Zender – WhatsApp & SMS Messaging SaaS with Shared Inbox, Campaigns and Chatbots

Zender is a self-hosted omnichannel messaging platform you sell as a service. Your customers get one workspace for SMS and WhatsApp: a shared Messenger inbox, bulk campaigns, chatbot flows, contacts and a REST API. You set the plans, the prices and the credits, and run it on your own server.

Disclaimer: Android Gateway and WhatsApp are separate plugins and are not included with the script. Both are free for verified purchases and are downloaded from our customer portal. Their source code is not included: the Android apps are built with the app builder in our customer portal, where you can change the app name, icon, logo, colors, package name and site address, and the WhatsApp server comes as a compiled program. You get the full source code of the PHP script. Your customers download the Android apps from your own dashboard; they are not meant for the Play Store.

What Is Included and What Is Sold Separately

The demo shows every plugin, so here is exactly what the purchase contains.

• Included in the script: the full PHP script, WhatsApp Business (WABA), SMS Providers (Twilio and 14 other HTTP providers, plus Custom HTTP), and the Bank Transfer and PayPal payment gateways.
• Free plugins for verified buyers: Android Gateway, WhatsApp (unofficial, QR-linked), SMPP and WhatsApp Embedded Signup. They are separate downloads from the customer portal, not part of the script, and are provided at our discretion.
• Paid plugins, sold separately: Email, Website Chat and Web Push are paid plugins sold separately, as are Phone Bridge, GSM Modems, Telegram, Telegram Store, Knowledge Base, AI Agents, AI Flow Builder, MCP, Appointment Booking, Google Sheets, Shopify, Odoo, osTicket, Blesta, Flarum, Browser Extension, WordPress, WHMCS, Perfex and the RCS extra. Auto Update for Zender is paid.
• Paid payment gateways, sold separately: Stripe, Paystack, Razorpay, Crypto.com Pay and YooKassa.

Why Choose Zender?

• Ready-to-Launch SaaS Business: Plans, credits, vouchers, invoices and payments work from day one.
• Your Own Phones or Any Provider: Send SMS through paired Android phones and their SIMs, or through a cloud SMS provider.
• Official and Unofficial WhatsApp: WhatsApp Business through Meta, or ordinary WhatsApp numbers linked by QR code.
• One Inbox for Every Channel: Your customers’ teams reply to every conversation from one Messenger.
• Self-Hosted: Your server, your customers, your data, your pricing.

How to Monetize Your Messaging Platform

• Subscription Plans: Each plan switches features and channels on or off and sets its own limits.
• Message Credits: Sell credit packs; customers spend credits per SMS and WhatsApp message at the rates you set.
• Discount Vouchers: Promo codes with redemption tracking.
• Automatic Invoices: Every payment produces a numbered PDF invoice.
• Referral Program: Reward workspace owners who bring in new customers.
• Market: Sell hardware, physical goods, downloads, license keys and services to your customers.
• Partner Network: Approved partners share their Android lines; other workspaces send through them for credits, with partner ledgers and payouts.

Shared Team Inbox

• Messenger: Every channel’s conversations in one inbox, updated live over WebSockets.
• Teamwork: Assignment, teams, labels, rules, SLA targets and CSAT surveys.
• Macros and Quick Replies: Saved responses and actions in one click.
• Contact Notes: Private notes against a contact.
• AI Assist: Suggest a reply, summarize a conversation, rewrite or translate a draft. Uses Anthropic, OpenAI, Grok, DeepSeek or OpenRouter, billed in credits or through the workspace’s own key.

SMS Through Android Phones (Free Android Gateway Plugin)

• QR Code Pairing: Scan once from the dashboard and the phone is connected.
• Multi-SIM: Each SIM in a dual-SIM phone is its own sender.
• Two-Way Messaging: Incoming SMS arrives in the Messenger as a conversation.
• Delivery Reports: Sent, delivered and failed status per message.
• USSD: Run USSD codes and schedules from the dashboard.
• Your Branded Apps: Download your branded app bundle (gateway, Receiver, RCS and USSD apps) from the customer portal and upload it once in the plugin settings. The RCS app works only with the RCS extra, sold separately.

