WhatsApp messaging limits control how many unique users your business can message using templates within a 24-hour period. These limits are designed to encourage responsible messaging and help maintain a high-quality experience for users.
Understanding how messaging limits, tiers, and template quality work together can help you scale your WhatsApp messaging while maintaining compliance and deliverability.
What are Messaging Limits?
Messaging limits define the maximum number of unique WhatsApp user phone numbers your business can message outside the customer service window within a rolling 24-hour period.
These limits apply at the portfolio level, meaning your entire WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) shares one limit across all phone numbers.
Messaging limits only apply to conversations initiated with Message Templates.
| Messaging limits apply only to business-initiated messages (template-triggered conversations). User-initiated conversations, where a user messages you first, do not count against messaging limits. |
Meta applies messaging limits to:
- Maintain a consistent and safe user experience
- Protect users from unwanted messages
💡 Before sending broadcasts, make sure your messaging limit is high enough to cover your audience size.
Messaging tiers
Every business portfolio that has not been verified starts with a 250-user messaging limit. Upon business portfolio verification, depending on performance and usage, it can automatically scale to:
- 2,000 (after completing the scaling path)
- 10,000 (automatic scaling)
- 100,000 (automatic scaling)
- Unlimited (automatic scaling)
All phone numbers within a portfolio share the same messaging tier and limit.
Example: If your portfolio is at the 100,000 messaging limit and you have two phone numbers, both numbers draw from the same 100,000 unique users quota within a 24-hour window.
You can check your current messaging limit at any time in WhatsApp Manager. Here’s the step-by-step path:
- Log in to Meta Business Suite using your business credentials.
- Click on Settings (usually located in the bottom left corner).
- Under the Accounts section, click on WhatsApp accounts.
- Select the WhatsApp Business Account.
- Click the WhatsApp Manager button.
- Click on the Messaging Limits tab to review your current limits.
How upgrades work
Your portfolio becomes eligible for an automatic upgrade when both of the following are true:
- You are sending high-quality messages across all of your business phone numbers and templates
- In the last 7 days, your business has used at least 50% of its current messaging limit
If these criteria are met, Meta will increase your portfolio’s messaging limit by one tier within 6 hours.
💡 Maintaining high message quality helps accelerate automatic scaling and sustain deliverability. Meta reviews message quality when deciding whether your account qualifies for scaling.
| Note: Upgrades or downgrades may take a few hours to appear in WhatsApp Manager. |
Template quality rating & status
Template quality reflects how users respond to your outbound messages, including whether they block, report, ignore, or engage with them.
Each message template receives a quality rating based on customer feedback and engagement, including read rates. Ratings include:
- Green — High quality. Little to no negative feedback. Templates can be used normally.
- Yellow — Medium quality. Increased negative feedback or low read rates. Templates can still be sent, but may be at risk of being paused.
- Red — Low quality. Significant negative feedback or low read rates. Templates are at risk of being paused or disabled.
- Unknown — Not enough data yet. Newly created templates start here until WhatsApp gathers sufficient feedback and read-rate data.
Maintaining a portfolio-wide Medium or High quality rating helps your business:
- Scale to higher messaging tiers
- Maintain throughput
- Avoid template pauses
You can also monitor template and phone number quality in WhatsApp Manager. Following the same steps as to check your current messaging limit, navigate to your WhatsApp Manager and check the Quality rating tab.
| Note: The previous “Flagged” status that caused downgrades on individual phone numbers no longer applies. Messaging limits are now evaluated at the portfolio level, not per phone number. |
Best practices to maintain high quality
To keep your portfolio eligible for upgrades and protect template quality:
- Respect user opt-in and messaging frequency preferences
- Send relevant, personalized messages
- Avoid overly promotional, repetitive, or intrusive messaging
- Always use approved templates for business-initiated conversations
- Update templates that consistently receive negative feedback
For more details, refer to Meta’s official articles on Messaging Limits and Template quality rating.