WhatsApp quality rating and messaging limits explained

On the WhatsApp Business Platform, reach is earned. Meta watches how people respond to your messages and adjusts how many customers you can contact each day. Understanding the quality rating, number status and messaging limits helps you grow steadily instead of hitting a wall in the middle of a campaign.

What the quality rating measures

Every phone number on the platform has a quality rating shown as high (green), medium (yellow) or low (red). It reflects how recipients have reacted to your messages recently, mainly negative signals such as blocks and reports, and the reasons people give when they block.

The rating is about the recent past, so it can recover. A single badly targeted campaign can pull it down; a few weeks of relevant messages to opted-in customers bring it back up.

Number status: connected, flagged, restricted

• Connected: the number is working normally.
• Flagged: quality has dropped to low. You can keep sending, but you will not move to a higher limit until quality recovers.
• Restricted: the number has hit a limit or a policy issue and cannot start new conversations for a period, though it can usually still reply to customers who message it.

How messaging limits work

Messaging limits cap how many unique customers you can send business-initiated template messages to in a rolling 24-hour period. Replies to customers who message you are not limited in the same way.

• New and unverified businesses usually start with a low cap, commonly 250 unique customers a day.
• Meta raises the limit through higher tiers as you send good-quality messages to more people.
• Completing business verification and keeping quality high are the main ways to unlock higher tiers.

Meta has changed how tiers are calculated more than once, including how limits are shared across numbers in a business portfolio, so check Meta's current documentation for the exact tiers that apply to you.

Why templates get paused

Templates have their own quality signal. If recipients block or report a specific template, Meta can pause it temporarily so the problem does not spread, and repeated pauses can disable it. A paused template is a warning sign: review the audience, frequency and wording before you send it again. Our templates guide covers what makes a template work.

A checklist to keep your number healthy

1. Only message people who opted in, and keep a record of it (see our opt-in guide).
2. Warm up new numbers: start with your most engaged contacts, then widen the audience.
3. Segment campaigns by interest, location or purchase history instead of sending everything to everyone.
4. Watch frequency. Too many marketing messages is the fastest way to collect blocks.
5. Make opting out easy with a STOP option, and honour it everywhere.
6. Personalise with the customer's name and relevant details, and send at sensible times.
7. Check quality before big sends. If the rating is medium or low, pause marketing and fix the cause first.
8. Complete business verification to become eligible for higher limits.

Tracking it in Broadchat

In Broadchat each WhatsApp channel card shows the number's status, quality rating, messaging limit and verification state alongside its wallet balance. Campaign reports show sent, delivered, read, replied and failed per recipient, and you can retarget or exclude groups based on those results. That makes it easier to see which audiences engage and which ones cost you quality.