WhatsApp: Two Ways

• WhatsApp Business (WABA, included): Connect a Meta WhatsApp Business account, manage message templates and send at scale. The free Embedded Signup plugin adds Connect With Facebook and Coexistence numbers.
• WhatsApp via QR Code (free plugin): Link an ordinary WhatsApp number by scanning a QR code. The plugin download includes the WhatsApp server.
• Groups: Sync WhatsApp groups and send to them.
• Live Status: Connection state and QR pairing stream to the dashboard in real time.

SMS Through Cloud Providers (Included)

• 15 Providers Built In: Twilio, Vonage, Plivo, Telnyx, Sinch, Infobip, Bandwidth, Bird, Clickatell, ClickSend, Africa’s Talking, MSG91, Routee, SignalWire and TextMagic.
• Custom HTTP Provider: Connect any SMS provider with an HTTP API.
• Sender IDs: Manage sender names per workspace.
• Provider Webhooks: Signatures are verified where supported. Unsigned callbacks support configurable IP restrictions. Duplicate deliveries are absorbed.
• SMPP (free plugin): Connect a carrier or aggregator over SMPP.

Campaigns

• Bulk Sending: Send to groups, tags, saved segments or all contacts, or paste numbers straight into the wizard.
• Every Channel: SMS providers and WABA in the script; Android and WhatsApp through free plugins; Email and the other paid channels through plugins sold separately, when active.
• Scheduling and Send Windows: Send later, repeat on a schedule, and keep to allowed hours.
• A/B Tests and Link Tracking: Pick a winning variant and count unique clicks on short links.
• Duplicate Protection: A number is never messaged twice in one campaign, and opted-out contacts are skipped.
• Spintax Variation: Write {Hi|Hey|Hello} and each recipient gets a different wording.

Chatbot Flow Builder

• Drag-and-Drop Canvas: Build automated conversations by connecting nodes.
• Keyword Triggers and Branching: Start on a keyword and reply differently to each answer.
• AI Replies: Answer with your configured AI provider inside a flow.
• Run History: Inspect each run step by step from the flow’s Runs tab.
• Away Messages: Auto-reply outside business hours, or while an agent is away.
• Drips: Sequences of send and wait steps for each contact.

Contacts

• Groups, Tags, Segments and Custom Fields: Organize contacts for targeted sending.
• Import: CSV or XLSX, with every number validated and stored in international format.
• Opt-Out Handling: Unsubscribes are recorded and respected.
• Forms: Hosted subscription pages you can share or embed.

Developer API

• REST API: Send messages and manage contacts and campaigns from your customers’ own systems.
• Scoped API Keys: Each key grants only the abilities it is issued for.
• Outgoing Webhooks: Signed events to any URL, with delivery logs and retries.
• OTP Verifications: Request and check one-time codes with channel fallback.
• API Reference: Built into the dashboard, with an OpenAPI download.

Billing and Payments

• PayPal and Bank Transfer: Included. Bank transfers are approved by an admin.
• More Gateways: Stripe, Paystack, Razorpay, Crypto.com Pay and YooKassa are paid plugins sold separately.
• Subscription Lifecycle: Upgrades, downgrades, renewals and cancellations are tracked.
• Dispute Records: Payment disputes are recorded against the transaction.

Admin Dashboard

• Customers and Plans: Users, plans, subscriptions, transactions, vouchers and credit packs.
• Service Servers: Register the WhatsApp, Email, SMPP, Telegram and telephony services and watch their health. Email, Telegram and telephony come with paid plugins sold separately.
• Plugin Manager: Upload and activate plugins from the panel.
• Landing Builder and Custom Pages: Build and publish your public site.
• Support Tickets: Customers open tickets from their dashboard; admins reply with attachments.
• Operations: Cron job runs, logs, abuse review and email previews.

