Kakao BizMessage (AlimTalk, FriendTalk, Brand Message)
How a business messages KakaoTalk users, read from the English API reference of Kakao i Connect Message (docs.kakaoi.ai, run by Kakao's enterprise arm) on 2026-09-22. Hunted for growth edge 6 / Most-wanted #40 together with wechat-official-account-messaging. T1: first-party documentation.
Kakao splits business messaging by what the message is, and the class decides who can receive it.
Three products
- AlimTalk — "informative KakaoTalk messages", sent to users including those who have not added the business's channel as a friend: it reaches a phone number. In exchange, the content is narrow. Each template must be registered on the Kakao Biz Message site and inspected for approval, and the permitted kinds are those "sent immediately according to the customer's actions": order and reservation confirmations, payment details, delivery status. Newsletters, membership greetings and announcements are named as not informational. Messages run to 1,000 characters, can fall back to SMS/LMS if KakaoTalk delivery fails, and need a sender profile key issued when the channel is opened on the Biz site. Spam can suspend both the AlimTalk service and the KakaoTalk channel, and bring fines.
- FriendTalk — "information/advertisement" messages, only to users who have added the channel as a friend.
- Brand Message — advertising to users who are channel friends or have given marketing consent.
Where it sits on the spectrum
The other channels in this spoke decide who may send and then police what they send, per message (message-template on WhatsApp) or per conversation (Apple's review). Kakao sorts first by content. A transactional message, inspected in advance, can go to anyone with a phone number. An advertisement can go only to people who opted into the brand. That is close to what the US carriers do by other means in a2p-10dlc (registration, then a flat rate), and close to WeChat's ban on marketing in push templates (wechat-official-account-messaging). Kakao states the split as three products.
What this page does not hold
Prices, time-of-day rules for advertising, and how the template inspection is run. The pages read on 2026-09-22 did not state them.
Related
wechat-official-account-messaging · line-messaging-api · message-template · sender-verification · a2p-10dlc · synthesis