Viber Business for an online store: account, messages and pricing

Viber Business is Rakuten Viber's set of tools for companies. The business account inside the app costs nothing to open and lets you send up to 30 broadcast messages a month. For automated messages to thousands of customers you need Viber Business Messages, paid per delivered message: in Germany, for example, the published rate card lists €0.0115 for a transactional message and €0.0230 for a promotional one, with a monthly minimum of €115.

This guide is for online store owners in Europe deciding whether Viber is worth adding next to email and SMS. Products and prices come from Viber for Business and Rakuten Viber's rate card; the consent rules come from EU law on EUR-Lex. The full setup of all four campaign channels is in the guide SMS, Viber, email and Web Push campaigns for an EU online store.

What types of Viber Business are there

Viber for Business has three groups of tools that matter to an online store: the business account for conversations and small broadcasts from your phone, Business Messages, an API service through which your store sends messages by itself, and advertising (Viber Ads and Ads Manager).

Tool	What it does	Price	Right for a store when
Business Account	Company profile, chats with customers, QR code and profile link, visibility in Viber Marketplace	No fee, up to 30 broadcasts a month	You answer questions from your phone and send short news to a small group
Business Plus	Subscription on top of the business account: higher ranking in search and up to 30% more visibility in Marketplace	Monthly subscription; the price is not published on the site	The profile already brings enquiries and you need more broadcasts
Business Messages	Transactional, promotional and conversational messages through an API, with SMS fallback offered by Rakuten Viber	Paid per delivered message, by country	You send order confirmations and campaigns to segments
Viber Ads and Ads Manager	Ad formats inside the app, campaigns by objective and targeting	Your ad budget	You want new customers outside your own list

The two versions of the profile are described on the Business Account page: without a subscription you get 30 broadcasts a month, and Business Plus raises that to 300. A broadcast from the profile is sent by hand, from the phone. If you want a message on every order or a follow-up after an abandoned cart, you need Business Messages, and in CloudCart that comes as a channel in the admin.

Before you invest in Viber, check where your buyers are. Viber is a daily chat app in some European countries and rare in others. Rakuten Viber's rate card gives its own price rows to countries such as Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Croatia, Cyprus, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Serbia and Germany, while most of Western and Northern Europe falls under "rest of world". If you sell mainly in countries where shoppers chat in other apps, email, SMS and Web Push carry your flows, and Viber becomes one extra step for the customers who do use it.

How to create a Viber business account

A Viber business account is opened inside the app in a few minutes, but only if you already have a personal Viber account. Rakuten Viber states that you must have a personal account to open a business account: the business profile is created from it.

1. Open Viber on your phone. Use the number you want customers to reach.
2. Go to the "More" screen. The business account flow starts there. You can also start it by scanning the QR code on the Business Account page.
3. Enter the company details. Use the store name exactly as on your website.
4. Put the link and QR code in your store. In the site footer, on the contact page and in the order confirmation email.

The profile has no connection to orders, carts or the subscribers on your site, so stores use both tools: the profile for questions on the phone, and Business Messages for the automatic messages from the store.

Viber Business Messages: transactional and promotional

Viber Business Messages has two main message types for an online store: transactional and promotional. On the Business Messages page, Rakuten Viber describes transactional messages as timely alerts such as delivery updates, and promotional ones as offers, new arrivals and seasonal deals.

	Transactional message	Promotional message
Store example	Order received, parcel shipped, payment confirmed	New collection, Black Friday, discount code
Rate in Germany, Rakuten Viber rate card	€0.0115 per delivered message	€0.0230 per delivered message
How CloudCart picks the type	A text-only message	A message with a picture or button goes out as promotional automatically
Consent	Sent to a customer with an order, about that order	Prior marketing consent for this channel

In CloudCart the choice between the two types happens on its own, based on the content. Add a picture or a button and the message goes out as promotional. Send text only and it goes as a service message. The picture and button fields are not enabled by default, so in most stores a Viber message is text only. If you need them, ask support@cloudcart.com whether they can be enabled for your store.

The sender appears as a verified business with a green check mark. By default in CloudCart this is the shared sender "CloudCart", registered through the provider Infobip. Your own sender name ("Your own Viber channel" on the pricing page) is a separate service; ask support to set it up.