Multi-Language

• Ships in Three Languages: English, Arabic and Japanese.
• Add Your Own: Add and translate any language from the dashboard.
• Right-to-Left Ready: Arabic and other RTL languages flip the interface.

Security and Privacy

• Workspace Isolation: Every record is scoped to its owning workspace.
• Two-Factor Sign-In: With recovery codes.
• Roles and Permissions: For workspace members and administrators.
• Hashed Device Tokens: Phone session tokens are never stored in plain text.
• Privacy Tools: Consent, data exports, erasure and retention.

Paid Plugins (Sold Separately)

• Website Chat and Web Push (paid plugins): A chat widget for your customers’ websites and browser push campaigns.
• Phone Bridge and GSM Modems (paid plugins): Calls and texts through your own phone or GSM modems.
• Telegram and Telegram Store (paid plugins): Telegram bots and accounts, and a shop in a Telegram Mini App.
• AI Agents, AI Flow Builder and Knowledge Base (paid plugins): AI agents that answer and hand over to your team, flows drafted from a description, and answers from your own documents.
• MCP (paid plugin): Connect AI clients to workspace tools.
• RCS (paid extra): RCS through Google Messages on paired Android phones (needs the Android Gateway plugin and SMS).
• Integrations (paid plugins): Appointment Booking, Google Sheets, Shopify, Odoo, osTicket, Blesta, Flarum, Browser Extension, WordPress, WHMCS and Perfex.
• Auto Update (paid plugin): Download and apply new releases from the admin area.

What You Get

• PHP Script: The full Laravel and React application.
• Core Channels and Gateways: WABA, SMS Providers, Bank Transfer and PayPal, installed and ready.
• Offline Documentation: Installation and usage docs that open in any browser.
• Web Installer and VPS Auto Setup: A browser installer for any host, and a one-shot script for a fresh Ubuntu 24.04 server.
• Not in the Download: Free and paid plugins, their server programs and the Android apps come from the customer portal. The WhatsApp server in the free WhatsApp plugin runs on Linux (x86-64 or ARM64) or on macOS with Apple Silicon.

System Requirements

PHP Script (shared hosting or VPS):

• PHP 8.4.1 or higher (64-bit) with the pdo_mysql, mbstring, openssl, curl, gd, zip, bcmath, intl and xml extensions. The setup wizard checks each one.
• MySQL 8 (MariaDB is accepted by the installer)
• A cron entry that runs the scheduler every minute. No queue daemon and no Redis are needed.
• Realtime: the included Reverb server on a VPS, or a Pusher Channels app on shared hosting
• Optional: ffmpeg for WhatsApp voice notes; HTTPS for browser calling (Phone Bridge, paid plugin) and the Telegram Store (paid plugin)

We strongly recommend a VPS. Run the included VPS Auto Setup script on a fresh Ubuntu 24.04 server with root access: it installs and configures everything Zender needs for the best performance, including realtime updates, background workers and the scheduler.

Shared hosting is not recommended. It runs the PHP script only, with these limits:

• Slower sending: messages, campaigns and flows move only when the every-minute cron runs, and hosts cap PHP process time and count, so large campaigns and busy inboxes fall behind.
• Live updates need a Pusher Channels app instead of the included Reverb server.
• The channel services, custom Messenger domains and larger numbers of Android phones need a VPS.
• Hosts that disable PHP proc_open or cap uploads, memory or run time stop the scheduler and break large uploads.

Channel Services (VPS required):

• The WhatsApp and SMPP services (free plugins) and the Email, Telegram and telephony services (paid plugins, sold separately) are long-running server programs. They need a VPS or server, the same one or a separate one.
• WhatsApp server: Linux (x86-64 or ARM64), or macOS on Apple Silicon. A single static binary with no runtime libraries (ffmpeg is only needed for voice notes).

Android Gateway Apps:

• Android 8.0 or higher, with an active SIM card
• A free Firebase project of your own for instant delivery; without it phones check for messages every few minutes