Integrate Viber Business into Mobile Apps: iOS & Android

A critical notification fails to deliver: a customer doesn't receive a confirmation code, the order stalls, and SMS messages end up in spam. Such incidents cost businesses an average of 15% in lost revenue, according to analytics. To prevent this, we integrate Viber Business Messages—a channel with 90–95% delivery, Rich Media, and automatic SMS fallback. With over 5 years in mobile development and 40+ Viber integrations, our experts ensure reliable transactional messaging for financial, logistics, and service apps. Contact us for a project assessment.

How Viber PA API Works

Viber does not provide a direct REST API for developers without an intermediary. Messages are sent either through a Rakuten Viber Partner (direct access only for large enterprises with a contract) or via authorized aggregators: Infobip, SMSC, MessageBird, TurboSMS, and others. The aggregator provides its own REST API, which internally communicates with Viber. The full specification is available in the Infobip documentation.

A request via Infobip looks like this:

POST https://api.infobip.com/viber/1/message/bulk
Authorization: App {API_KEY}
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "bulkId": "bulk-campaign-sample-1",
  "messages": [
    {
      "from": "YourBrandName",
      "destinations": [{ "to": "380991234567" }],
      "viber": {
        "text": "Your order #98765 has been dispatched. Expect delivery today between 14:00 and 18:00.",
        "imageUrl": "https://cdn.yourbrand.com/delivery-banner.jpg",
        "buttonText": "Track order",
        "buttonUrl": "https://yourbrand.com/track/98765"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Rich messages (with image and button) are only for transactional purposes. Promotional messages with buttons require separate approval from Viber.

Choosing an Aggregator for Viber

The choice of aggregator affects cost, reliability, and geographic coverage. Below is a comparison of three popular ones:

We recommend Infobip for large projects with an international audience, SMSC for local markets, and MessageBird for complex multi-channel scenarios.

What Is SMS Fallback and How to Configure It?

The key feature of Viber Business: if the user doesn't have Viber or is unreachable, automatic SMS fallback can be configured at the aggregator level:

{
  "messages": [{
    "viber": { "text": "...", "validityPeriod": 15 },
    "sms": { "text": "Short SMS version of the message" }
  }]
}

validityPeriod defines how many minutes to wait for Viber delivery before switching to SMS. After sending, the aggregator sends a webhook with the final status: DELIVERED_TO_VIBER, DELIVERED_TO_SMS, or UNDELIVERABLE. According to Viber PA API documentation, proper fallback handling reduces delivery loss to under 5%.

Why Viber Business Outperforms Plain SMS

Viber Business provides a verified account with branding, high delivery rate (90–95% vs. 80% for plain messages), and official analytics. Statistics show Viber Business delivers messages twice as often as SMS and three times faster—within seconds. It cuts SMS campaign costs by up to 40%. For a typical project sending 100,000 messages per month, this means a budget saving of up to 40%. Contact us to calculate the impact for your project.

Mobile Side: What Is Implemented in the App

The app doesn't work directly with the Viber SDK—it calls your backend, which sends messages through the aggregator. On the mobile side:

• A form for creating Viber messages with Rich Media (image upload, button, text).
• Message preview before sending.
• Campaign launch and status tracking.

// Android—creating a Viber message
data class ViberMessage(
    val recipientPhone: String,
    val text: String,
    val imageUrl: String? = null,
    val buttonText: String? = null,
    val buttonUrl: String? = null
)

suspend fun sendViberMessage(message: ViberMessage): MessageResult {
    return apiClient.post("/notifications/viber", message)
}

The backend processes webhooks and stores statuses. The mobile app requests aggregated statistics:

struct ViberCampaignStats: Decodable {
    let total: Int
    let deliveredViber: Int
    let deliveredSms: Int
    let failed: Int
    let pending: Int
}

How We Integrate Viber: Our Process

1. Analysis: Choose the aggregator, design the sending and webhook processing scheme.
2. PA Registration: Assist with application and brand verification (takes 2–5 business days).
3. API Development: Build REST layer on the backend to communicate with the aggregator.
4. Mobile UI: Implement rich-message sending forms and statistics screens.
5. Testing: Verify all scenarios—delivery, fallback, error handling.
6. Deployment: Set up monitoring, documentation, and support.

What’s Included in the Work

• Analysis of current infrastructure and aggregator selection (Infobip, SMSC, MessageBird, or others)
• Public Account registration and brand verification (up to 5 business days)
• REST API development for sending and webhook processing
• Mobile app integration (sending forms, statistics)
• Testing of all scenarios: delivery, fallback, errors
• API documentation and 1 month of post-launch support

Timeline and Cost

Basic integration takes 4–7 business days (excluding PA verification). Cost depends on complexity and chosen aggregator—contact us for a one-day project estimate.

Case Study: Logistics Client

For a logistics company processing 100,000 daily orders, we integrated Viber Business via Infobip. The result: 95% delivery rate for order updates, 40% reduction in SMS costs, and the remaining 5% covered by SMS fallback. The client reported a 30% drop in support inquiries about order status.

Use Cases for Viber Business

Contact us to review your case and recommend the optimal solution.

