Viber business messages are branded messages that a company sends to customers inside the Viber app, with room for up to 1,000 characters, images and buttons. They work best alongside SMS: Viber carries the richer message when the customer can receive it, and SMS delivers the update when they cannot.
This guide explains why Viber has become a serious business channel, where SMS still does the job better, and how to design one journey that uses Viber business messaging first and falls back to SMS without sending customers the same message twice.
Why is Viber an important business channel?
In many markets, Viber is where customers already chat with friends and family, so a message from a brand arrives in an app they open every day. Rakuten Viber has built that into a full business product. On its Viber Business Messages page, Viber highlights:
- An official presence. Brands can be found in Viber search through an official Viber Business Account and manage conversations from a dedicated inbox.
- Business-initiated and customer-initiated conversations. Brands can start a conversation with promotions, alerts or one-time passwords, and support teams can answer chats that customers start.
- Varied formats. Messages can combine text, emojis, files, carousels, call-to-action buttons and list options.
- SMS fallback and pay-for-delivered pricing. Viber describes an encrypted API with SMS fallback, and says businesses pay only for messages that are delivered.
For brands, that adds up to a channel that looks like a real brand experience rather than a line of text from an unknown sender.
What do Viber business messages give you that SMS does not?
More room to explain
Through SMS.to, a Viber message can carry up to 1,000 characters, against 160 for a single GSM-7 SMS. Do not use the space for essays. Use it to avoid awkward abbreviations, add context and make the next step obvious.
Images and buttons
A product photo, a coupon or a “Track my order” button helps people act without guessing what a link is for. For retail and marketplaces, Viber can carry the discovery part of a campaign, not only the last click.
Trust signals
A verified, branded business profile with your name, logo and contact details helps customers see that the message really comes from you. In sectors plagued by impersonation, that small cue can decide whether someone clicks or hesitates.
Read information
SMS.to reports delivery and read status for each Viber message, so you can see not just whether a message arrived but whether it was opened.
What does SMS still do better?
Reach without data or apps
SMS reaches any mobile number, with no app to install and no mobile data needed at the moment of delivery. That matters when customers are roaming, in weak coverage or on older phones, and it matters at a global level too. GSMA Intelligence reports that 4.8 billion people used mobile internet by the end of 2025, about 59% of the world’s population, which leaves billions of people who do not.
Short alerts that must land now
Some messages are best short and plain: one-time codes and login alerts, pickup codes, one-line delivery updates and fraud warnings that should not include much detail. SMS often suits these even when the customer also uses Viber.
A safety net for everything else
SMS fallback reaches customers who do not have Viber installed, have poor connectivity or are otherwise unavailable on the app. That is the core of using both channels together.
How do you design a Viber-first journey with SMS fallback?
The most common failure is accidental double messaging. A customer receives the Viber message, then the SMS as well, then opts out because it feels like spam. The fix is one intent, one journey and one fallback rule.
Choose the job of the message first
Decide whether the message is an informational update (delivery or booking), a promotion, a security step (OTP or suspicious activity) or a service update (ticket status). Once the job is clear, the channel choice is easier.
Set fallback triggers you can defend
- Send Viber first when the user is reachable on Viber.
- Send SMS only if Viber cannot be delivered to that user.
- Do not fall back because a Viber message was not opened. That creates duplicates and muddles your reporting.
Write two versions of each message
Do not paste the same copy into both channels. For a retail restock, the Viber version might read: “Your size is back in stock. Tap to view the item and check out while it is still available,” with buttons for “View item” and “Track my orders”. The SMS fallback should focus on the single action that matters: “Back in stock in your size. View and check out here:” followed by a short link.
Keep SMS fallback to one segment
A single SMS holds 160 GSM-7 characters. Longer text becomes a concatenated SMS of 153-character segments, each billed separately, and emoji or non-Latin scripts switch the encoding and cut capacity further. Check fallback copy with the SMS character counter before launch. For the maths behind segments, read SMS pricing and character limits explained.
Add quiet hours and frequency caps
Start with a few rules: no promotions late at night, a weekly cap on promotional sends per user, a pause on promotions for anyone with an open support issue, and suppression on every channel once someone opts out.
Which messages suit Viber and which suit SMS?
| Sector | Viber first | SMS first or as fallback |
|---|---|---|
| Retail and marketplaces | Product drops, restock alerts with images, loyalty updates, cart reminders | “Sale ends in 3 hours”, “Your order is ready for collection” |
| Travel and mobility | Detailed trip changes: what changed, what to do, what happens next | Gate changes, pickup location changes, driver arrival, check-in deadlines |
| Banking and financial services | Product information and service updates from a verified profile | OTPs and security alerts: code, context, expiry, and no links unless requested |
| Customer support | Conversations likely to continue with questions and replies | One-line status messages such as “Your refund has been processed” |
For a flash sale, a sensible flow is a Viber message at launch with an image and a button, an SMS with a short link only for customers not reachable on Viber, and a Viber reminder near the end for people who engaged. The goal is better targeting, not more messages. For one-time passcodes, a structured fallback flow matters even more; see how to build an OTP flow with smart fallback.
