Welcome to ChatWerk API
Straightforward API. Transparent costs. Built for developers.
The ChatWerk API is a flexible, developer-friendly REST API designed to help you integrate professional, multi-channel messaging into your own applications, services, or platforms. It provides a unified interface for sending and receiving messages across popular communication channels, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Live Chat, and ChatWerk Connect.
ChatWerk focuses on simplicity, predictable behavior, and production-ready infrastructure. Our documentation is practical and implementation-oriented, enabling development teams to integrate messaging quickly without unnecessary complexity. Most teams complete their initial setup and send their first message within minutes.
This guide explains how to use the ChatWerk API to build reliable messaging experiences by covering:*
- The core concepts of modern messaging systems
- How channels, contacts, conversations, and messages interact
- The technical and platform-specific rules that affect message delivery
- How to implement common messaging use cases using the API
Part of this guide is on 1:1 messaging, meaning direct communication between your application and an individual end user. Some channels — most notably WhatsApp — apply strict rules such as conversation time windows or restrictions on initiating conversations. These rules are central to successful integrations and are explained throughout the documentation.
If your use case involves sending messages to many recipients at once (1:N messaging) - for example, campaigns, bulk notifications, or automated flows - ChatWerk provides Chatflows and Broadcasts. These tools are optimized for scale, automation, and segmentation and should be used instead of the direct 1:1 API endpoints described here.
This documentation is a living resource. Some sections provide conceptual background, while others go into implementation detail with concrete examples. Together, they are intended to support both direct API consumers and partner platforms integrating ChatWerk as part of a broader messaging solution.
Prerequisites
To work with the ChatWerk API, the following identifiers and credentials are required:
Organization ID and Channel ID
Every API request is scoped to an organization and a channel.
Both values can be obtained from the URL when opening the channel settings in the Inbox.
URL structure:
https://inbox.chatwerk.de/settings/organization/{organization_id}/channel/{channel_id}
Gateway ID (optional)
Some API features (e.g. Templates or Campaigns) require a Gateway ID.
The Gateway ID can be retrieved via the following endpoint:
GET https://api.chatwerk.de/core/gateways?channel_id=\{channel_id}
Authentication | API Reference
The ChatWerk API uses token-based authentication.
A Bearer Token is issued via the standard ChatWerk login endpoint and must be included in all authenticated requests.
Login endpoint:
POST https://api.chatwerk.de/core/auth/login
The token must be sent using the Authorization: Bearer <token> header.
This guide is intended for:
- Backend and full-stack engineers integrating ChatWerk into applications
- Platform and SaaS providers building messaging capabilities for customers
- Technical partners implementing ChatWerk as part of a larger system
Basic familiarity with HTTP APIs, JSON, and REST concepts is assumed.
Updated 6 months ago