Embedded chatbot	Compatible	N/A
Full-page chatbot	Compatible	Event messages display like a normal message.
Facebook Messenger	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an event message through this channel.
WhatsApp	Compatible	N/A
Telegram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an event message through this channel.
Microsoft Teams	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an event message through this channel.
Instagram	Incompatible	No fallback provided. The chatbot will not send an event message through this channel.
Amazon Alexa	Compatible	Alexa will read out the text.
VOIP	Compatible	N/A
SMS	Compatible	N/A

Dynamic messages

Refer to the compatibility breakdown of the message template you are building and the channel you are building it for.