Chat Link MakerThe part after ?text= in a wa.me link is the message that appears in the chat box. Because a web address cannot contain spaces or most symbols, the message has to be URL-encoded. The link maker does this for you, but it helps to know what happens.
What encoding does
Each unsafe character is replaced by a percent sign and two letters or digits. A space becomes %20. The official example is https://wa.me/1XXXXXXXXXX?text=I'm%20interested%20in%20your%20car%20for%20sale. A new line becomes %0A, and an ampersand becomes %26, which matters because a bare ampersand would end the message early.
Writing a good pre-filled message
- Say who is writing and what they want. "Hello, I would like a quote for ____" is better than "Hi".
- Keep it short. A long text makes a long link, and QR codes with long links are dense and harder to scan.
- Leave a blank to fill. Underscores such as ____ show where the person types their detail.
- Be polite. It is the first message your customer sends in your name.
Check the result
After you build a link, always test it on a phone and look at the text in the chat box. Emoji, new lines and accents should look as you typed them. See ready examples for shops on the pages in the business list on the home page.
Questions people ask
How long can the message be?
We do not know an official limit for the pre-filled text, so keep it short. A long message creates a long link that is hard to share and to turn into a QR code.