Messaging Limits & Quality Rating

On this page, you learn about tier-based messaging limits, quality rating and phone number status.

When you get access to the WhatsApp Business Platform without verifying your Facebook Business Account, you can connect up to 2 phone numbers, send up to 50 business-initiated messages (message templates) to 50 unique customers in a rolling 24 hours and receive and respond to unlimited user-initiated conversations.

If you want to scale your messaging and send more business-initiated messages, you must verify your Facebook Business account and have your display name approved. After that, WhatsApp lets you increase your messaging limit gradually.

WhatsApp’s 4-tier Messaging Limit

WhatsApp has four tiers of messaging limits for each phone number of a verified business. Each tier has its own limit of business-initiated conversations but no limit on user-initiated conversations. A business-initiated conversation starts when a business sends the first message (message template) to a customer outside the customer service window and ends 24 hours after it’s delivered. All messages between the business and the customer during that period are associated with one business-initiated conversation. Here are WhatsApp’s messaging tiers:

  • Tier 1: 1K business-initiated conversations with 1k unique customers in a rolling 24-hour period
  • Tier 2: 10K business-initiated conversations to 10k unique customers in a rolling 24-hour period
  • Tier 3: 100K business-initiated conversations to 100k unique customers in a rolling 24-hour period
  • Tier 4: An unlimited number of conversations in a rolling 24-hour period

After verifying your Facebook Business account and getting your display name approved, every business starts at tier 1 and can be upgraded to higher tiers in sequence.

Below is an example of a business that is at tier 1 (1k business-initiated conversations). At hour 0, they send 100 business-initiated messages, followed by 300 at hour 2 and 400 business-initiated messages at hour 5. Meaning by hour 5, they’ve started 800 business-initiated conversations. At hour 12, they send 200 new business-initiated messages and by this time, they’ve used all of their tier 1 messaging limit. To be able to send more business-initiated messages, they must wait at least until hour 24.

An example of a business that is at tier 1 for WhatsApp messaging limits.

At hour 24, their first 100 business-initiated conversations have expired and 900 are in progress. Therefore, they can send 100 new business-initiated messages. If they don’t send and wait until hour 26, 400 business-initiated conversations in total expire, and so they can send 400 business-initiated messages to 400 unique customers (phone numbers), and so on.

How does WhatsApp change your business’s messaging limit?

WhatsApp uses three criteria to increase, decrease or keep your messaging limits:

Phone number quality rating

WhatsApp assigns three quality ratings to the phone number of your business based on the feedback it receives from your customers over the past seven days and weighs them by recency. Specifically, it looks at the blocks and reports you get from customers and the reasons they provide:

  • Green: High quality
  • Yellow: Medium quality
  • Red: Low quality

If your quality rating becomes low, you’ll receive an email and notification in the Business Manager as a warning. You can find your quality rating under the Phone numbers tab in your WhatsApp Manager.

Phone numbers tab in WhatsApp manager.

Phone number status

When your quality rating changes, your phone number status changes. There are three phone number statuses:

  • Connected - When you have a medium to high quality rating, your phone number status is “Connected”. You can send business-initiated messages within your messaging limit, and your limit can increase as described under How to Increase Your Messaging Limits.
  • Flagged - If your quality rating becomes low, your phone number status changes from Connected to Flagged. With this status, you cannot upgrade your messaging limit. However, if your quality rating becomes medium or high by the 7th day from when it became Flagged, your status will become Connected again and you may upgrade your messaging limit as described under How to Increase Your Messaging Limits.
    If your quality rating doesn’t become high or medium by the 7th day, your status will return to Connected. However, your messaging limit will decrease to the previous level; for example, if your current limit is 10k, your limit changes to 1k.
  • Restricted - You see this status when you reach your messaging limit, regardless of your quality rating. With this status, you can’t send any business-initiated messages until at least one business-initiated conversation ends. You can still respond to all of your user-initiated messages.

The number of business-initiated messages you sent in the last 7 days.

If in the last seven days, you have initiated X or more conversations, where X is your current messaging limit divided by 2, your messaging limit upgrades to the next level automatically, provided that your quality rating is medium or high and your phone number status is connected. If you send fewer than this number of messages, your messaging limit remains unchanged.

Here is an example of a business’s messaging limit increasing from 1k to 10k in 2 days:

A business starts with 1k messaging limit in a rolling 24-hour. It maintains a medium to high quality rating, and the phone number status is connected. By the end of day 1 at 8:00 PM, it has sent 500 business-initiated messages to 500 unique customers. On day two at 8:00 PM (24 hours after the 500th message was sent), WhatsApp automatically increases its messaging limit from 1k to 10k.

Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5
New business-initiated conversations500500
Business-initiated conversations in last 7 days5001k
Messaging limit1K10K

By the 3rd day at 2:00 PM, the business sends half or more of its messaging limits (5k or more). If the business maintains a medium to high quality rating for its phone number, on the 4th day at 2:00 PM its messaging limit increases from 10k to 100k, automatically.

Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5
New business-initiated conversations5005004,0003,000
Business-initiated conversations in last 7 days5001,0005,0008,000
Messaging limit1K10K10K100k

‍How to increase your messaging limits?

Increasing your messaging limit is entirely in your hands. There are three major things you could do to ensure your messaging limit increases:

Only message customers who’ve opted into receiving messages from you over WhatsApp.

Before messaging customers, you must receive consent from them that states they’re willing to receive messages from you over WhatsApp. By receiving opt-in you reduce your chances of getting reported or blocked by customers. Therefore, your phone number quality is less likely to become low, and as a result, your messaging limit can increase to the next tier.

Moreover, if customers opt out of receiving messages from you, you must honor their request to prevent getting your number reported and/or blocked.

See Opt-in and Opt-out for more information.

The context and timing of your business-initiated message matter.

If you want to start a conversation with a customer, send your message template at the right time and in the right context. For example, let’s say that every time a customer buys a product from you, you want to ask them for feedback with the template below:

Hello {{1}},
Thanks for buying our {{2}}. We certainly hope that you liked it. Do you mind giving us feedback about how you found it?

  • Loved it!
  • It was ok.
  • Didn’t like it.

It makes sense for you to send this only to the customers who’ve bought a product from you and shortly after their purchase rather than a long time later. This way, the message is in the right context and sent at the right time.

If you’re trying to get the customers to reply to a question or take a certain action like visiting your website, send them interactive message templates with buttons. Buttons help them answer or view your website easily with just a few clicks. This way, you’re more likely to get a response from them and they’re less likely to view your message as spam and block you.

Give customers an opt-out option for marketing messages.

You should include an opt-out option in your messages, especially the marketing and promotional ones. By including it, you reduce your chances of getting blocked/reported and having your phone number quality rating lowered. More information on this is available on Opt-in and Opt-out.

How can I check my messaging limit?

Log in to your Facebook Business account.

Go to Business Settings. On the left side, under Accounts, click on WhatsApp accounts. Go to Settings on the right side and then WhatsApp Manager.

Business settings in WhatsApp manager.

On the left side, click on Overview and then Insights. You’ll see your current limit.

Checking the current limits for WhatsApp messaging.