How much Viber Business costs for an online store

Business Messages is paid per delivered message, at a rate set by the recipient's country. European rows from Rakuten Viber's Business Messages rate card.

Country	Transactional or OTP, domestic	Promotional, domestic	International, all types	Monthly minimum
Germany	€0.0115	€0.0230	€0.0247	€115
Greece	€0.0112	€0.0245	€0.0245	€175
Bulgaria	€0.0228	€0.0345	€0.0345	€175
Hungary	€0.0058	€0.0173	€0.0173	€175
Croatia	€0.0058	€0.0150	€0.0230	€115
Slovenia	€0.0029	€0.0046	€0.0276	€115
Rest of world (incl. Austria, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, France, Spain, the Netherlands)	€0.0081	€0.0150	€0.0506	€115

The domestic rate applies when the sending company is headquartered in the same country as the recipient, as recorded when it registered with Rakuten Viber. Messages from the same company to recipients in any other country are charged at the international rate. This matters for cross-border stores: a company in Germany pays €0.0230 for a promotional message to a German customer and €0.0506 to a customer in Austria or Italy.

Here is the arithmetic for a small store with a direct contract. A Germany-based store sends one promotional campaign to 3,000 German subscribers: 3,000 × €0.0230 = €69. That is below the €115 monthly minimum, so the minimum is what you pay. The same 3,000 messages to customers in Austria cost 3,000 × €0.0506 = €151.80. And 500 order confirmations a month to German customers cost 500 × €0.0115 = €5.75.

In CloudCart, Viber messages go out under the platform's contract, so you do not need your own contract with Rakuten Viber or its monthly minimum. On the pricing page, "Viber messages" are marked ✗ on all four plans, which means they are not part of the monthly plan price. Sent messages count against the channel limit; at 80% of it the admin shows a notice, and you buy more credits. Credit prices: support@cloudcart.com.

Consent: who you may message on Viber in the EU

A promotional Viber message may go only to a person who gave prior consent to marketing. The EU ePrivacy Directive (Directive 2002/58/EC), which the member states had to transpose by 31 October 2003, defines electronic mail broadly as any text, voice, sound or image message sent over a public communications network, and its Article 13 requires prior consent for direct marketing by such messages. Treat a Viber offer the way you treat a marketing email or SMS.

Consent must also be provable. The GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), Article 7, which applies from 25 May 2018, requires you to be able to show that the person consented, and to make withdrawing consent as easy as giving it. The ePrivacy Directive allows an exception for your own customers and your own similar products, but only if they can object easily and at no cost when you collect the contact and in every message. National laws can be stricter (Bulgaria's Electronic Commerce Act, for example, has no existing-customer exception), so for sales across several EU countries explicit marketing consent per channel is the safe route. The Your Europe guide to GDPR for businesses adds that once someone objects to direct marketing, you must stop.

In CloudCart consent is stored separately for each channel. A customer who signed up to the newsletter with an email address has not agreed to Viber. A Viber campaign message goes only to a phone number that is confirmed, has marketing consent, is not unsubscribed and has not returned an error. You collect phone numbers in three ways:

• At checkout or registration. The "I accept marketing" checkbox at checkout and at registration stores marketing consent on the subscriber.
• With a signup form. Forms built in Pop-up Builder have a phone field, shown when the store's phone channel is enabled. How to build a form with a signup discount: pop-ups for an online store.
• By hand or by import. In Subscribers consent is changed per channel. Importing an old list without proven consent brings complaints.

Important: when a customer opts out of marketing, the opt-out carries over to all their channels automatically. The reverse does not happen: consent for each channel has to be given again, explicitly. More on data and cookie rules: GDPR and cookies in an online store.

Examples of Viber messages for an online store

A good Viber text for a store is short, with one benefit in the first sentence and one link. Viber holds up to 1,000 characters, but on a phone screen only the beginning shows before the message is expanded, so the offer belongs in the first two lines. In CloudCart the text accepts variables such as {$cart_url} (a link to the cart that signs the customer into their account without a password) and {$unsubscribe_url} (an unsubscribe link). Write each message in the customer's language: if you sell in German and Italian, each segment gets its own version.

