Connecting Zalo OA

Zalo is the only platform with prerequisites on their side: the Official Account must be verified and on a plan that includes the Open API. Read the prerequisites before connecting.

Two prerequisites

These come from Zalo, not from your plan here

Miss either one and Zalo refuses the authorisation, returning its own error message — which rarely points at the real cause. Check both before you start.

Requirement	Where to check	If you do not have it
A verified OA	Zalo's OA management console — a verified OA carries a gold tick.	Submit verification to Zalo. Business or personal documents are required depending on the OA type.
A plan with Open API	The service plan section of the OA console.	Upgrade to the Growth tier or above. The free tier has no Open API, so publishing through this system is impossible.

This is a cost you pay Zalo, entirely separate from your plan here. The interface warns you at the platform selection step, because every connected channel occupies a slot, and removing it keeps the slot held for 7 days — discovering the problem afterwards is too late.

Connection steps

1
Confirm both prerequisites
A gold tick on the OA and an active plan with the Open API. If the plan has just lapsed, channels you already connected stop publishing too — not only new ones.
2
Click Add account → Zalo OA
Channels → Add account. Read the prerequisite note, then press Connect.
3
Authorise in the Zalo popup
Sign in with the Zalo account that administers the OA, pick the right OA, and approve. Make sure the Article permission group is ticked — that is the group that allows creating video articles.
4
Check the list
The OA appears under Accounts with its name, avatar and follower count.

Zalo authorisation renews itself

A Zalo access token lives for only one hour, so the system renews it constantly in the background — an "Expiring" status on a Zalo channel is normal, not a fault. The refresh token lasts three months and is extended on every use, so an active channel never needs reconnecting.

What the post looks like

On a Zalo OA, video is not a standalone post the way it is on Facebook. It becomes a video article with a title, a cover image, a description and the video.

Title — up to 150 characters. Mandatory; it cannot be empty.
Description — up to 300 characters. Also mandatory; if you leave it blank we reuse the title so Zalo does not reject the article.
Cover image — mandatory. A video without one cannot publish, and we fail early rather than upload and break halfway.

Zalo publishing takes longer than other platforms

Zalo processes video as a background job: we upload, create the article, then poll Zalo until the article has a real identifier. That can take several minutes. While it runs the post shows as processing — do not press publish again, or you risk two identical articles.

Limits

Video up to 30 minutes and 50 MB.
Title 150 characters, description 300. Longer text is trimmed at a word boundary rather than cut mid-word.
We apply a cap of 30 posts a day per OA. Zalo publishes no daily cap of its own — it sells calls-per-minute by plan — so this is our own conservative limit.

Common problems

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Zalo refuses immediately on connect	The OA is unverified, or the plan has no Open API.	Re-check the two prerequisites at the top of this page.
Publishing worked, then everything fails at once	The Zalo service plan expired.	Renew the plan with Zalo. The channel resumes on its own; no reconnect needed.
Error about a missing cover image	The video has no cover, and Zalo requires one.	Open the video in the library, set a cover image, and publish again.
The channel is permanently "Expiring"	Zalo tokens live one hour — this is the normal state.	Nothing to do. Only act if the status becomes "Revoked".