Push Notifications in Mobile App: APNs, FCM, Segmentation, Rich Push

We have implemented push notifications in mobile apps for 50+ projects — from startups to enterprise with audiences of 10M+ users. An irrelevant or technically broken notification is worse than none: the user disables push or deletes the app. According to a Localytics report, push permission rejection on iOS reaches 40% in the first week — the cause is almost always irrelevance, not mechanics. Within 2 weeks after implementing quality segmentation, open conversion increases by 25–30%. Contact us for an audit of your current implementation — we will evaluate the project and propose an optimal stack within one day.

How the Infrastructure Works: APNs and FCM

APNs is the only delivery channel on iOS. Everything else (OneSignal, Braze, Airship) is a wrapper on top of it. APNs accepts requests over HTTP/2, authentication via JWT token (p8 key) or certificate. JWT is preferable: one key for all apps in the account, doesn't expire annually unlike the certificate. For more details, see the official documentation.

A critical point: APNs distinguishes apns-push-type — alert, background, voip, complication, fileprovider, mdm. An incorrect type on iOS 13+ causes background notifications not to wake the app. We've seen projects where content-available: 1 was sent without apns-push-type: background — the app didn't receive silent push on some devices, and the team spent a month looking for an 'app bug'.

FCM on Android works through Google Play Services. For devices without GMS (Huawei, part of the Chinese market), Huawei Push Kit or a direct WebSocket is needed — a separate task. FCM supports data messages (handled in onMessageReceived) and notification messages (the system displays automatically if the app is in the background). Mixing them requires caution: if the notification block has a click_action but the deep link is not registered in the app, tapping the notification simply opens the main screen without navigation.

Why Segmentation Is the Foundation of Effective Push Notifications?

Sending to everyone indiscriminately quickly exhausts user loyalty. Personalized messages are clicked 3 times more often than bulk ones, and proper segmentation reduces churn by 25% (on one project it brought significant additional revenue per quarter). The cost of setting up segmentation in OneSignal or a custom backend depends on the complexity of filters.

Proper segmentation is built on several levels.

Topics are for broad categories: 'new promotions', 'order status updates'. User subscribes via FirebaseMessaging.getInstance().subscribeToTopic("orders"). Simple, but no flexible filtering.

Attribute-based segments — via OneSignal, Braze, or custom backend. We store in the user profile: language, device type, last activity, LTV segment. Notification goes only to those with last_active < 7_days and plan = premium. OneSignal allows building such filters in the interface without code.

Personalized — by specific device_token. It's important to store tokens correctly: the token updates on app reinstall, restoration from backup on a new phone, or resetting settings. On iOS, use UNUserNotificationCenter + didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken, save to backend on every launch, not just the first. Otherwise, after 3 months 30% of tokens in the database are outdated.

What Is Rich Push and How Does It Boost Conversion?

A standard notification with title and text is clicked less often than a rich push with image and action buttons — by 3 times. But implementing rich push is a separate task on each platform.

On iOS, rich content requires UNNotificationServiceExtension (to modify payload) and UNNotificationContentExtension (custom UI). The extension runs in a separate process with limited time and memory. If the extension crashes or exceeds the timeout, the system shows the original payload without media. A typical mistake is trying to load an image over HTTP (not HTTPS): ATS blocks the request, the extension silently fails, and the user sees a notification without an image.

On Android with API 26+, notifications are tied to NotificationChannel. If the channel is created with IMPORTANCE_LOW, sound and vibration are unavailable. Different notification types (transactional, marketing) should be in different channels so the user can disable marketing without losing order notifications. BigPictureStyle, MessagingStyle, InboxStyle are templates for expanded notifications. MessagingStyle with Person and avatars is the best choice for chats.

How to Track Delivery and Conversion of Push Notifications?

Sending a notification is half the work. It's important to know: was it delivered, opened, and did it lead to a target action.

FCM returns a MessageId on send, but does not guarantee a delivery callback — by design. For open tracking, custom logic is needed: on notification tap in onMessageReceived or via getInitialNotification() / onNotificationOpenedApp (OneSignal SDK), send an event to analytics with notification_id.

OneSignal provides built-in delivery and CTR analytics. For more detailed analysis — integrate with Amplitude or Mixpanel via webhook on open events. The budget for such a dashboard varies depending on event volume.

How We Implement Push Notifications: Typical Process

1. Audit current implementation — check token storage, update handling, notification types.
2. Design architecture — choose transport (FCM + APNs), segmentation layer (OneSignal/Braze/custom), personalization method.
3. Implementation — write registration code, inbound handling, rich push, deep linking.
4. Testing — send test campaigns, verify delivery on different devices, simulators, regions.
5. Monitoring and analytics — set up dashboard, open and conversion events.
6. Documentation and training — hand over operational materials to the team.

Typical stack: FCM + APNs at transport level, OneSignal or Firebase Notifications Composer for segmentation, custom backend for personalized event-based notifications. For large apps with >1M users, OneSignal has pricing limits — then we use Braze or a custom implementation on AWS SNS.

Timelines depend on complexity: basic FCM+APNs integration with transactional notifications — 1–2 weeks. A full system with segmentation, rich push, analytics, and A/B testing — 4–8 weeks. Order an audit of your current push infrastructure or get a consultation on implementing push notifications in your mobile app — we will contact you within a day and provide an accurate estimate.