Occasion	Type	Sample text
Order received	Transactional	Thank you! Your order is confirmed and will ship within 1 working day. We will message you when the parcel is with the courier.
Parcel shipped	Transactional	Your parcel is on its way. The tracking number and tracking link are in your account in our store.
Abandoned cart, 24 hours after the email	Promotional	We saved the items in your cart. Your order is two clicks away: {$cart_url}. Unsubscribe: {$unsubscribe_url}
New collection	Promotional, with picture and button	The autumn collection is in the store: 40 new styles, delivered in up to 2 days. Button: "See the collection".
Customer inactive for 90 days	Promotional	We have missed you. Here is a 10% discount code, valid until Sunday: VIBER10. Unsubscribe: {$unsubscribe_url}

The "Type" column shows the type by content. CloudCart campaigns go only to subscribers with marketing consent, even when the message is text only and travels as a service message. Create the discount code in the example beforehand in Marketing → Discounts, with an end date and a usage limit, so the report shows how many orders used the Viber code. Seasonal ideas: discount codes for Black Friday and Christmas.

How to send Viber Business messages from CloudCart

In CloudCart, Viber messages are sent from Marketing → Campaigns once you install the Viber channel in Marketing → Channels → Channel settings. You do not need your own Viber Business Messages account: messages go through Infobip under CloudCart's contract.

1. Accept the anti-spam policy. The first time you open Campaigns or Channels, the admin shows the rules and an "Accept" button. Without it, the channels do not open.
2. Install and switch on the channel. On the "Viber" card click "Install" and turn the switch on. "Settings" shows the sender name.
3. Switch on the service messages. The "System messages" button on the card holds 7 templates: new registration, forgotten password, cash on delivery order, bank transfer order, card order, order status change and fulfilment status change. Each one is switched on separately and has a version for each store language.
4. Build a segment. In Marketing → Segments choose the people for the campaign, for example customers who bought in the last 90 days. Viber reaches only subscribers with a confirmed phone number and consent.
5. Add a "Viber message" step. Fill in an internal title and a text of up to 1,000 characters. The AI writing button suggests text, and a preview shows it on a phone.
6. Send a test and launch. The test message does not count against the limit. After launch, "Delivered" and "Seen" appear in the logs, and links get utm_medium=viber, so you see the order behind each message.

Viber has no automatic SMS fallback in CloudCart. A customer without Viber or without internet is left with an "Undelivered" message. So an automated campaign is built with a condition: a Viber step, a "read" check with a 24-hour deadline, and an SMS step for those who did not read it. Only email and Viber have the "read" condition, because only for them does the provider return a "seen" status. An example chain with email, Viber and SMS is in Abandoned carts: 9 ways to win them back.

The campaign statistics show reach, opens, clicks, conversion and revenue by channel and step; an order is credited to the last clicked link.

Viber marketing: 7 good practices for an online store

Viber marketing pays off most when you pay for a Viber message only where a cheaper channel did not work. Email is the first step, Viber is for those who did not open it, and SMS is for those without Viber.

1. Service messages first. Order and shipping updates teach customers to open your messages.
2. One offer, one link. Two offers split the click.
3. Picture and button only for offers. They make the message promotional and more expensive. A shipping update needs only text.
4. An opt-out in every promotional message. The platform does not add {$unsubscribe_url} by itself, so add it yourself.
5. Frequency based on data. Watch "Seen" and clicks in the statistics. If the seen rate drops from campaign to campaign, write less often or to a narrower segment.
6. Check the seen rate by country. If you sell in several countries, a low "Seen" rate in one of them means few buyers there use Viber. Send them email and SMS instead.
7. Test on a phone before launch. Open the link from the test message on a phone and go all the way to payment, in each language and currency you sell in.

The mistakes that cost the most money: a promotional message to people who consented only to email; expecting Viber to reach everyone, with no SMS step after "not read"; a broadcast from the business account instead of an automated chain that starts on its own for every cart. How Viber fits into a full customer retention programme: retention marketing for an online store.

Frequently asked questions

Questions about the Viber channel and credits: support@cloudcart.com.