WhatsApp Sender Message Limits and Quality Rating

WhatsApp Messaging Limits

• Definition: The number of business-initiated conversations a WhatsApp Sender can start in a 24-hour period.
• Tiers: Each Sender is placed in a tier that determines how many conversations can be initiated per day.
  • Tier 1: Up to 1,000 unique recipients/day.
  • Tier 2: Up to 10,000 unique recipients/day.
  • Tier 3: Up to 100,000 unique recipients/day.
  • Tier 4: Unlimited (based on quality and approval).

If the limit is reached, no new conversations can be started until an active conversation ends or the 24-hour window resets.

Quality Rating

• Purpose: Monitors how recipients are responding to your messages.
• Ratings: High (green), Medium (yellow), Low (red).
  • High (Green): No immediate action required.
  • Medium (Yellow): Messaging performance is slipping—users may be reporting, blocking, or ignoring.
  • Low (Red): High negative feedback—may lead to downgrading of message limits or restrictions.

Key Impacts of Quality Rating

• Quality ratings directly impact messaging limits. A low rating (red) can downgrade the tier, reducing how many recipients can be reached.
• You receive proactive alerts if your quality rating drops so you can take corrective action.

Error Code 63018:

If you attempt to send beyond your limit, messages will fail with error 63018 (indicating you’ve hit your current messaging cap).

Best Practices for Scaling:

• Roll out gradually: Slowly increase the number of recipients over a week.
• Monitor feedback: Track your quality rating in the Meta Business Manager dashboard.
• Avoid aggressive outreach: Avoid spamming or over-messaging to prevent negative feedback.

By managing your messaging approach and monitoring the quality rating, you can prevent service interruptions and maximize message delivery.

WhatsApp Messaging Limits and Quality Ratings

Messaging Limit Tiers

• Tier 1: 250 business-initiated conversations per rolling 24-hour period.
• Tier 2: 1,000 business-initiated conversations per 24-hour period.
• Tier 3: 10,000 business-initiated conversations per 24-hour period.
• Tier 4: 100,000 business-initiated conversations per 24-hour period.
• Tier 5: Unlimited business-initiated conversations.

How to Move from Tier 1 to Tier 2 (1K Tier)

1. Complete Business Verification: Ensure Meta has verified your business status.
2. Trustworthiness Test (if required): Some businesses flagged by Meta as high-risk must demonstrate reliability by sending messages within the 250-conversation limit.
3. Display Name Review: Meta automatically reviews the WhatsApp Sender’s Display Name after verification.
   • Approval typically occurs within 24 hours.
   • Once approved, the Sender is automatically upgraded to the 1K tier.

Upgrading to Higher Tiers

• To upgrade from one tier to the next, the Sender must:
  • Start business-initiated conversations with at least 50% of their current limit’s unique customer cap within 7 days.
  • Maintain a good quality rating.

Example Scenarios for Tier Upgrades

1. Scenario 1:
   • Day 1: Sender reaches 500 business conversations (Tier 1K limit is 1,000).
   • Result: The limit is raised to 10,000 unique customers by day 2 at the same time.
2. Scenario 2:
   • Day 1: 100 conversations.
   • Day 2: 300 conversations.
   • Day 3: 100 conversations.
   • Result: By day 4, the sender reaches the 10K limit after accumulating 500 unique conversations in 7 days.

Quality Rating Impact

• Good Rating: Helps move to higher tiers automatically.
• Poor Rating: Can prevent tier upgrades or even downgrade the Sender to a lower tier.
• Quality rating is managed by Meta and not visible via Twilio’s Console.
• Poor recipient feedback (blocking, reporting, ignoring messages) will lower the quality rating.

By following verification steps, managing your message volume, and keeping a good quality rating, you can scale your WhatsApp outreach effectively.

Quality Rating

Because WhatsApp encrypts messages, it relies on user feedback to measure quality of messages. WhatsApp uses this feedback to track an internal “quality rating” for senders that can effect how users are able to move between rate limiting tiers. Factors including the frequency rate of “report spam” and “block” on your sender may influence the quality rating.” Senders with the Low quality rating may not be eligible to move up in rate limiting tiers.

In order to maintain high quality, WhatsApp recommends the following:

• Make sure messages follow the WhatsApp Business Policy.
• Only send messages to users who have opted into receiving messages from your business.
• Make the messages highly personalized and useful to users. Avoid sending open-ended welcome or introductory messages.
• Be mindful of messaging frequency; avoid sending customers too many messages a day. Be thoughtful of informational messages, optimizing for content and length.

A low Quality rating can result in a number being prevented from moving to a higher rate tier, or even in some cases being downgraded to a lower rate tier.