How do you keep Viber and SMS compliant and trusted?
- Make opting out easy and honour it everywhere. The CTIA’s Messaging Principles and Best Practices recommend standard STOP wording and say plain-language requests such as “unsubscribe” or “cancel” should also be acted on. Even outside the US, treat an opt-out as a suppression rule across every channel.
- Keep consent evidence. Record how and when each person opted in, what they were told they would receive, and when they opted out.
- Separate transactional from promotional traffic. Viber prices promotional and transactional messages differently, and customers judge them differently too.
- Keep links consistent. Use the same recognisable domains and make the message text say where a link goes.
What should you track once both channels are live?
Give every send an internal message ID and log the channel used and every status that comes back through webhooks. Then measure by message job rather than only by channel:
- Delivery: delivery rate and time to delivery per channel, plus how often fallback fired.
- Engagement: Viber reads and clicks, SMS clicks, and opt-outs per message category.
- Outcomes: purchases, completed bookings, completed OTP verifications and fewer support tickets.
To see real lift rather than clicks that would have happened anyway, hold out 5% to 10% of eligible users from a campaign and compare conversion, revenue per user and opt-out rates.
Plan for channel risk too. Availability can change by country: Russia’s communications regulator blocked Viber in December 2024. Such events are rare, but a working SMS fallback means your critical messages keep flowing if one channel disappears.
How do you roll out a Viber and SMS setup?
- Inventory your messages. List every message you send, its purpose, audience, current channel, frequency and what success looks like. This usually reveals duplicates and flows that no longer match your consent wording.
- Define routing and fallback rules. Decide which messages go Viber first, which always go by SMS, and what fallback means, with quiet hours and frequency caps.
- Build templates and tracking. Write a Viber and an SMS version of each important message, and set up consistent IDs and status logging.
- Launch one flow with measurement. Start with a high-impact flow such as delivery updates or restock alerts, use a holdout group, then expand.
If SMS carries a large share of your traffic, the route matters as much as the copy. Our guide to what an SMS gateway is and how to choose one covers direct routes, delivery reports and the questions to ask a provider.
How SMS.to handles Viber and SMS together
SMS.to lets you send Viber Business Messages through SMS.to from the same account you use for SMS, through the web app or the API:
- Activation and profile. Share your brand details and SMS.to sets up your branded business profile and approved Viber sender ID, and tells you early if your use case needs extra documents.
- Message types. The API supports text-only messages, text with an image and optional button, and text with a button, up to 1,000 characters.
- SMS fallback. If a contact cannot receive Viber, the message can be routed by SMS so the update still arrives.
- Visibility. Delivery and read status per Viber message, plus webhooks, logs and analytics, with delivery reports for SMS.
- Pricing. Viber pricing varies by country and by message type, promotional or transactional, and is confirmed during activation. See SMS.to pricing for SMS rates.
A single text-only Viber message through the API looks like this:
curl -X POST https://api.sms.to/v3/viber/send \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"to": "+35794000001",
"message": "Your order has shipped. Track it any time from your account.",
"sender_id": "MyViberSenderId",
"callback_url": "https://example.com/viber/status",
"viber_type": 106
}'Set viber_type to 106 for text only, 108 for text with an image and optional button, or 109 for text with a button. The SMS.to developer docs list the image, button and SMS fallback fields.
FAQs
What are Viber business messages?
They are messages a company sends to customers inside the Viber app from a branded, verified business profile. They can include up to 1,000 characters, images and buttons, and can be promotional or transactional.
Is Viber cheaper than SMS?
It depends on the country and message type. Viber pricing differs for promotional and transactional messages and by market, so compare quotes for your destinations. Viber says businesses pay only for delivered messages.
What happens if a customer does not have Viber?
With SMS fallback enabled, the message is sent by SMS instead, so the customer still receives the update. Write a short SMS version so the fallback fits in one segment.
Should I fall back to SMS if a Viber message is not read?
Usually not. Falling back on unread messages creates duplicates, annoys customers and increases opt-outs. Fall back only when Viber cannot be delivered.
Can I send OTPs over Viber?
Yes. Viber supports one-time passwords, and the SMS.to Verify API can send codes by Viber with automatic fallback to other channels such as SMS.
Want to run Viber and SMS as one system in your markets? Talk to our sales team about Viber activation, sender setup and pricing for your destinations.
